Sean Casten

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment to require the Department of Defense and HHS to examine barriers to access for military pilots and air traffic controllers seeking mental health care. Today, when military and civilian aviators report that they have sought mental health care, they are faced with delays, confusion, and overbroad regulations in the process of returning to work. What that means practically is that even minor mental health concerns can derail careers for safe, well-trained pilots and air traffic controllers who just want to get better. That has created a culture of silence and has disincentivized aviators from seeking care and ultimately made our skies less safe. In May, the Air Force took a good first step forward by allowing these pilots and air traffic controllers to receive an extra 60 days of treatment without losing their wings. My bipartisan amendment builds on that to help destigmatize mental health care and ensure that those who seek care face no more consequence nor any less scientifically robust standards for being re-cleared for duty than they would if they were seeking physical healthcare. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting access for mental health care for pilots and protecting the health and readiness of our Armed Forces and keeping our skies safe.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chair, we have got all of these mixers that are used. Why were they not included in there? I don't know. I know why the crypto industry doesn't want them included in there, because they are profiting from people who are using these illicit services. The largest cryptocurrency exchange that stands to benefit from this regime helped to finance a legal challenge to the Treasury Department's case against Tornado Cash, which was the largest asset mixer in the world. This is a bad bill. It fails to address known problems. What it does do, however, is make the United States safer for drug traffickers, for terrorist funders, for child and drug traffickers, and for those who buy and sell child pornography. I did not know those groups had such advocates in Congress, but I am proud to oppose them and encourage all my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chairman, we have heard several times this legislation is better than the status quo. There are a whole lot of reasons that is not true, but I want to focus specifically on this bill's utter failure to address the use of cryptocurrency by terrorists, foreign adversaries, and criminals. By the way, Treasury asked us specifically to address those issues with a whole bunch of reasonable changes. We introduced amendments. Every one of those amendments was rejected. The anti-money laundering provisions that are in this bill simply duplicate existing requirements. Yet, the bill's supporters have actually argued, and Treasury has agreed, that the status quo is not sufficient to address the challenges created by cryptocurrencies. How do we know that cryptocurrencies are a problem for money laundering? Because the bad guys love crypto. Let's give some examples. North Korean hackers have stolen $3 billion in cryptocurrency since 2017. White House national security officials said last year that crypto theft and cybercrime have funded half of North Korea's nuclear program. Russia and Venezuela are both using crypto to evade U.S. sanctions. Venezuela recently said that because of the bite of sanctions, they are now moving to accept payments in crypto because that allows them to get money that we, in Washington, cannot track. The Treasury Department is reviewing more than $20 billion of cryptocurrency that was laundered through a Russian-based cryptocurrency exchange. The Treasury Department has noted that Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, ISIS, and al-Qaida are all using crypto to finance terrorist attacks globally. Crypto is the preferred means of payment for fentanyl trafficking. Chinese businesses that sell fentanyl chemical ingredients to Mexican cartels have accepted millions in crypto payments. They have sold enough ingredients to make more than $54 billion worth of fentanyl pills. That is enough to kill 8.6 billion people, if you are counting. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said in January that virtual currency is the dominant choice for buyers and sellers of child sexual abuse content. FinCEN basically said the same thing. It said that perpetrators of online child sexual exploitation are increasingly using convertible virtual currency to avoid detection. I could go on and on. These are not cherry-picked statistics. These are statistics from U.S. officials and from crypto firms, people who are entrusted with protecting our national security and who care about this stuff. The Treasury Department asked for new rules to address this. Every single one of those proposals was objected to either in the Financial Services Committee, the Ag Committee, or in the Rules Committee. If that was all this bill did, that would be one thing. In fact, this bill goes out of its way to make it weaker by basically saying that anybody who uses unhosted wallets, decentralized, or DeFi services is exempted from regulation, ignoring recommendations from both the Trump and Biden administrations. My Republican colleagues will boast that in this rule there is specific language that says brokers and dealers are required to comply with anti-money laundering requirements. They are already required to do that. This bill does nothing to address that. It is exactly the same. They are going to brag about saying it is now illegal to speed. What we should have done is we should have made provisions to ban anonymous actors, to prevent you from saying: I want to move crypto from my account to yours, and I am going to move it through an anonymous party so you can't tell what a bad guy I am. It should have banned people from using digital asset mixers that allow you to take a whole bunch of people, combine all their money together, and then give you something where you can't trace it through. If you want to understand how crazy this is, I would encourage you to go to your bank and try to deposit $10,000 in cash at your bank. Your bank will say: You have to tell me where that money came from. I am going to take you behind the counter, and we are going to have to take your picture and get your fingerprints, because I do not like money laundering, and I am obliged to protect it. By comparison, if you want to move a million dollars of crypto from one person's account to another, send it through these mixers or send it through these anonymizers, you can do it.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Madam Speaker, it is Police Week, the week when law enforcement officers who keep us safe all over the country come to Washington to remind us how important they are and when Members of Congress introduce resolutions and bills and give speeches in this Chamber letting them know how grateful we are for their service. I rise today partly to share in that gratitude. It is my privilege to represent the 19th Ward in Chicago where neighborhoods like Mount Greenwood and Beverly have long been home to huge chunks of the Chicago police force from rank-and-file beat cops to the Cook County Sheriff himself. I am also proud last March that I was able to bring home $372,000 in Federal funding for police equipment in the village of Alsip. I am grateful for all of the service from our law enforcement officers but for a bigger reason. We are a nation of laws, and we only survive as a nation of laws if those laws are consistently and predictably enforced, and it is our brothers and sisters in law enforcement who make sure that they are. I do find myself wondering how all these floor speeches this week look to them. How do all these pretty speeches sound to the local police chiefs who were pleading with us in 2020 to provide them with funding to shore up lost State and property tax revenue during the COVID downturn, who knew that they couldn't stay open without it, and they also know every single Republican voted against the American Rescue Plan that kept their officers paid? How do all these pretty speeches look to the Capitol Police officers who are defending us right now? How do they feel when these speeches come from the same lips of Members who still refer to people who assaulted the Capitol Police as ``political prisoners'' or in one case as a ``martyr''? How do all these pretty speeches sound to the FBI officers or local police who depend on the FBI to coordinate when crimes cross State lines when they come from the lips of Members of Congress who are regularly and consistently calling to defund the FBI? How do they sound to ATF officers who are forced--thanks to dumb laws led by my Republican colleagues--to spend hours every day tediously stripping personal identifying information from gun sales databases, making a mockery of the claim that it is people not guns that kill people? How do all these pretty speeches sound to the victims of financial fraud who depend on the NLRB to protect them from wage theft or the CFPB to protect them from junk fees or the SEC to protect them from financial crimes when the Republican Party is consistently trying to defund all three? After all, if somebody steals $1,000 from you, you are out $1,000. That is just as true if the crook is wearing a burglar's black mask or a huckster's white collar. On that subject, how do all these speeches sound to our Nation's criminals? You know who they are; they are the ones who every April misrepresent their income and assets and commit tax fraud because they trust that the Republicans are going to consistently block funding and resources for the law enforcement professionals at the Internal Revenue Service. Finally, how do you think all these speeches sound to E. Jean Carroll's rapist, the guy who was subsequently convicted in court of lying about that rape and still hasn't paid the $83 million fine imposed by law enforcement professionals for that lie, much less the $355 million fine imposed on him for unrelated financial fraud? He is the guy who most of you wouldn't trust with your retirement savings. He is the guy who none of you would trust for an evening alone with your teenage daughter, but who all of my Republican colleagues think should be the next President of the United States. Oscar Benavides, the former president of Peru, famously said: ``For my friends everything, for my enemies the law.'' That is not how a country of laws works but it is how fascism is built. It is not the way that you ensure that everybody has equal protection under the law, nor is it the way to honor the men and women who dedicate their life to that principle. I hope that next year on Police Week that isn't such a partisan idea.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for granting me more time because there is still so much silliness left in this bill. I will shift now to the elimination of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Let's talk about what this program does. This program helps to pay for projects that reduce climate pollution, help grow energy independence, lower energy bills, and revitalize communities that otherwise would not be funded. So what does that mean? These are projects that are good projects that help people out, but they struggle to get capital. Maybe it is an inner city school that would like to put solar panels on the roof to cut their energy bills, lower their pollution, but they are not in a town that can afford to raise the bond to do that. Maybe it is an Appalachian coalfield Superfund site that would like to build a green space and grow their community, help attract capital, but they are struggling to get money. Maybe it is a rural area that needs an EV bus program to reduce pollution, but you could never justify private money investing there, but it helps out the local folks. No, all of those projects--I could go on--but what do they have in common? They lower greenhouse gas emissions. They put more money in the pockets of local communities we all represent. They would help the neediest among us. They would create local jobs and most importantly, they would be cheaper than fossil energy. I get it. That is a real problem for my colleagues across the aisle. The natural gas industry wants the price of energy to be expensive because that is how they make money. As I mentioned before, during COVID, April 2020, Donald Trump called the Saudis and said: I am going to take troops out of your country unless you cut oil production because our oil industry is hurting. They did it. That is what you did. I don't remember anybody saying: Boy, we should call the Saudis and do the other when the price of oil went up. I understand what you are rooting for. So why do you want to defund that program? I don't know. Maybe you are concerned that energy is just too damn cheap. Maybe you think that unemployment is too low and would like to--I don't know-- help your party win the next election. Maybe you just misremember that speech. It doesn't say blessed are the powerful. It doesn't say blessed are the polluters. It doesn't say blessed are the least meek. I don't know why you are doing it. For goodness' sake, in the meantime, vote ``no'' if you care about making sure that pollution goes down, energy prices go down, and the American people win.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, first, I remind my colleagues that Donald Trump called the Saudis and said to please do everything they can to raise the oil price because gasoline is so cheap, and they did. I appreciate them keeping the gas price up. In the words of a great American, I regret that I have but 3 minutes to explain all the stupidity in this bill, so I am just going to focus on the methane emissions reduction plan for now. Nobody really understands methane out there in the public, so let's just put this in terms folks understand. Imagine that you live in a town that has two dairies. They take cow milk and turn it into downstream products. One of them makes milk. They make cream. They make half-and-half. They make 2 percent. They are a productive plant. They don't waste anything. They have good jobs. They grow the American economy. The one next door says: We are just making 2 percent. We are going to throw away all the cream. We are going to throw away all the half-and- half. We are going to pour it in the river, and the town is going to stink to high heavens of sour milk. You can't swim in the water. In addition, by the way, we are not making much money because we are throwing away all of our product. Now, let's imagine that the government came in and said: We want both of these businesses to be competitive. We want workers in both of those plants to have good jobs and a good future, so we are going to provide you with the capital to capture that cream so you can sell it, stop polluting, and make more money. Then, let's imagine that one political party said: How dare you cry over spilled milk? Spill the damn milk. We want to keep pouring that cream in the river. We want to keep this factory open so that they can keep spilling cream and wasting money. That is what this bill does. It says to a gas pipeline company that is leaking methane, the thing they sell, that rather than give them the ability to sell more, rather than help stop polluting, we want to protect their right to be a bad citizen and uncompetitive, so we can drive more business to China because our gas is going to be too expensive. We are going to spill all ours. This bill is so stupid. If my colleagues love pollution, hate capitalism, hate competitive American businesses, vote for this bill, but don't be stupid. Let's get back to real work.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 58.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. I am glad we made you more competitive. I trust your data, and we are just going to tell folks at home that because we were so patriotic and environmentally minded. Like I said in my last remarks, this is a really good bill if you want to make money exporting natural gas. It is not a good bill for anybody else. Let's just be honest with the American people about this.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this debate makes me sad. Energy policy is really important. Energy consumers are really important. The environment is really important. So much of this debate is completely untethered from truth. There isn't enough time to rebut everything, but I want to clarify two points. One is where LNG exports are going right now, and the second is about the environmental impact. It is true today that the majority of U.S. LNG exports, the largest volume, is going to Europe. It is also true that that really did help our European allies wean themselves off of Russian gas. Now, that is not because the U.S. gas industry was suddenly imbued with patriotism. It is because they were paying more, which is fine. However, all the additional exports we are talking about are contracted out. Right now, they are going to Asia. Therefore, this is not a question right now about helping Europe. This is a question of whether they will make more money going to Asia. Now, why are they going to go to Asia? Well, that brings me to the second point. There is an assertion that LNG is inherently clean because it displaces coal. Let's be clear. No one buys natural gas so that it will be more expensive for them to make energy. It will displace coal if it is cheaper than coal. My colleagues are to have us believe that the United States is going to export gas to Asia so that countries like China can have cheaper energy and make their businesses more competitive on the global stage and that they are doing that because they are so committed to environmental protection. Look, natural gas is methane, for the most part. Methane is 80 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2, which means that if you have more than 2 percent leakage from the wellhead to the burner tip, it is worse than coal. In the United States, that means that the wellheads, the collection facilities, the distribution pipelines, the combustion facilities, which we all in this body regulate, maybe we can get it down below that level, and maybe in the United States, it is less. However, we are not talking about that. We are talking about exports. What is the leak rate on the ships? What are the leak rates on the regasification facilities overseas? What are the leak rates on the distribution facilities in those countries? Do we trust Chinese economic data so much that if they say it is not leaking, we will say: That is awesome. I am glad you are so competitive. I am glad you are outcompeting U.S. businesses.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, should we increase global warming? Should we do all of that just so that the natural gas industry can make more money selling U.S. resources to Asia--not to Europe, because that is where the margin is going. Or should we maintain the current law that simply asks us to determine whether that is in the public interest before permitting a new facility? To paraphrase a great political scientist by the name of Jeff Foxworthy: If you think that is a hard question, you might be a Republican. It is not a hard question. This is a bad bill for the climate. It is a bad bill for the economy. It is a bad bill for the U.S. consumer. Vote ``no.'' If you can't, at least be honest about who you are working for.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, there is a really simple question before us today: Is it in the U.S. national interest to look out for U.S. energy consumers or for U.S. energy producers? Let's look at the facts. According to the most recent DOE data over the last decade, U.S. gas consumption is up by about 26 percent; U.S. gas production is up by about 50 percent; and U.S. gas exports are up 326 percent. Ten years ago, just 6 percent of all gas produced in the U.S. was for export. Today, more than 20 percent is for export. That is not because the industry is succeeding. They can't compete against cheaper renewable energy, so they are trying to export overseas, and y'all are helping them out. Those export volumes are going to triple again just based on the stuff that is already permitted in the pipeline--nothing to do with what is going on today. I remind my Republican colleagues, because sometimes we need to remind on this, even in this body where we write the laws, you cannot change the laws of supply and demand. When U.S. natural gas is exported overseas, it reduces domestic supply and increases the price. We know this from recent experience because when the Freeport LNG terminal had that explosion, according to the Department of Energy, domestic prices for natural gas fell by nearly a third. Exporters were very sad that they lost money. Do you know who had more money in their pocket? American consumers. Gas was cheaper. Y'all hate inflation, right? That was wonderful. Thank you for doing that. Who are you rooting for, though? Mr. Speaker, there was a reason why the Natural Gas Act does not require us to determine whether domestic production of energy for domestic use is in the national interest, because we rightly assume that domestic energy security is in our national interest. That is not the question posed by this bill. This bill would insist that exports are always in the national interest, and that is, as a technical term, total poppycock. Should we drill on public lands? Should we use eminent domain to seize private property? Should we increase the price of energy in the United States? Should we increase global warming?

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, this month marks the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade. That decision, which recognized women's individual right to bodily autonomy, has now been supplanted by a Supreme Court that effectively said that the Federal Government isn't here to protect your individual rights because that is a States' rights issue now. House Republicans, having cheered injecting States' rights into your individual private lives would now like to bring the Federal Government into the conversation. If you don't believe me, Mr. Speaker, just look at what they are doing. They passed legislation this term that would create a Federal prohibition against women who are serving in our military from traveling to get an abortion if they are stationed in a State that doesn't respect their individual rights. They pushed legislation that would create a Federal prohibition on women from accessing medication abortion, even if that is legal in their State. Nonetheless, here is the simple truth: The Republican Party with a big assist from a misogynistic Supreme Court took rights away from 167 million American women, granted them to States, and are now trying to take those rights away and give them to the Federal Government. Here is the truth: Abortion has never been a States' rights issue, and it has never been a Federal rights issue. It has always been a women's rights issue, and I hope that some day that is not partisan.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, my Republican colleagues voted to condemn college presidents. I wish they were condemning anti-Semitism, but don't let the title of that resolution fool you. This was never about that. We know that because they did not condemn anti-Semitism when the Unite the Right rally chanted: ``Jews will not replace us.'' They didn't condemn anti-Semitism when their former Speaker shared a cartoon suggesting that Jewish bankers controlled the world. They didn't condemn anti-Semitism when Donald Trump said that he only wanted Jews to count his money. In every case, they have stood by in silent cowardice and defended hate speech as free speech. Yet, they have the gall to ask college presidents to resign for emulating their cowardice. Donald Trump's rhetoric led to a spike in hate crimes, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes. Both spiked again after October 6. If you are only calling it out when it is politically convenient, you are not helping, you are a part of the problem.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Madam Speaker, I am incredibly proud today to introduce the Clean Electricity and Transmission Acceleration Act with my friend, Congressman Mike Levin, to remove the financial and regulatory barriers that are delaying the clean and cheap energy transition. For too long, U.S. energy policy has been focused on putting the interests of energy producers and exporters first, which is good for a small minority of Americans, but is actually opposed to the interests of a majority of us who are energy consumers. Here is the thing: every new wind turbine, every solar panel, every geothermal plant, and every hydro plant is a threat to oil, gas, and coal producers who cannot compete against free. Every EV charger, every heat pump, and every LED light is a threat to people who make money off inefficiency. However, for consumers to realize those benefits and entrepreneurs to access those markets, we need wires to connect new generations to new loads. So over the last year, Congressman Levin and I have worked with our colleagues across the Democratic Caucus to develop a consumer-focused energy policy that makes that possible, to accelerate the deployment of clean energy, to accelerate Americans' access to cheap energy, and to refocus U.S. energy policy on the interests of energy consumers where it belongs.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 101st birthday of Dr. Dieter Martin Gruen for his dedication to science, significant contributions to new energy technologies, and devotion to fighting climate change. For over eight decades, Dr. Gruen has worked to enhance American technology development as a former Manhattan Project Scientist and as an Argonne National Laboratory Distinguished Fellow. Dr. Gruen's story signifies the American dream. Born in Waldorf, Germany in 1922 to a Jewish family, Dr. Gruen would eventually leave his home only fourteen years later when the Nazi party solidified its power. He was sent to Little Rock, Arkansas to live with relatives to finish up his high school education while his parents were sent to concentration camps. Luckily, his mother and father escaped and Dr. Gruen was reunited with them in Chicago a few years later. The shock of nearly losing his family did not dissuade Dr. Gruen from dedicating himself to his studies and empirical inquiry. Five years after reuniting with his family, Dr. Gruen received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Northwestern University in 1944, his master's degree, and eventually a PhD in chemical physics from the University of Chicago. He studied at night and worked at a machine shop during the day. Shortly after graduating from Northwestern University, Dr. Gruen was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government's top-secret effort to develop the atomic bomb. He worked on the large- scale electromagnetic separation of uranium-235, and the nuclear material he helped to produce would later be fashioned into the bomb that fell on Hiroshima in 1945. After the war, Dr. Gruen helped found the Oak Ridge Scientists and Engineers, a group dedicated to ensuring nuclear weapons were never used again in war. After returning home to Chicago, he began working at Argonne National Laboratory, one year after the establishment of the U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories and during a time when Argonne was a national center for the development of nuclear reactors. Dr. Gruens work at Argonne focused on nuclear power and led to him serving as a delegate to the Second United Nations Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in 1958. Throughout his career, Dr. Gruen has made significant contributions to new energy technologies, specifically to nuclear fission and fusion, solar energy, energy storage, and conservation. Dr. Gruen has been recognized by the international scientific community and has made key advancements such as the nuclear submarine reactor cooling design and purification of uranium used to end World War II in the Pacific theater. For these accomplishments and his lifelong commitment to science, I had the great honor of supporting Dr. Gruen's nomination for the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside my colleagues, Representatives Bill Foster, French Hill, Jerry McNerney, and Cheri Bustos. Dr. Gruen's tireless and selfless efforts to solve future clean energy challenges presented by climate change is seldom exhibited by an individual. Humble and unpretentious, Dr. Gruen is the embodiment of a dedicated American and pure scientist. I have had the great pleasure of learning from Dr. Gruen from his life stories and scientific endeavors in innovation and inquiry. Today, I wish Dr. Gruen a very happy 101st birthday and thank him for his decades of public service and remarkable advancements in and commitment to scientific research and discovery.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, next week Americans across the country are going to gather around their dinner tables and share what they are thankful for. I hope my Republican colleagues will use that moment to reflect on how lucky they are to work with House Democrats. I hope they are thankful for that time last June when the Republicans were on the verge of driving us into an economic default and Democrats stepped up, helped them out, and provided the votes needed to make sure we didn't default. I hope they are thankful for the time, 45 days ago, when they were driving us to the edge of an economic shutdown and, once again, Democrats stepped up, helped them out, and made sure we kept the government open for the American people. I hope they are thankful for that time this week when Democrats, once again, had to be the adults in the room. We didn't throw any punches, but made sure, even though the Republican majority couldn't pass the new Speaker's stop-gap measure, we did, and we kept the government open for a few more weeks. This Thanksgiving, be thankful. Whatever you do, don't be that crazy uncle who won't stop yapping about Hunter Biden.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, we operate on a September 30 fiscal year. Here we are 39 days later, and the majority has yet to even propose a way to keep the government open. Last September, they kicked the can down the road and kept the government open for 45 days. In the words of Mr. Santos, that made you all ``big mad.'' You fired your Speaker. You have a new Speaker. A lot of you are still big mad. Instead of working, we are sitting here this week debating nonsense. Here is an example. Lots of American companies operate overseas. Outside of the U.S. Republican Party, climate change is real, which means that U.S. companies have to comply with scientifically informed policy. The Biden administration is appropriately trying to help develop U.S. climate reporting rules that are also scientifically informed to minimize the hassle of multijurisdictional reporting. The Republican response to that is big mad. Today, we are voting on a bill that would defund the ability of regulators to develop consistent climate accounting rules instead of doing the work of the people. Mr. Speaker, science is real. We have real challenges. Please stop being big mad.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chair, I believe my colleagues across the aisle fundamentally misunderstand or intentionally misrepresent the interests of energy consumers in the United States and the interests of energy producers. NEPA is critically important to protect all Americans, but let's run through some statistics. There are currently 2,000 gigawatts of electric generation waiting to be interconnected to the queue in this country. That is more generation than we have by almost a factor of 2. Of those 2,000 gigawatts, there is 1 gigawatt of coal, 85 gigawatts of gas, and every other power plant that is trying to be interconnected to the grid is a zero carbon source of energy. They are not represented by NEPA. Let's talk about the fossil fuel sector. Today, we use about 20 million barrels of oil a day. A decade ago, you know how much oil we used in this country? About 20 million barrels a day. Today, we use 40 percent less coal than we did 10 years ago. Do you know why? Because those industries cannot compete. People, given the choice, prefer cleaner, cheaper energy. The fastest growing vehicle segment is electric vehicles. The fastest growing source in the power sector is renewable energy. Energy is getting cheaper. What is the energy industry doing in response? They are becoming exporters. The reason why the gas industry is growing, the reason why the oil industry is growing is because they are building terminals to export overseas. What is hard about that is that the American people don't want you to drill in their backyard. They don't want you to drill a pipeline through their neighborhood just so that you can run it to a terminal and sell it overseas at a profit. If you are of the opinion that the American people don't have any say in how their communities look, how their natural parks look, how their natural lands look, and if you are of the opinion that the profits of energy producers vastly outweigh the interests of energy consumers, vote for this amendment. However, if you put energy consumers first, this is an absolute ``no.'' Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, with the failure of that last vote, we are now less than 2 days away from shutting down the United States Government, not because we don't have a path forward, but because the party of Lincoln has been captured by the spirit of Yeats: The best of you lack all conviction, and the worst are filled with passionate intensity. Extreme Republicans with passionate intensity are choosing to destroy all that makes America great while their moderate enablers sit meekly, lacking the conviction to oppose. My question is, do any of you have a plan to land this plane? It seems weird that you skipped that part of flight school. Less than 2 days from now, every single American is going to feel the pain of this crash, every soldier who wants to get paid, every woman who wants food assistance for her child, everybody who needs housing support, everybody who is wondering if the train they are riding on has been inspected. We don't have to be here, Mr. Speaker, but we need some of you, any of you, to stand up.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, there was a time in Washington less than a year ago when if the Speaker of the House of Representatives gave you their word, it meant something. That is no longer true. Earlier this year, Speaker McCarthy stood in the Oval Office with the President of the United States and negotiated a deal to raise the debt limit and fund the government. Today, instead of keeping his end of the deal, Speaker McCarthy is refusing to even allow bills to come to the floor that would honor that promise and avert a government shutdown. His failures mean that 1.3 million Active-Duty troops will have to continue to work but not be paid for their service. His failures mean that 7 million women and children will not receive the nutrition assistance that they depend on. His failures mean that every one of you can expect flight disruptions, less border security, fewer food and rail safety inspections. There is an old saying, Mr. Speaker: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Shame on Speaker McCarthy for forcing the American people to suffer all this foolishness.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, can we maintain an affordable, reliable, and decarbonized grid if we rely only on traditional renewables? To hear our Republican colleagues talk, absolutely not. They say that nuclear and advanced fossil fuels and hydrogen all have to be in the mix. As the old saw goes, when you are in a negotiation, don't watch the other guy's lips, watch his feet. The Republicans' proposed appropriations package includes $15 billion--that is a 20 percent cut--in the title 17 program. This is the loan program office that helps those early stage technologies get to commercialization. This program, by the way, is currently massively oversubscribed. Of their existing $73 billion of loan authority, they have already received over $90 billion of applications of which 37 percent offer carbon management, advanced nuclear, and fossil fuel technologies included that my colleagues claim to hold dear. These technologies are critically important to the future of our energy system. They all critically need government support to get to commercialization, and they would all be cut by the proposed Republican budget. I want a reliable, decarbonized power grid that uses all those technologies and more. My colleagues across the aisle, on the other hand, seem to be rooting for blackouts--or worse. I know that is true because in the words of Shakira--feet don't lie.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, on Father's Day, 23 people were shot and 1 person was killed at a Juneteenth celebration in Willowbrook, Illinois. Law enforcement has not yet identified a suspect or a motive, but preliminary reports have indicated there were multiple guns and multiple shooters. In 2 weeks, Highland Park, Illinois, will recognize the 1-year anniversary of its July Fourth parade that killed 7 people and wounded 48 others. In that case, the parade route was lined with armed police officers. Here is what we know. Having lots of guns around, whether at a parade, a Juneteenth party, a temple, or a school, does not make anyone safer. It just makes it more likely that yet another family is going to get a call to come down and identify yet another bullet-ridden corpse. Yet, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to walk through this Chamber with AR-15 lapel pins, proudly announcing their service as foot soldiers in the NRA's war on the living. I don't want a moment of silence. I don't want thoughts. I don't want prayers. They are all far too quiet, and they don't do a damn thing. Mr. Speaker, I need my colleagues to be brave. I need them to be loud. I need them to stand up and act like saving lives matters.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I missed Roll Call vote numbers 249 through 256 for personal and familial reasons. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: NO on Roll Call No. 249, H. Res. 495, Previous Question; NO on Roll Call No. 250, H. Res. 495, Agreeing to the Resolution; YES on Roll Call No. 251, H.R. 3099, Suspension Passage; NO on Roll Call No. 252, H.J. Res. 44, Passage; NO on Roll Call No. 253, H.J. Res. 44, Passage of Veto Message; NO on Roll Call No. 254, H.R. 1615, Boebert Amendment; NO on Roll Call No. 255, H.R. 1615, Passage; and YES on Roll Call No. 256, H. Res. 377, Suspension Passage.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Madam Speaker, my Republican colleagues are presently fiddling while Rome burns, but I come to praise my Republican colleagues, not to bury them. I come to praise my friend Patrick McHenry for his wisdom just 6 months ago when he said that he opposes Speaker McCarthy's plan to use the debt limit to cut spending; when he said that it is important that Congress raise the debt limit; when he said that Treasury markets are the lifeblood of the global economy; when he said it is an important function of the government for us to make good on the checks we cash. I come to praise the July 2019 version of Speaker McCarthy when he said that we should not leave here without doing something on the debt ceiling. Where are those brave, principled souls now? The answer, Madam Speaker, as you know, not here. Empty, inconsistent rhetoric does not pay the bills. The American people know that, and I hope the American people will remind my Republican colleagues of the work requirements of this job during their upcoming 11-day vacation.