Julie Fedorchak

Mrs. FEDORCHAK

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. This little podium seems to have a mind of its own, so I will leave it down so it doesn't scare us all again. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues in the Western Caucus for leading the charge to strengthen rural America's future. As a fourth-generation North Dakotan, I have seen how the hard work of our energy and agriculture producers fuels our economy, strengthens our communities, and secures our very way of life. That is why on Monday, I introduced a resolution to overturn the Biden administration's reinstatement of the Once-in-Always-in rule. This is a shortsighted, bureaucratic mandate that punishes energy producers, manufacturers, and small businesses for investing in emissions reduction. This rule permanently classifies certain industrial facilities as major sources of hazardous air pollutants, even if they take meaningful steps to reduce emissions below the Federal thresholds. That makes no sense. Facilities that make major investments to reduce emissions should be rewarded, not locked into outdated, costly regulations that discourage further improvements. By refusing to let businesses reclassify after making progress, this rule removes any real incentive to invest in cleaner technologies. Instead of supporting innovation, it sends a clear message: Don't even bother. Democrats like to use the mantra of hope and change. This regulatory approach says there is no hope, so don't change. That is not environmental stewardship. That is Washington overreach. The United States has reduced emissions more than any other nation since 2005, all while leading the world in energy production. We should be building on that success, not undermining it with policies like this outdated, overly burdensome Biden regulation that stifle investment and progress. North Dakota is proof that responsible energy production and environmental stewardship go hand in hand. It is not one or the other. Our State has never violated Federal air quality standards. I will say that again. Our State has never violated Federal air quality standards, while being one of the largest energy producers in the whole country. This is a testament to the more than $2 billion our energy producers have invested in emissions control technologies. They did that because they took their responsibility seriously. They want to be good stewards of our resources and of our air and water. American businesses are dedicated to protecting the health, safety, and vibrancy of their communities. What they need is regulatory certainty, not a rule that locks them into compliance with outdated standards even after they have done the right thing. This is about more than just one burdensome regulation. It is about standing up for the industries that power our economy and rejecting Washington's one-size- fits-all approach. American energy solutions are climate solutions. American energy producers are providing the solutions that are going to solve energy needs and environmental needs for the world over. Let's encourage investment in technology, not support regulations that make it impossible to do business. I am proud to lead this effort in the House, and I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. Let's restore regulatory certainty, the number one cry from the industry that I meet with. We need regulatory certainty. Let's send a clear message that we stand with American energy producers, farmers, manufacturers, and we stand with innovation. Mr. Speaker, our Nation has been blessed abundantly with natural resources. Misguided regulations and policies are strangling the very people in our Nation who are building and producing everything that we need. They are strangling the people who create jobs, who produce the products, the food, who pay taxes, who employ people. People make our communities strong. We need to stop doing that. We need to correct course in our approach for government and regulations. Our Republican House Conference, the President, and the Senate Republicans are committed to doing this for America and to making our Nation, our States, our energy producers, our farmers, our manufacturers, and our communities great again.

Mrs. FEDORCHAK

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.J. Res. 35, legislation I proudly cosponsored to stand up for North Dakota's energy producers and hardworking families who depend on affordable, reliable energy. For my first action as a Member of Congress, I wrote to President Trump and Secretary Burgum urging them to repeal 20 unnecessary and burdensome rules that threaten affordable, reliable energy, including this rule. The Biden administration's methane tax is a real attack on North Dakota's energy sector, and it is really a tax on every aspect of our lives. This tax was the number one concern of the energy stakeholders in my State. This heavy-handed Federal mandate punishes small and midsize independent producers who are responsible for 90 percent of America's natural gas. It threatens jobs, raises costs for families, and jeopardizes our energy independence. North Dakota leads the way in responsible energy production, not because of government mandates but because of innovation and technology. My State is proof that we don't have to choose between a strong economy and a clean environment. We can and do have both. This tax will have a huge impact on our energy sectors who already produce the cleanest energy in the world. This natural gas tax threatens American energy security, and we will be forced to rely on adversaries to meet our energy needs, countries that do not have strong labor or environmental laws. This tax hurts energy producers who are already doing it right. America is leading the way in reducing emissions. Since 2015, upstream oil and gas producers have reduced their methane emissions by 42 percent. Our innovation and technology have allowed us to reduce emissions while raising the standard of living across this country. American energy solutions are clean energy solutions. We should be unleashing U.S. energy production, not taxing it and not making it more expensive and creating disincentives to production.

Mrs. FEDORCHAK

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to start this speech with a real-time exercise. I wanted to suddenly have all the lights go out in here. Imagine what would happen if we did that. It would be pitch black in this room. Everything would come to a halt. The microphones would stop. We wouldn't be able to see each other. People watching online would certainly be confused. We would all wonder what was going on. Would we be able to see to walk around, to get out? Would anyone panic? Then, let's imagine if the outage wasn't just in this room or this building, but all across Washington, D.C. At first, there would be silence, but it wouldn't take long before confusion and, perhaps, chaos ensued. Now, let's imagine this happening in my State of North Dakota where just this week, temperatures dropped to minus 22 degrees for many days in a row. In fact, this morning was the first day it rose above zero. What would that mean to lose power when it is 22 below? People's livelihoods be at risk. Children couldn't go to school. Hospitals would be unable to care for people. Businesses would come to a standstill. Energy production would halt. Livestock would be threatened. Homes and properties would freeze up. It wouldn't take very long in that kind of weather for the economy of North Dakota to grind to a halt and for people to die if we had no power. This isn't some farfetched scenario. This is a real threat in America today. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation warns that two- thirds of the United States is at an elevated risk of blackouts, of not having enough reliable power to meet demand when we need it the most. This map clearly illustrates the problem. Every area of America in red and yellow on this map has an elevated risk of not having enough power to meet demand; not tomorrow, not in 5 years or 10 years, today. This is the scenario today in America. That is why I am on the House floor today to sound the alarm about our grid reliability crisis and to highlight five practical solutions to keep the lights on. First, let's talk about why this happening. What is driving this problem? It really comes down to one thing: We are retiring power plants faster than we are replacing them. Seriously, it is that simple. In States throughout our Nation, power providers are shutting down massive amounts of traditional power generation from power plants that can be turned on, up or down, as needed to follow demand. They are retiring these generators faster than they are able to bring on new generators that can provide the same kind of always-available power. Grid operators measure this availability in terms of capacity, and there are two kinds. First, there is installed capacity. That is the maximum amount of power a generator can churn out in the best conditions. For example, most wind farms in North Dakota have a nameplate capacity of 300 megawatts. Our largest coal fire facility is 1,100 megawatts. Over on this chart, the blue line on top represents nameplate capacity. The second capacity term, is called accredited capacity. That is the amount of power that can be counted on, regardless of conditions. Grid operators determine the value of accredited capacity. They look at performance of a generator over time, how it works in different conditions, and they determine how much of that power they can rely on when they need it the most in any weather condition. That same wind farm would likely have an accredited capacity that is 30 percent of its nameplate capacity or in a 300-megawatt wind farm, a fraction of that would be accredited capacity. The coal facility probably comes in at about 80 to 90 percent of nameplate capacity, so about 950 megawatts of accredited capacity. In the MISO market, this region here in red, that serves 15 States. Roughly, 42 million Americans get their power in the MISO region. The operators in that region warn that the accredited capacity, the line on the bottom here, the red, is shrinking dramatically even though we are spending a lot of money installing more and more generation on a nameplate capacity. You can see this clearly in these two lines. The top line, the blue, is nameplate capacity. Americans are paying for that to be installed. The red line below is accredited capacity. Americans are already paying for that, too. The red line is what you can count on when times are tough, when it is 22 below. The blue line is questionable. That is dependent on the weather. If you ever wonder why your utility prices are rising, but you face more risk for blackouts or brownouts, this gap is why. That is why NERC keeps warning us with reports, forecasts, and maps like this. MISO is in the red zone on this map. All the yellow zones also have elevated risk. In a nation as blessed with natural resources and brilliant people like the United States, there is no reason to ever run short of power. Our whole country should be blue. We should never run short of power ever. We will have storms that knock the power off for a time, but to not have enough power to meet demand, that is just bad planning and terrible leadership. That is the bad news today. The good news is this: We can fix this. We have the resources. We have the technology, and now we just need to act. Here are the five key steps--the five solutions to this problem. First, we need regulatory relief. Right now, Federal regulations are strangling our energy producers, making it nearly impossible for them to meet our power demand. We must repeal the EPA's greenhouse gas rule. We must eliminate the methane fee rule and roll back the BLM resource management plan for North Dakota and other States. We must reform the new source performance standards that prevent power providers from making efficiency improvements to their existing fleets, the ones that are already connected to the grid, to improve them, to help them produce more power in a cleaner and more efficient way. That new source performance standard is just bad policy. It makes no sense at all. These are just a few examples of Biden administration policies that have imposed crushing costs and regulatory burdens on the power sector. They are jeopardizing the stability of our grid and the livelihoods of hardworking Americans. Second, we must reevaluate Federal incentives for energy production. Our government has distorted the energy market with subsidies that favor certain resources while neglecting others. This has resulted in a grid that is too dependent on the weather. Think back to the map from NERC, two-thirds of the country at an elevated risk of not having enough power to meet demand. It is time to realign these incentives. Today, our grid operators are calling for more dispatchable generation, more capacity. They want to fill that gap in those two lines that I showed earlier. Think of the MISO zone in red on my first map. MISO is desperate for more power resources that can be turned on when needed, but here is the stack of resources that are in line to connect with the MISO grid. You see this over time, it goes back to the year 2000, and shows back then there was a decent amount of gas--the blue lines are gas, and then you start seeing wind coming online. If you go all the way over to the far side of this map, you see this stack of resources currently in line in MISO, 171 gigawatts of resources, actually more resources than the entire nameplate or the entire peak demand in MISO is currently in line. Today, in that column, you see it is almost filled with solar and wind resources. Fortunately, some battery too, but those are not the dispatchable resources MISO is calling for and clamoring for. Only a sliver of gas on the bottom is in line to connect to MISO, even though they are desperate for more gas to help make it a more stable grid. We must ensure that our Federal policy doesn't exacerbate this problem and current vulnerabilities that have been created by a flood of wind and solar, which are weather-dependent generation. Instead, we must support fair markets that better encourage the investments needed to meet growing demand and long-term grid reliability and stability. Third, we need to speed up the permitting process. Right now, it can take years, sometimes decades, to get approval for new energy projects. This is unacceptable, especially when we have transformative technologies ready to go, like small modular reactors. These advanced nuclear systems are safe, reliable, clean, and capable of powering entire communities. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and leaders, like Energy Secretary Chris Wright, to cut through the bureaucratic red tape and accelerate deployment of these new technologies. Fourth, we must implement rules that protect grid reliability. As I mentioned earlier, it was well below freezing throughout North Dakota this week. My State and region weathered those temperatures largely because of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. This chart here is straight from MISO data. It illustrates the energy that was used this week in the MISO region to meet demand. As you can see, fully 80 percent of those resources were coal, natural gas, and nuclear. That is what came online when the temperatures were 22 below to keep the power on for all the people living in those cold areas. Yet, despite this reality, States are racing to shut down these reliable baseload power generators that are responsible for powering our communities, replacing it with intermittent resources--that huge stack that was in the queue in the line in MISO, that huge stake of wind and solar--the intermittent resources that cannot reliably meet all the demands of our grid or the people who depend on it. I have nothing against wind and solar. North Dakota has tons of wind generation online, but it is simply not capable today to meet the demands of the grid. The people who are responsible for making sure our grids are reliable are the ones saying that over and over. This is reckless. We need Federal safeguards to ensure before a power plant is retired, there is a reliable replacement ready to go online. We cannot afford to gamble with our Nation's energy security. Energy security is national security. Finally, we need to better understand the growing demands of the AI industry. AI and other data-intensive technologies are driving massive increases in energy consumption. As Vice President Vance acknowledged in Paris this week, if we are to remain competitive in the global economy, we need to remove the barriers to development and unleash the full potential of American energy resources. This means embracing an all-of-the-above strategy that includes battery technology to back up renewables, but also oil, gas, nuclear, and hydropower, whatever it takes to power our future. Mr. Speaker, grid reliability is not a partisan issue. It is an American issue. Our security, our economy, and our way of life depend on it. We cannot be a beacon for the world, or even safe in our own homes, if we are sitting in the dark without power. We have the resources. We have the technology. Now, we must act. America can and must remain the most powerful, prosperous, and innovative Nation on Earth. I look forward to working with my colleagues to do just that. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Kim).

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Kim. She has lived this in her State of California, and I appreciate her bringing attention to the false choice of one or the other. We can and must do it all. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Haridopolos).

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Haridopolos. We certainly need a lot of power to get out in space. His dreams and his leadership in that area are certainly noted. We need power to fuel those, too, and I thank him for being here today. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber).

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Weber for being here and leaving us with that really great phrase. The things that make America great are the things that America makes. I love that. Mr. Speaker, we can and we must meet the challenge of a reliable, affordable, sustainable power grid. As President Trump said: ``In America, the impossible is what we do best.'' We can do this, and we will lead the world in this venture. Mr. Speaker, we have talked a lot about the challenges that face American energy. I want to talk about the opportunities we have, too. With an energy supply that is affordable, reliable, and dependable, the United States can lead the way on emissions reductions and artificial intelligence. Today, I want to talk about AI. To be AI dominant, we must first be energy dominant. That is why today I am announcing my plans to create an AI and Energy Working Group. While my colleagues are thankfully working hard on regulations, speech, and other components of AI, this working group will focus exclusively on AI and the energy this growing technology demands. This work will be complementary to and not duplicative of other efforts by my colleagues, including the Speaker's Task Force on AI, which completed its work last December. My goal is to bring in experts and stakeholders, legislators, and other interested parties to fully explore these power needs, the current barriers to meeting them, and Federal policy solutions to help reliably, affordably, and sustainably power the future of AI. I plan to follow four main pillars. My first pillar is: Meeting AI energy demands requires American energy dominance. Today, AI searches consume nearly 10 times the electricity of standard internet searches. In 2024, data centers accounted for 4.3 percent of total U.S. power demand. Analysts predict this could climb to as much as 12 percent by 2030. To put that into perspective, that would be more electricity than the entire State of Texas uses today. Yet, the U.S. isn't scaling up reliable baseload power quickly enough to support this rapid growth. In fact, the Biden administration's policies are forcing this baseload power offline. If we don't act, we risk energy shortages, higher costs, and a slowdown in technological advancement. To secure their energy needs, major tech companies are locking in exclusive long-term power contracts. For example, in September, Microsoft entered an agreement to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to reliably power its AI data center. While I support these types of agreements, we must also ensure that smaller companies and new players in the AI industry have access to the power they need to innovate and compete. Meeting the energy demands of AI isn't just about powering technology. It is about powering America's future. Now that brings us to pillar number two: A strong, secure electronic grid. The rapid, forced transition to intermittent power sources, paired with the retirement of reliable baseload generators, has left our electric grid increasingly vulnerable to outages. Today, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation warns that two-thirds of the United States faces an elevated risk of not having enough power to meet the demand of having blackouts. As we have become more reliant on power-dependent digital infrastructure, the stakes are even higher. Having enough power isn't our only concern. Cyberattacks targeting U.S. grid operations and infrastructure are a growing threat that could disrupt everything from everyday conveniences to our national security. If AI is to flourish, we must prioritize grid reliability and security. This leads me to pillar number three: This requires the right energy regulations. According to the report from the bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, new AI models are developed roughly every 6 months, and data centers are built within 1 to 2 years. Meanwhile, new power plants and transmission infrastructure can take at least 5 to 10 years to build. This creates, obviously, a significant gap between the rapid growth of AI and the slow growth of the power supply needed to support it. Our current energy regulatory environment is not equipped to bridge this gap. I know this environment well. I served 12 years as a State energy regulator. We need forward-thinking regulations that empower both small innovators, who depend on the bulk power system, and larger firms that secure power through long-term agreements. By ensuring a level energy playing field, we can position America as the global leader in AI development, and we can outpace China. This leads me to pillar number four: America, not China, must be the global leader of AI innovation. On January 20 of this year, China unveiled DeepSeek-R1. It is the most advanced large language model reportedly developed with less advanced processors at a fraction of the cost of U.S. models. This proves that China is rapidly closing the gap, and we can't afford to fall behind. The Trump administration recognizes this urgency. That is why, just 3 days after the new Chinese revelation, on January 23, President Trump signed Executive Order No. 14179: Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence. This order overturned President Biden's mandates that had stifled American investment and innovation in AI. With this decisive action, we are reclaiming our competitive edge. It is time to take the handcuffs off our AI industry and unleash the full potential of American ingenuity. Winning the future of AI requires bold action, smart energy policy, and a commitment to American innovation. That is why I will engage with a broad range of voices and stakeholders, big and small, to craft a legislative framework that secures our energy dominance, strengthens our electric grid, and positions America as the global leader in AI. For those with ideas on how we can achieve these goals, my door is always open. Together, we can power the future of AI and assure that America, not China, leads the way back. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cline).

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Cline for taking the time to participate in the Special Order this afternoon, especially on a fly- out day when everyone is heading back to their districts to be with the citizens they represent. Energy dominance and energy independence is the foundation for the massive new agenda that we must move forward with in America today. It is the foundation for driving down inflation, for lowering costs of everything from housing to utilities to rent to groceries and gas. The cost of power is baked into everything we buy. It is the foundation for powering economic growth. It is the foundation for becoming AI dominant, and it is clearly the foundation for national security. I thank everyone who participated in this Special Order this afternoon, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. FEDORCHAK

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Madam Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in saying it is past time to reduce the regulatory state in this Nation. We are crippling our businesses. We are smothering new ideas before they can even take flight. We are stifling innovation. These regulations are coming from a runaway executive branch agencies filled with unaccountable staff who have never experienced the realities of turning a wrench, tilling a field, or turning a profit. As a former energy regulator, I know the value of smart, efficient regulation. For example, in North Dakota, electric utilities are required to follow least-cost planning. This ensures high reliability of our power systems at the lowest possible cost to customers. This is smart regulation. In Washington, we have had just the opposite. We had the Biden administration setting the staffing requirements for nurses in every nursing home in North Dakota. Rather than improving care, this, like many other last-minute Biden regulations, will make it harder, if not impossible, for North Dakota organizations and businesses to do their jobs. The rule and regulation mania of the last administration was historic. According to a study by the National Association of Manufacturing, the total cost of Federal regulations in 2022 was more than $3 trillion, roughly 12 percent of the U.S. GDP. Make no mistake, businesses don't just take on these costs. Hardworking American families pay for these rules and regulations in the price of anything they buy. What is worse, these regulations burden small businesses the most, including North Dakota farmers, ranchers, energy producers, manufacturers, and Main Street businesses. I heard this loud and clear from North Dakotans in every corner of the State. That is why my first official action as a Member of Congress was to send a letter to President Trump and then-Governor Burgum that identified 20 burdensome energy regulations. These regulations were created by Federal agencies--not Congress, the elected Representatives of the people--and they pose a major threat to American energy producers and energy workers. The Trump administration is already taking bold action to repeal these regulations, and they have stepped on the gas even further by requiring agencies to identify 10 regulations to repeal for every new one issued. For North Dakota businesses, workers, and families, this is certainly welcome news. Today, the House passed the Midnight Rules Relief Act, which I was very proud to support. This legislation will allow Congress to rescind multiple agency rules simultaneously under the Congressional Review Act authority if they have been issued during the final year of a President's term. Why is this needed? The Biden administration issued a staggering 1,400 regulations during the 60-day CRA lookback window. Several of these regulations have significant impacts on North Dakota. For example, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management finalized its sweeping new resource management plan for North Dakota the very last week of the Biden administration. This plan will shut down leasing on millions of acres of Federal land in North Dakota, including 99 percent of the Federal coal acreage and 44 percent of federally owned oil and gas mineral acres. Due to the nature of mining, this rule would make a majority of North Dakota's coal reserves uneconomic to mine. North Dakota isn't alone in this, however, as the BLM finalized a separate resource management plan to effectively end all future coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, affecting Montana and Wyoming. If these two plans are equally bad, why shouldn't we be able to use the CRA process to repeal them together instead of doing it one by one. I am working with my Senate colleagues from North Dakota in beginning the CRA process to repeal the North Dakota plan and will support efforts of other States to do the same with their midnight rules that are strangling their businesses. As demand for energy reaches record highs, we should be unleashing American energy production, not shutting it down. Doing so will help reduce America's debt, lower energy prices for hardworking families, reduce global emissions, and bolster our national security. We must start reining in bureaucratic overreach and putting power back where it belongs, with the American people. Madam Speaker, I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in Congress and the Trump administration to rein in the administrative state and help make life better for American workers and families.

Mrs. FEDORCHAK

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the HALT Fentanyl Act. In North Dakota, my State, we are known for our tight-knit communities where people look out for one another, but even in my State, illicit fentanyl is smuggled in, stealing innocent lives and leaving families shattered. North Dakota law enforcement says record amounts of fentanyl are pouring into our State. What is most disturbing is how traffickers are targeting our kids. They are poisoning our children. We must pass the HALT Fentanyl Act to permanently give law enforcement the tools they need. This will punish traffickers who play a dangerous game of tweaking formulas to stay one step ahead of the law. The American people have trusted us to fix the mess created by the Biden administration's open-border policies. For every devastated family and every community on the front lines of this crisis, we must act. Mr. Speaker, this is not a partisan issue. It is an important part of the solution, and it is the right thing to do. Let's pass H.R. 27.

Mrs. FEDORCHAK

Mrs. FEDORCHAK. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent all North Dakotans in the United States House of Representatives. This is my first speech on the House floor, and I want to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about our State and what I hope to accomplish during the 119th Congress. North Dakotans are hardworking, independent, resourceful people who are dedicated to their faith, families, and communities. From Abercrombie to Zap, and every place in between, North Dakotans show up every day, regardless of rain, snow, or subzero temperatures. That is what I will do here. Our biggest industries in North Dakota are agriculture and energy. We are very proud of those, but we have so many other innovative things taking place: autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, defense technology, and more. This is why I sought a seat on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, one of the best and most powerful committees on Capitol Hill. From my seat there, I will help advance the interests of our State, particularly in energy. Before I became a Member of Congress, I served as a public service commissioner for 12 years. I regulated five multistate monopoly utilities, permitted $15 billion worth of new energy infrastructure, and advocated for market rules and policies to support reliable and affordable energy resources. I saw firsthand the challenges to our energy policy and the direct and dire consequences it has. North Dakotans, and Americans, too, have also seen the impacts of these policies and the prices they pay at the grocery store, at the gas pump, and to power their homes. American energy reliability, affordability, sustainability, and security are the weakest they have been in years. Take yesterday's action by the Biden administration to lock up millions of acres of oil, gas, and coal leases in North Dakota through the Bureau of Land Management's resource management plan for the State. This is absolutely the wrong direction. As demand for energy reaches record highs, we should be unleashing American energy production, not shutting it down. It is time to abandon the one-size energy strategy that stifles domestic energy production and jeopardizes hardworking Americans' jobs. I am eager to work with the Trump administration, Governor Burgum, and my colleagues in the House to invest in a true all-of-the-above energy strategy and regain American energy dominance. Doing so will help reduce America's debt, lower prices for hardworking families, reduce global emissions, and bolster our national security. I also rise today in support of H.R. 28, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025. This legislation seeks to make sure women and girls have the opportunity to compete on a fair playing field by requiring schools to comply with Title IX recognition of a person's gender at birth. Competing in girls' sports as a kid gave me strength, taught me resilience, and helped me form lifelong friendships. My experience as a kid would have been completely different if I had been forced to compete against biological males. Let's let our kids be kids. Let's let our daughters dream big, train hard, and compete on a level playing field. H.R. 28 is a commonsense bill. It strengthens protections for women, and I was proud to vote for it. Men simply do not belong in women's sports, and House Republicans are leading the charge to ensure fairness for women and girls. Yet, our commitment to women and families doesn't just stop there. Last week, we also passed the Laken Riley Act, which will give Immigration and Customs Enforcement the tools it needs to hold illegal immigrants who commit theft and other crimes accountable. This is the Republican agenda in action. We are protecting women, supporting families, and making our communities safer. This is just the beginning of our work.