Sean Casten

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, in the 10 years since the Sandy Hook shooting, the NRA has spent more than $100 million to help elect Republicans who will make it easier to sell more guns so we can kill more kids--$100 million. They have gotten what they paid for because we have had 189 more school shootings and 279 people killed on school grounds since Sandy Hook. Some of my colleagues may be happy about that, but I am angry, and my constituents live in trauma. Mr. Speaker, I had a student in my district who wrote in to tell me: ``We are tired. We are exhausted. We are sick of going to class and any public area and forming an escape route.'' I had another constituent who asked me: ``How many children and teachers are going to have to be killed by guns before our government takes action?'' The honest answer is that I don't know. In the wake of these shootings, I have to tell them that I work with people who wear AR-15 lapel pins on the floor of the House, people who send holiday cards where their whole family cosplays as Rambo. They actually believe that our Founders envisioned and designed a country where you have a right to shoot innocent strangers dead, but no American has the right not to get shot. Five months into this year, America has already had 199 mass shootings. Sometimes, we have a moment of silence on the floor afterward, but quite frankly, there are too many to keep up. I am not proud of this, but we ignore most of them. The American people can't. I had a mother who wrote to me saying: ``Each day, as I send my two children off to school and daycare, I find myself fearing that it may be the last time I will see them.'' Another wrote to say: ``I am the parent of a 5-year-old. I cannot believe that we are living in a country where 5-year-olds die like soldiers at the mall and where another mother will come home today without her child. I do not feel safe in public places. I have no peace while my child is at school, and because I am a teacher, I don't feel safe at work either.'' Five months into this year, we have had 15,166 deaths due to gun violence. Yet, my colleagues across the aisle have not allowed a single bill to come to the floor to address that risk. After the shooting at Covenant Elementary in Tennessee, I got this message from Meaghan, a student teacher. She said: ``After working in over five schools now, I have loved every moment of my teacher education experience, meeting so many amazing students and faculty members that have shaped my mind the way I hope to for my own students one day. And each day I have gone in, I have to admit, I have silently wondered if I would come out, if our kids would come out, if my peers would come out, if my teachers and mentors would come out. ``I have caught myself dozing off and imagining what I would do if someone came into our room with a gun. I have imagined every person in that room with bullets in them and blood splattered from the walls to the floors. ``I know you all get these messages in your offices. Do you read them? Do you understand the fear, the trauma, and the death that your inaction has caused? Is it worth the NRA money? Do you even care?''

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I want you to imagine that you get home from work tomorrow and decide that you just don't want to pay your mortgage, so you call your bank and share the good news. The bank, at that point, explains that if you don't, you are looking at eviction, so you propose a counteroffer because you are a clever fellow. I will pay my mortgage, but only if my family stops using hot water and stops going to the doctor. At which point, the bank says: You, sir, are a moron. Yet, that is what is happening in the House this week. The United States Government has already agreed to buy a house. We are already living in the house. We took out a loan to pay for the house, but the Republicans want to stop making the mortgage payments unless the American people agree to skimp on healthcare and basic services. I would remind everybody in this body that it is Congress that has the power of the purse. Every dollar of government spending and every dollar of government revenue was approved on this floor by this body. If the expenses exceed the revenues, then we borrow to make up the difference. We made those choices. You all may not like every dollar that we have approved. I certainly don't. I also don't agree with every dollar my wife has ever spent, and she doesn't agree with every dollar that I have ever spent, but we get by because my wife and I are functioning adults. That would appear to be too high a bar for this body. The majority today is bringing a package to the floor that, according to Moody's Analytics, would ``meaningfully increase the likelihood'' of a recession; not because it is the right thing to do but because it is the only way that the Speaker can keep his job. If Speaker McCarthy brought a clean debt limit bill to the floor of the House tomorrow, he would get every single Democratic vote, and I am sure a few of my colleagues across the aisle would join in. It would pass the Senate, and President Biden would sign it. That would be that. We would move on to the important work of this country. But as all of us know who spent a long, late night here after 14 failed efforts to win the Speakership, Mr. McCarthy caved to the extremists in his own party and agreed to conditions where he loses his job if he does not try to blow up the economy. He has the opportunity today to do the right thing; he simply doesn't have the ability. The House is now preparing to vote on a bill that would be disastrous for Americans. Let's be clear: If we don't raise the debt ceiling, we will see collapses in global financial markets. We will default on our debt, which means interest rates go up, which means everything you have that has an interest rate tied to it gets more expensive. Your mortgage, your car payment, your student loan, your credit card payments, all those things start going up. The majority is hoping that the adults in the room will prevail and that the adults will be so frightened by that consequence that we will accept their self-destructive alternative. The alternative is a bill that would slash nondefense discretionary spending by 22 percent. Just in my home State of Illinois, let's talk about what that means. That means in Illinois, home of the O'Hare airport hub, eight traffic control centers shut down. In the wake of East Palestine, the train crash, just in Illinois, we will do 420 fewer rail inspections. 2,900 students in Illinois will lose their Pell grants. Several hundred thousand will see their Pell grants cut. 10,000 kids will lose pre-K and childcare. 53,000 veterans will lose outpatient services. That is just in Illinois. Nationally, a cleaner, cheaper future will be thrown away. White-collar police will be defunded to make it easier for everybody to commit tax fraud, which, of course, will lower future revenues and make it necessary for us to borrow more money. The majority would have us believe that our only choice right now is: Do we want to blow up the economy, or do we want to ruin the lives of millions of Americans? That is not the only choice. We have a third option. The third option is that we can let the adults come back in the room. We can take our jobs seriously. We can pass a clean debt limit bill. Governing is hard, but it is especially hard when you let the clowns drive the car. Please, Mr. Speaker, let the adults take the wheel.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Madam Chair, I am going to be honest. I am at a loss for words. This bill, the polluters over people act, is bad for the consumers, bad for the environment, and bad for the U.S. economy. You wouldn't know that from the rhetoric across the aisle, leaving me to wonder whether they are all lying or just ignorant. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume they are ignorant. Since I am at a loss for words, as I said, I am going to try to explain this with some numbers. Since 2010, the United States economy has grown by $7 trillion. That is about 50 percent. During the same period, natural gas consumption in our country is up 25 percent, only half as much. Petroleum consumption is flat. Coal consumption is down by 40 percent. This is awesome news. We should all be celebrating. We have decoupled economic growth from fossil fuel consumption. We can grow without depending on environmental degradation. The environment and American energy consumers are winning. That is not because they are using less energy. It is because they are not paying for it. You don't pay for solar energy. You don't pay for energy efficiency. Remember, no one wants a barrel of oil. What you want is a cold beer and a hot shower. Now, Americans are getting more of the latter with less of the former, and if that confuses anybody in this body, then I would encourage you to go ask your local 6-year-old, what would you rather have on Christmas morning; a warm fire and some twinkly lights or a big old lump of coal? Like I said, this isn't that complicated. Let us now ask what the fossil fuel industry has done in the wake of their collapsing market share. Did they pivot to providing things consumers want--cleaner, cheaper energy? Did they redeploy their capital into solar, wind, geothermal, electric vehicle charging stations? Of course not. They moved to strip-mine the United States and asked for your acceleration of their work. During the same period, U.S. exports of oil have grown by a factor of four. U.S. exports of natural gas have grown by a factor of six. Their revenues that Mr. Levin talked about are not going up because they are selling more of their product to Americans, it is because they are strip-mining America and selling it overseas. Exporting U.S. energy does not lower the price of energy in the United States. If anything, it raises costs to American consumers because you reduce domestic supply, for goodness sakes. This bill would only make that worse. To be sure, there are real challenges facing U.S. energy consumers. We have an aging grid. We need transmission to connect renewables to load. We have got the growth in electric demand thanks to all those EVs and heat pumps. We should be focusing on those challenges if we are looking out for the American consumer, but this bill does not give a damn about the American consumer. Its sole purpose is to transfer wealth from the American taxpayer to American energy exporters. There are a small number of Americans whose wealth depends on oil and gas production and export--you all know them by name, I am sure--but every single American benefits from cheaper energy, and if you are going to claim to support the interests of the latter, vote ``no'' on this bill. If you are voting ``yes,'' at least have the dignity to be honest about whose interests you are looking out for.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask for a quick show of hands: How many of us in this room have ever had someone come into our office and ask to make the world safer for their competitors? Me neither. The Record will show that no hands were raised. This is because there is no lonelier position in Washington than being an advocate for free and competitive markets. Competition is hard. Free markets are scary. That is why when markets allocated capital to clean energy, cheaper energy, and it displaced fossil fuel energy and $20 trillion flowed into ESG funds, the losers came to Washington and got the majority of the people in this body, the majority of people in this House to block that free flow of capital. I thank the minority of my colleagues, and President Biden, who blocked that from happening, who stood up for markets in spite of how hard it was. To my Republican colleagues who are being pressed by their donors and their colleagues, in William F. Buckley's words: ``Stand athwart history yelling, stop.'' I sympathize. It is hard and it is scary to support progress. It is hard and it is scary to support markets. I hope that you will do what is right in spite of that pressure. There is no pride in only doing the right thing when it is easy, but history will smile on the brave.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, 15 years ago, more than half of U.S. electricity came from coal. Today, it is less than 20 percent. We now generate more energy from renewables than from coal. This isn't anti-energy. It is about cheap energy. In 2022, last year, 10 percent of all vehicle sales in the United States were EVs. That was up from 6 percent the year before, 2 percent the year before that. ExxonMobil and Chevron today are trading at about 8 to 9 times their earnings. I would compare that to companies like First Solar and Tesla that are trading to 40 to 60 times earnings. Let me dumb this down for you all. Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago, if you shifted your investment portfolio away from fossil energy toward climate-friendly investments, you would be richer today. Now, my Republican colleagues, you all talk a good game about how you are into personal freedom, and yet you are taking individual investors' freedom away from them with this bill. You all talk a good game about how government should not be picking winners and losers. Why do you all keep picking losers? In 2011, a guy named Hugo Chavez redirected Venezuelan oil worker pensions into a Ponzi scheme run by a political ally. My Republican colleagues a couple weeks ago voted to oppose socialism in all its form. I am thinking that Hugo Chavez guy seems pretty smart. Let's do the same thing. You know what you call capitalism when you are losing? Woke capitalism. So if you all are afraid of free markets, if you want to destroy workers' pensions, if you oppose individual freedom, if you want to force your constituents to invest in proven losers, then please vote for this resolution. Be honest about your values. For everyone else, vote ``no.'' I plan to do so proudly and honestly.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to introduce three bills to make our government work a little better. Before I get to those, I would put a question to all of us in this Chamber, the thousands who are sitting here tonight in the gallery, folks watching, but those of us who have the privilege to have this job. Why are we here? What is the reason we decided to get into this line of work? There is a small number of us who, I don't know, may go on to be President or some other office. There is a handful of us who get our viral clips on the local news. There is some larger number of us who actually get our name on a big bill that makes a difference, and we are remembered by our name: The Tafts and Hartleys and Sarbanes and Oxleys. The truth is that most of us are going to be about as well-known to our successors as our predecessors are to us. We are here. We are doing a job. We will be known for the office that we held. We will be remembered for the dignity with which we held that office but not for who we are as individuals. And that is okay, right? One of my favorite pieces of advice I got when I got into this line of work was from President Obama, who said, This is not a sprint, this is a relay. And your job is to pass the baton to the next person in a little bit of a better position than you had it when you picked it up on the last leg. Now everybody in this body has different policy views, different ideas of what a better position in that relay might look like. But I submit that we do have some universal goals that we all agree on or else we wouldn't be in this line of work. We all want a government that delivers the greatest good for the greatest number. We all want a government that upholds our founding promise of freedom and equality. We all, I think, believe Abraham Lincoln's admonition to us that a government of, by, and for the people should not perish from this Earth. We all, also, I think agree that on those really hard questions, the beauty of the government that our Founders created, it is on the hard ones where we disagree the single best way to resolve those disputes is through a democratic process. It ain't always the best way, but we decided not to have kings. We have agreed not to resolve those through wars. We have agreed to resolve them through a democratic process. I agree with Winston Churchill when he said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other ones that have been tried, but it is the best one that we have. I put those goals out there because I think they are universal. But if we are honest with ourselves, I'm not sure we are doing such a good job. When we have record wealth inequality, when we have record numbers of mass shootings, when we have surging levels of deaths of despair from the opioid crisis to suicide, it is hard to say that we are doing the greatest good for the greatest number. When we have persistent male-female wage gaps, racial wealth gaps, steady numbers of Black men getting killed for minor traffic violations, it is hard to say we are doing a really good job of upholding a promise to freedom and equality. When we look at what we do in this building, not just on our end here but the north and the south end of the building, do we do what the people ask us to do, things that are overwhelmingly popular? Campaign finance reform, getting rid of gerrymandering, holding ourselves to the same legal and ethical standards that we ask all American citizens to be held to. We can't get those bills sent to the President's desk. Those things are rejected. We don't even get them out of this building. That is a question of whether we really are making sure that we have a government that is of, by, and for the people. I know that you all face the same questions I get when I go home. People ask: Why is it that people in this institution are failing to do things that are overwhelmingly popular? When we see those little polls that say Congress has a 20 percent approval rating, that should be a red light that we have to fix things. And, of course, the refusal of substantially all of one political party, the party of Lincoln, to condemn an attack on the U.S. Capitol that sought to overturn a free and fair election is not a commitment to preserve and abide by the wisdom of the majority. Now, I can get depressing, and I am not trying to depress anyone. It can be a cause for hopelessness, but not for us, right? I mean, we got into this job to fix things. Mr. Speaker, I know you got into this job to fix things, to make things better, right? Seeing something that is broke is an opportunity to make it better. Maybe it is an opportunity for us to build something better and maybe people will remember our names. We have to get to work and move the baton forward to do that. If we are going to do that, we have to first acknowledge some unpleasant, if self-evident, truths. First of all, we don't like to say it around here often, but we should. Our Founders actually weren't perfect. They weren't Moses. They weren't Jesus. They were fallible people just like us. One of my favorite descriptions of the Constitutional Convention was Benjamin Franklin when he was asked about the process. And he said, When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom--he should have said ``and women'' but it's with the times--when you assemble them to get their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble all of their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. He was talking about the Constitutional Convention. It sounds an awful lot like he is talking about all the people we work with every day, right? We all have our errors of opinion and our selfish views, and that is okay. Trust our Founders that they were not perfect and they were just as flawed as we all are. The second thing we have to acknowledge is that our Founders didn't actually think the Constitution was perfect. It is not this immutable stones' path on the mountain. This is Thomas Jefferson in September 1789, after the Constitution was ratified. He wrote to James Madison: Every Constitution--this is a little crazy, I'll warn you. Every Constitution, every law should naturally expire at the end of 19 years. It might be that every form of government is so perfectly contrived that the will of the majority--will of the majority--could always be obtained fairly, but this is true of no form. I am not suggesting that all our laws expire in 19 years, but these are the people who wrote the Constitution saying, I'm not sure this thing is really good for more than 19 years or so, that if we are going to make sure that we fulfill the will of the majority, we might have to prune it. Okay. That is fine. The third thing, and this is the one that I think is most important for us here today, is that our Founders did not understand democracy nearly as well as we do. They were an amazing group of people. They did an amazing thing, but we have 233 years of wisdom that they did not have. We learned something with that time over the course. Think about the fact that our Founders designed the Constitution with the idea that they would not be political parties. They called them factions but they couldn't contemplate of a world where you could have a functioning democracy and political parties. Well, I think we have proved you can do that. They didn't have standing armies. They didn't have income taxes. They couldn't contemplate of a country where women had the right to vote. They couldn't contemplate a country where they didn't have the ability to hold slaves and not only not allow them to vote but do a whole bunch of other things to suppress their freedom and their equality. They kicked that problem down the road. Again, these things sound familiar, right? We have been there. Now, they were wise enough to plan for those surprises--they made the Constitution amendable--but we know things they didn't know. We are governing in a different environment still under those tools. If we acknowledge they were no perfect than we are, we acknowledge that we have a responsibility to move this baton forward, then I think we can be honest about what we can do and not be constrained by our own ambition. Because what is clear, the answer to that question, ``why is it that we can't do things that the majority of the American people want?'' is in large part because while our Founders paid lipservice to democracy, they said in that letter that Jefferson wrote to Madison, that it is important that a government do the will of the majority. At core, they didn't really trust the will of the majority. They created the electoral college because they didn't trust that people could be trusted with the vote. The direct elections of Presidents were going to be a problem. You go and you read the stuff they wrote. They said some populous could just stir up the passions of some uninformed rube in the rural areas. These are almost direct quotes. They didn't trust that people in a fully democratic society could elect a President so they created the electoral college. They created the Senate expressly to frustrate the will of the majority. Now, I say ``they,'' it wasn't a universal view, but there was no way that we were going to have these United States, to get all those colonies to agree unless there was some way to prevent the will of the majority from causing laws to go forward. So we created the Senate. You could argue that we created the Senate to preserve slavery, and it did that for, I don't know, a couple dozen years. But it massively overrepresented the low population States in order to make sure that we could actually get people to agree to join in these United States. That is what they did. Today, or when it was founded, the biggest State had 10 times the population of the smallest State. Today, it is up to almost 100. So, we have massively disenfranchised huge numbers of American people because of a structure that was designed to disenfranchise large but not as big numbers of American people. We kick a bill out of here and can get 50 votes in the Senate with people representing 17 percent of the United States population. When our voters ask us why we can't get things done that are supported by the will of the majority, it is built into our system. Finally, our Founders created the Supreme Court with largely no checks and balances on the Supreme Court--lifetime appointments, no ethics obligations. Goodness knows, we have seen a fair amount of what is going on there right now. Remember, Marbury v. Madison that significantly expanded the power of the Court relative to the legislative branch came after the Constitution was signed. This is a different structure than what they contemplated, and that effectively gave the Supreme Court not the ability to write laws but darn close to it because you get one Supreme Court Justice that flips the majority, and all of a sudden, you can say that our work here, all the good work we put in, is unconstitutional and turn it over with the whim of one vote. That is not majoritarian. Mr. Speaker, I ask you to consider for a moment what our country would look like just over maybe three decades if the will of the majority had prevailed, if we actually lived in a country where we only did what the majority of Americans want us to do. First off, I would like to introduce you to President Gore, followed not too long after by President Hillary Clinton. We would have elected our first female President because that was the will of the majority, right? That would have had a dramatically different Supreme Court, whole numbers of decisions. How do we think about the Second Amendment in the wake of Heller? It would have been a heck of a lot different with different Justices on that Court. How we think about campaign finance in the wake of Citizens United would have been quite a bit different with different folks on the Supreme Court. The Dobbs decision--do we believe that women are truly equal in this society? That might have been a different decision if we had expressed the will of the people. By the way, campaign finance reform, a woman's right to choose, wanting to not get shot, these are very popular things with the majority of the American people, yet we can't deliver that because of what happened. I am going to give an exception that proves the rule, and this one we don't talk about enough here, but as House Members, this one should make us furious. Last year, this body passed, on a bipartisan basis, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. It made lynching a Federal crime--long overdue. It went to the Senate. The Senate passed it, and the President signed it. It is a law now. It is now a Federal crime to lynch in America. Good for the Senate. Do you know when that bill first passed this body? 1922. It took a hundred years, a century, for the Senate to acknowledge what the House had acknowledged for a hundred years, that lynching is bad. We have to fix this place, folks. If we don't want to answer that question anymore, when people say, ``Why can't you do what we want?'' We all know what they tell us, right? ``It is because you are corrupt. It is because your donors won't let you do this. It is because you are just in it for your ego.'' Look, there are some of us who suffer from those problems, but if the institution needs fixing, we can fix it on our own. If any of what I am saying sounds partisan, I mean, I get it. I am talking about women's right to choose. I am talking about sensible gun control legislation. I am talking about who would have won President. All of those things sound kind of partisan. That is only because, in this structure, we have gotten to a point where one party in America is representing the views of the majority of the American people, and the other party derives its power solely from those minoritarian institutions. In a healthy democracy, we should all be competing for that mythical center of the electorate. We shouldn't be sitting there and saying: I have a 20-year plan to stack the Court with Justices who will agree with me to overturn the will of the American people. We shouldn't be sitting there saying: Well, I can control the Senate if I just find a couple of Senate seats in a couple of low-population States with cheap TV markets. We all know it happens, right? We will be healthier, both of our parties, if we commit ourselves to the idea, as Jefferson said, that if we are not representing the will of the majority because no form of government ever consistently does, let's fix it so that we do, which brings me to the three bills we introduced today. The first bill is a constitutional amendment to add 12 national at- large Senators. It doesn't do anything else to change the Senate. It doesn't do anything to frustrate Article V. You can't in any way diminish the relative power of the Senate. But imagine what would happen if 10 percent of the Senate had an interest in representing the will of the American people. We would then sit there in this House, the people's House, where we represent the will of the American people, with confidence that we had people fighting for us over there. It would make it that much harder for them to filibuster a good bill that comes out of here because why would they filibuster something that is supported by the majority of the American people? It would also, by adding 12 senators, add 12 more electors representing the popular vote. That would reduce the number of scenarios where we could have the popular vote winner lose an election to the electoral vote winner. That is the first bill. The second one is to expand this House, and in the next Census, 2030, say let's go out and look at the smallest State in the Union and say the size of that State is going to set the size of a congressional district because if we are the House of Representatives, we should make sure that all of us represent as close as we can the same number of people. The House hasn't grown since 1911. The population of the United States has grown three and a half times since 1911. All of us in this room, on average--your mileage may vary--represent 737,000, 740,000 people. In 1911, we represented 200,000 people. Imagine how much different our jobs would be if we had 200,000 constituents to represent, to go talk to, to understand, to make sure that we reflected their views. We would be better. We would be more representative. There are only two countries in the world with parliamentary democracies that represent more people than we do: India and Afghanistan. We are the crazy outlier, right? Let's expand the House and make us more representative. If we did that based on the last Census, that would add something like 130 seats to this House. Again, it would add further electors. It would make us more diverse. It would bring in a new group of people. It would make us better, make us more representative. The third, because I know there are a lot of constitutional originalists in the room, is to restore the Supreme Court to its Article III responsibilities. If my colleagues haven't read it in a while, I encourage them to go read Article III of the Constitution that lays out the scope of the Supreme Court. It says that they are responsible for matters of admiralty law, maritime law, matters relating to ambassadors, disputes between the States, and in such appellate jurisdictions the Congress may see fit to provide from time to time. If we have a Court that is consistently not fulfilling the will of the American people, if we have a Court that is consistently encroaching on our power here in this Chamber, overturning our judgments and what we do, it is in our power to perhaps see fit from time to time to reduce their appellate jurisdiction. So, what we have said is: Let's reduce their appellate jurisdiction to the circuit courts, and let's depoliticize judge selection processes. If the courts are going to say that a law that we passed is unconstitutional, we will select from a pool of circuit court judges, appellate court judges, at random, and it will take at least 70 percent of them to overturn a bill that we pass out of here. It takes two-thirds for us to overturn a veto, right? Let's hold them to the same standard. Let's not make this political. Let's get enough people involved in the pool that you can't politicize this. Do it for the good of making this place work. Also, it would eliminate the shadow docket. Why do we allow ourselves to continue to live in a world where the Supreme Court can just decide to rule on something and not even explain it? How do you work as a lawyer if you don't know that? Let's get rid of the shadow docket. I am not perfect. You aren't perfect, Mr. Speaker. None of us in this room are perfect. Our Founders weren't perfect, but we are perfectible, and we have a job that affords us the opportunity and the responsibility to make our government a little bit better, a little bit more responsive, a little bit more democratic to move the baton forward. I would submit that that is just an amazing privilege. I am grateful to have it. I am grateful to serve with all of my colleagues. I hope I can get the support of this body and my colleagues to redouble our commitments to make our government better, to make sure that we honor Jefferson's promise to tune it and tweak it if it is not carrying out the majority will, and to pass that baton forward to whoever follows us up to be in a little better position than we had ourselves. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chair, I missed rollcall vote numbers 66 and 71. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows: rollcall No. 66, H.R. 21 Magaziner Amendment No. 58, ``aye'' and rollcall No. 71, H.R. 21 Jackson Lee Amendment No. 36, ``aye.'' Amendment No. 70 Offered by Ms. Ross

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 66.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 68.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would require oil and gas companies drilling on public lands to submit plans for cutting the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production and use of their products in half by 2030 and to zero by 2050, as is called for by climate science. My amendment would allow the release of no more than 1 percent of the superpollutant methane brought to the surface by drilling operations. Mr. Chairman, let's be honest here. We have been here a long night. H.R. 21 is not about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, nor is it about domestic energy security, because if it was, we would be talking about the fact that the United States is an oil exporter. We have a lot of tools, not just limited to what is in a few tanks around the country, to affect domestic supply of oil, but we are not talking about that, are we? We are talking about using the SPR to get a nose under the tent to meet the larger and consistent Republican goal to expand drilling on public lands. Since this bill is really about public lands, we cannot discuss this bill without addressing our stewardship responsibilities for those lands, forested lands that are increasingly prone to climate change- driven wildfires; coastal lands that are prone to climate change-driven sea level rises; and wild lands where climate change and drilling is destroying habitat and contributing to the most rapid rate of extinction in our history. Our stewardship of those lands, Republicans and Democrats, compels us to eliminate the causes of global warming, to stop emitting greenhouse gases. Public reporting has shown that Exxon scientists not only knew their products were responsible for climate change in 1977, but they did a really good job of predicting the changes that were going to follow. So did the world's climate scientists, who called for global action. The 1992 Rio summit and Kyoto Protocol were designed to avert climate disaster, but as we know, the fossil energy industry did not respond with stewardship. They started a massive disinformation campaign that continues to this day, spending enormous amounts of money to confuse the American public and to delay climate action. Today, I will be honest, every major oil company pays lip service to the reality of climate change and the need to address it. Many have even pledged sharp reductions of their direct emissions, but they know that most of their contributions to global warming are downstream--it is what people do with their products--or upstream, the methane that gets released from their production. It would take leadership on their behalf, it would take entrepreneurial vision, and it would take stewardship for them to realize that they are experts at giving people useful energy. They are in the business of providing that. They could do that, but instead, they have decided that they just want to be committed to the extraction of oil. Mr. Chairman, this amendment just provides an appropriate stewardship of our public lands to this bill. We know from history that the oil companies cannot be trusted to protect those lands, and so it behooves us in this body to require that any expansion of drilling on those lands must be met by a reduction in the gross greenhouse gas emissions associated with drillers' operations. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, No. 67.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chairman, my friend from Texas and I are going to get to continue talking about a few tanks. My amendment would require the Secretary of Energy to determine whether curtailing U.S. oil exports would be more effective than drawing from the SPR to stabilize U.S. oil prices and protect U.S. energy security. If it is determined that curtailing oil exports would be more effective, the increased drilling on Federal lands otherwise required by H.R. 21 would not be allowed. Mr. Chair, H.R. 21 is based on the false premise that a drawdown from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve weakens our energy security and therefore must be made up for by expanding drilling on Federal land. Let's run through a little history here. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created in 1975 in response to the first OPEC price shocks to provide a domestic buffer against future global market volatility and supply constraints. We had that oil in our country, and we wanted to use that to bolster domestic supplies. The conditions under which it was created changed in October 2019. That was the month when the United States, for the first time, became a net oil exporter, and we have remained one since. That means that, for the last 4 years, we have had not one but two tools we could use to protect ourselves domestically from global volatility. We could either release from those few tanks in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or we could reduce the exports that are leaving our country, keep that, and prioritize good old, apple-pie- smelling United States oil for United States use. As an economic matter, both of those are equivalent, right? If we add a barrel to our domestic supplies, that is a barrel we don't have to import. That is a barrel that eases price pressure internally, regardless of where that barrel came from. Moreover--and this is important because this is about those few tanks we were talking about before--the volume of oil that we export today is way bigger than the amount that we release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. If I may, Mr. Chairman, most of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve is still underground. When the United States became a net exporter in 2019, though, something changed. The thing that changed was the politics of this conversation because it created a new set of players at the table: oil exporters, who have a vested interest in a high oil price. They don't seek to maximize value for the American people. They seek to maximize value for their shareholders. I would point out, many of their shareholders are not U.S. citizens. They want to maximize that value by selling American oil overseas at the highest possible price. Now, let's be really clear. Every single American is an energy consumer. A tiny number of Americans are oil exporters. The greater good is always to maximize the benefit to U.S. consumers by lowering energy prices. I have introduced this amendment to ensure that we use the full suite of tools available to us when we face domestic price or supply constraints, inclusive of SPR releases and export curtailments. This amendment would simply direct the Secretary of Energy to determine whether curtailing U.S. exports would be more effective than drawing from the SPR at stabilizing U.S. oil prices and protecting U.S. energy security. If it is determined that curtailing exports would be more effective, the increased drilling on Federal lands otherwise required by H.R. 21 would not be allowed. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to tell you I will not need 5 minutes. This is a really short amendment. It simply strikes the words ``natural gas'' from this bill. Mr. Chairman, domestic production of natural gas has nothing to do with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a strategic reserve of petroleum. Today, it holds about 372 million barrels of petroleum--oil, if you prefer. It does not hold natural gas. Yet, H.R. 21 says that a release from the SPR--again, of oil--should be linked to an increase in drilling for oil and gas on Federal lands. Now, if you are not following that, I want you to imagine that you are at the grocery store, and your significant other calls you up and says: ``Hey, we are out of turkey.'' You come back and say: ``Well, I will return with turkey or milk.'' You might not have a happy spouse. Same deal here. If the majority would like to provide more subsidies to drill for gas on public lands, you are, of course, free to do that and propose legislation to do that, but that has nothing to do with releases from this Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Since the underlying bill is predicated on an event of SPR release, my amendment is both simple and necessary. It simply strikes all mentions of ``natural gas'' from a bill that claims to be about oil. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Madam Speaker, this has been a bloody week in America. It seems like every day we have woken up to news of another mass shooting, starting with the one 5 days ago when a gunman, armed with an assault pistol and high-capacity magazine, killed 11 Californians as they celebrated Lunar New Year. Three weeks from now, Valentine's Day will be the 15th anniversary of a mass shooting on the Northern Illinois University campus in DeKalb. The shooter started firing at 3:06 p.m. By 3:11 p.m.--just 5 minutes later--he had taken his own life. But not before firing off 55 rounds of ammunition, killing 6 people and injuring another 21. In Parkland, Florida, on Valentine's Day they don't memorialize Northern Illinois University, they memorialize the anniversary of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. That shooting lasted for 6 minutes, 139 rounds were fired, 17 people were killed, and 17 were injured. Six months from now, on Independence Day, folks in Highland Park, Illinois, will be memorializing the first anniversary of a mass shooting when 83 rounds were fired, 7 people were killed, and 48 were injured before the police--who were present at the scene--could even identify the location of the shooter. We do not get our holidays back unless we act. Too often, this body has responded to these shootings with thoughts and prayers. Prayers that the American people won't notice that some of my colleagues are putting the economic interests of gun manufacturers ahead of people's lives. But every once in a while, we do act. I want to talk about what we are capable of when we are touched by the better angels of our nature. To do that, let's flash back to another Valentine's Day not that long ago. Two Chicago gangs were fighting over narcotics turf. One of them surprised the other, and in a flash of bullets, seven people were dead. Chicagoans and Illinoisans--Americans--were outraged. Yes, these were gang members, but they didn't deserve to die. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was in 1929. It was when Al Capone's Italian gang killed seven members of Bugs Moran's Irish gang as whiskey bootleggers fought over drug turf. And we acted. That shooting led to the passage of the National Firearms Act that banned civilian access to fully automatic Tommy guns and any rifle with a barrel longer than 18 inches. That law is still on the books today. It saves lives, and no one has ever claimed it was unconstitutional. By the way, Madam Speaker, if you weren't expecting that a story about Chicago gangs was going to be about White people, I would like to thank you for attending today's class in critical race theory. As that poet Ice Cube says: You better check yourself. But I digress. Seven people died in 1929, and we acted. Eleven people died on Lunar New Year 5 days ago. There have been 40 mass shootings in the first 26 days of this year, over 1,300 gun homicides in the United States this year, and another 1,700 gun suicides. I am proud that my State of Illinois has just passed an assault weapons ban. It is time for this body to do the same. I know I speak for all Americans when I say that I want to enjoy my next holiday without fear of getting shot, and that inaction in the wake of way too many avoidable deaths is completely unacceptable.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to address a drafting error in this bill. The stated goal of H.R. 22 is to prevent aid to China and lower U.S. energy costs. As written, it is going to have the opposite effect. Run the math. In 2022, the SPR released about 210 million barrels of oil. Most of that was consumed domestically, a small fraction was exported, and a smaller fraction may have gone to China. During the same period of time, domestic oil producers exported more than 10 times that volume, so roughly 100 times the volume that was exported from that portion of our SPR that happens to be above ground. So the failure to include U.S. producers in the export prohibition means that this bill will do nothing to limit Chinese access to American oil. But since the SPR releases--as the majority notes--do reduce oil prices, curtailing our ability to use that tool will drive prices up and transfer wealth from U.S. consumers to U.S. producers in places like Bakersfield, California, as they sell higher priced oil to China. Now, I cannot imagine that the Speaker intended to enrich his neighbors so that they could profit from Chinese oil sales, so I would encourage him to vote ``no.'' I would also encourage anyone who seeks to prioritize United States access to United States energy to oppose until we can make the necessary corrections to this bill.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the work that we did to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the single largest investment in climate action in American history. Thanks to the IRA, not only will we see expanded access to lower energy costs, but we will also lower emissions and give our children a better shot at an inhabitable planet. But if we are going to build all that clean generation and connect it to all those new loads from electric vehicles to heat pumps, we are going to have to enhance our electric grid, and that is not going to happen without an independent, fully staffed Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, as they say in the streets. Now you all remember that last year, as we worked on what became the Inflation Reduction Act, the White House had not acted to fill a vacancy at FERC, and FERC was frozen into inaction. We needed a hot FERC summer, and this Chamber--along with Megan Thee Stallion, Fergie and Dolly Parton--delivered. Yet now, we are on the verge of freezing again. This time, because the Senate has failed to act to reconfirm Chairman Glick. Just at the moment when we need to expedite transmission permitting reform to ensure cheap, reliable energy and fix power markets, FERC is again on the brink of being deadlocked. So with a little help from Rihanna this time, it is my duty to once again remind the legislative branch of our desperate need to FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC. Climate change is urgent. Capital markets are mobilizing in response to the Inflation Reduction Act. There is no time to have us lurking. To be blunt, Mr. Chair: I do nuh like it, and you know I have dealt with it the nicest . . . but this delay is nuh righteous . . . and now we are in a crisis. A deadlocked FERC would eliminate up to 80 percent of the emissions reductions created by the IRA. We need them working now to ensure that we can rapidly bolster interregional grid connections, shorten interconnection queues, and reform the siting and cost allocation processes that doom so many projects today. Sing with me, Mr. Chairman. We got to FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC. You can do it. Come on. To my colleagues in the Senate, the eyes of the Nation, and of this Chamber are on you. We will never, no, never neglect you. We do not hold your past against you. But you need to get this done, done, done, done, done, done. Our utilities, our electricians, our consumers, and our planet believed you when you said that failure to ensure comprehensive permitting reform was, ``not an option.'' But now they are asking whether you really believed that. Did you really mean it when you said you would give them ``something that they'd never seen''? Or are they right now when they cry that this is just a dream of ``something that you've never been''? It is time for the Senate to give our energy markets reasons to believe in ``all their dreams, their adoration''. They don't have ``much more patience''. We need them to con-firm, firm, firm, firm, firm, firm. A person who will work, work, work, work, work, work. To ensure that we can FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC, FERC. Mr. Speaker, ``What else I say? I am tryin', babe.''

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, last year, a record 14.5 million Americans registered for healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act, including 5.8 million previously uninsured people who have been able to gain coverage. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act, we have reduced monthly healthcare premiums for millions of Americans by an average of $800 per person per year. When you sign up for a healthcare plan through the Affordable Care Act, you gain low-cost access to doctors, lifesaving preventative care, mental health care, and more. It is open enrollment season. That means if you currently have or want to obtain healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act, please log on to the exchange at HealthCare.Gov and choose a plan by December 15 to ensure that you have coverage starting at the beginning of next year.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate a friend and scientific luminary, Dr. Dieter Martin Gruen, on his 100th birthday. Dr. Gruen has led a distinguished career, and it is my honor to acknowledge his service and contributions to the scientific community, as well as record my continued support for his nomination for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Throughout his exceptional career, Dr. Gruen has made significant contributions to new energy technologies. Dr. Gruen has worked to enhance American technology development as a former Manhattan Project Scientist and Argonne National Laboratory Distinguished Fellow. Though he officially retired from Argonne in 2012, Dr. Gruen has never stopped working and now devotes his life to fighting climate change and advancing solar energy. Dr. Gruen is a humble embodiment of a dedicated American and scientist. Born in 1922, Dr. Gruen is an internationally esteemed German- American chemist, inventor, and innovator who immigrated to the U.S. from Nazi Germany in 1936. Throughout his career, Dr. Gruen has been driven by his curiosity and commitment to science--allowing him to make critical contributions to nuclear fission and fusion, solar energy, energy storage, and conservation. Specifically, Dr. Gruen has made several key technological advancements such as the nuclear submarine reactor cooling design and purification of uranium used to end World War II in the Pacific theater. Through this work and countless other selfless endeavors, Dr. Gruen has been recognized by the international scientific community with numerous awards--including from Argonne National Laboratory, Northwestern University, and the Patent Law Association of Chicago--for his pioneering research in chemistry, physics, along with the emerging fields of materials and nanoscience. Dr. Gruen has been granted over 60 U.S. patents for his work in alternative energy and discoveries in interdisciplinary subjects. Dr. Gruen's story is that of many immigrants to America. He left behind a place of persecution, discrimination, and lack of opportunity for a brighter future. Like so many others who arrived on our shores and helped build our nation through their courageous spirit, collaborative character, unyielding dedication, and personal sacrifice, Dr. Gruen's courage and tenacity serves as an inspiration for us all. I've had the great pleasure to learn from Dr. Gruen and his unique life journey and stories--from his work on the Manhattan Project, to the ins and outs of nuclear fission technology, to innovations that make solar energy competitive with fossil fuel energy. Dr. Gruen, through his 100 years and dedicated service to the advancement of science and society, inspires my own optimism in our ability to tackle the toughest issues facing society today. In April 2021, it was my great honor to support Dr. Gruen 's nomination for the highest civilian award in this country, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, alongside my colleagues Representatives Bill Foster, French Hill, Jerry McNerney, and Cheri Bustos. For all of the reasons mentioned here and many more, I cannot think of a more deserving citizen for this award. I wish Dr. Gruen the happiest of 100th birthdays. I thank him for all his decades of service and remarkable contributions to science which have positioned the United States as a leader and world power in national defense, technology and innovation.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, there are over 21 million Americans who don't have a photo ID. That is 21 million Americans who can't obtain employment, lease or purchase a home, or open a bank account. If you are a veteran, you need an ID to access the VA benefits you have earned. If you are a single mom, you need an ID to access WIC and SNAP benefits for your children. In 35 States, you need a photo ID to vote. The current process for obtaining an ID is inconsistent across States. It can be expensive, and it often requires documentation that many Americans just don't have. That is why, last week, I introduced the IDs for an Inclusive Democracy Act. This will provide a free Federal ID to any American citizen over the age of 14 who wants one. It will ensure that every American has access to the services that they need. And no less important, it will ensure that America has the access to every American's opinion at the ballot box. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues who support our founding promise of equality and our commitment to democracy to support this important legislation.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Madam Speaker, last November, our House delegation went to Glasgow for the COP26 conference. We told the world that we were back, that we had rejoined the Paris climate accord, and that we were committed to building back better and committed to putting science over politics. It felt pretty good. But to be blunt, the world didn't believe us. As we sat at that press conference, all of these reporters from Europe said: What about the Senate? What about the filibuster? What if Republicans take over in the midterms? They had heard this song before. They admired our enthusiasm, but as you know, Madam Speaker, they really didn't share it. Today, we are going to prove them wrong. We are going to remind them what the United States is capable of. We are about to pass the most impactful climate bill ever. You all should be proud of that. You were here to share this moment with us. We are on the path to reducing CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2030. That is a really big deal. But it is only a start because 40 percent ain't enough. We have reestablished U.S. credibility today, but we still have to establish U.S. leadership. The measure of our success is not what we pass today; it is whether the planet is cooler tomorrow. Today, we remind the world and ourselves what we are capable of. I hope we celebrate. But tomorrow, let's get back to work.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I missed Roll Call vote number 394. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on motion to move the previous question on H. Res. 1256. members recorded pursuant to house resolution 8, 117th congress Babin (Jackson) Bass (Neguse) Blumenauer (Beyer) Bourdeaux (Correa) Brown (MD) (Trone) Bush (Jeffries) Carter (TX) (Weber (TX)) Crist (Wasserman Schultz) DeSaulnier (Beyer) Evans (Beyer) Guthrie (Barr) Jones (Beyer) Kahele (Correa) Kirkpatrick (Pallone) Meeks (Jeffries) Moore (WI) (Beyer) Payne (Pallone) Ruppersberger (Trone) Rush (Bishop (GA)) Ryan (Kuster) Scott, David (Correa) Sires (Pallone) Stevens (Kuster) Stewart (Garbarino) Taylor (Fallon) Thompson (CA) (Beyer) Thompson (MS) (Bishop (GA)) Vargas (Correa) Walorski (Banks) Welch (Pallone) Williams (GA) (Neguse) Wilson (SC) (Norman)

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, the West is burning and we can't get the water to put it out, thanks to a 1,200-year drought. Louisiana insurance companies are failing due to rising sea levels. Families are paying more than ever to cool their home and fill up their tank with ever more expensive fossil fuels. And this week, we learned that a majority of the Senate thinks that is fine. They are fine with Americans paying too much for energy. They are fine with Americans keeping our economy coupled to Putin's war machine. They are fine with stealing from consumers and stealing from our future to subsidize fossil energy producers today. If you have a solar panel on your roof, if you have an electric vehicle in your driveway or an energy-efficient home, you are helping your planet and you are helping your wallets. In the House, we are making that opportunity available to all Americans and, yet, the Senate has failed us. Their failure is not only a failure to do their job, it is not only a failure of leadership, the U.S. Senate is increasingly an embarrassment, and I am sick of apologizing for them.

Mr. CASTEN

Mr. CASTEN. Madam Speaker, I will take a moment after the shootings this week just to read the names of the children under 10 years old in America who have been killed by guns so far this year. Aiden, age 8. Alice, a newborn. Alyssa, age 6. Amare, age 10. Andres, age 9. Antonio, who went by the nickname ``Espn,'' age 7. Arbrie, age 8. Ariah, age 7. Arlene, age 9. Asa, age 8. Ashton, age 2. Autumn, age 3. Avery, 3. Bella, 4, and her sister, Brixx, was a newborn. Bridger, age 10. Bryson, 3. Caleb, 5. Cayden, 10. Charlie, 10. Charlotte, 9. Charvez, 2. Chloe, 7. Clesslynn, 2. Madam Speaker, I realize I am being gaveled out there, but there are 600 names on this list. I can't read these in 1 minute. Are we going to act, or are we going to throw up useless thoughts and prayers? It is time to act.