Brett Guthrie

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), my good friend.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks), a member of the Subcommittee on Health.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smucker).

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, one of the points that my friend from California just brought up--we have this 3-year running telehealth that is moving forward. We all know that we can't put the genie back in the bottle. We have to work on telehealth, but we know for a fact there have been diversions of controlled substances through telehealth. We know that. So why don't we take back our authority? Let's negotiate moving forward. Let's think about where this has gone. Three years ago today, Secretary Azar--two administrations--declares a public health emergency. It started doing a lot of things. One is that it allowed emergency use authorization, so we had therapeutics and had all these things come forward. Also the status--not necessarily every statute under Health and Human Services, but because you have the status of a public health emergency, you can invoke other statutes: the Defense Production Act by President Trump to get respirators and moving a ship outside of New York so the people in New York and New Jersey could have an extra hospital, a mobile hospital. I mean, all of those things happened. When we delegate our authority, those are the things that we move forward. On January 20, 2021, almost a million people were being vaccinated. President Biden came in to continue the vaccination process. Then, a year into his administration, we, on our side of the aisle, sent a letter to the Health and Human Services Secretary saying that this needs to end. We can't continue to operate under emergency authority. Let's have a plan. Everything that they have talked about today, every speaker they have had: Let's have a plan to end this emergency, and let's do it in a way that we can address the issues that need to be addressed. We have learned a lot during the pandemic about things that worked. Let's do things that work. Let's fix things that don't work, like the telehealth diversion of controlled substances. Some of those are the things--we have been a year in, since February 1 tomorrow, almost a year since then, and we haven't seen a plan. We haven't seen anything. There was some stuff done, I know, in the omnibus with telehealth. That is what we are saying. We don't need to continue to operate the country in an emergency status. We need to end it. So why bring the bill up? They say this is irresponsible, the bill moving forward. The bill was in Rules last night. We have had no word from anybody in the executive branch that they are going to deal with this. While the bill was being considered in Rules, they come out that it is going to end on May 11? So this bill is needed. It is needed because it is moving us forward. What we can do now, as the bill makes its way to the Senate--I don't know if the Senate is going to take it up or not, but what I will pledge to my friend from New Jersey and my friend from California, who is the ranking Democrat on the Health Subcommittee, is that we will work to make sure we find the areas that we need to continue the lessons that we learned, that we need to put into place, into statute, and to take care of things that need to be taken care of. What we don't need to do is allow the carte blanche, 3-year open emergency pandemic that we know has had issues, as well. I mean, we always talk about the things we want to keep. We can talk about those and work on them. The things that we need to address, using telehealth to divert controlled substances, we know that that has taken place. There are examples of that. We absolutely need to address that. I will pledge that we will work, on our side of the aisle, with our friends on the other side of the aisle to find things to make sure that we continue to address the fact that we still have COVID-19. One thing to note is we are still going to have COVID-19, and we don't need it coming across our borders. Because we are doing this, we also still need to keep title 42 in place. I look forward to working together. This is necessary. It has moved this administration, hopefully, forward. We can say that, May 11, we move forward on this. I am proud to be the sponsor of it, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, I agree with my friend from Michigan that we absolutely have to look at putting things in place and keeping things in place that protect our citizens from COVID-19. We are not dismissing that. What I am saying, or what we are saying, is it should be a legislative branch-wide issue, that we believe that if things are going to stay in place or be put in place, it should be by an act of Congress, signed by the President, as the Constitution says, instead of just the President making decisions for almost 3 years now--two administrations, almost 3 years now. That is what we are saying. We look forward to working together to solve these issues and moving forward. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we are ending the emergency powers of the President. We are not conceding that COVID-19 is over in this country, and it is not. People have to take mitigation. We certainly don't want it coming across our southern border, so we support keeping title 42 in place. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Cammack).

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I just point out that the omni gave the States clarity in how to deal with the Medicaid situation moving forward. We also extended telehealth, so a lot of things we have been trying to do, we have been asking the administration for a year to address some of the things that my friend from Oregon just brought up. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks).

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, we are trying to end the emergency powers of the President during the pandemic. We recognize COVID is still an issue that people have to deal with. We absolutely know that we are going to be working together over the next few weeks and months to make sure we have in place the proper protections. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter), my good friend.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte).

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think I did use the word ``cut,'' and I think I corrected myself. We are spending less money in Medicare, so you are taking money out of Medicare under the Inflation Reduction Act, but that money wasn't really put back in to shore up Medicare. It was spent in other programs, so there is $288 billion less being spent in Medicare. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), the chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. As we stated today in our organizational session, she is the first chairwoman in the history of the oldest committee in Congress.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we have been asking for a year for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to start showing us a plan for unwinding the pandemic public health emergency. Now that we are here doing this today, it seems like we are starting to move in that direction. Unfortunately, we didn't have any hearings last Congress to deal with that, but we are going to begin that, working together today. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Bucshon), my friend.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to push for immediate and overwhelming passage of my legislation, H.R. 382, the Pandemic is Over Act. President Biden and I both agree that the COVID-19 pandemic is over. In fact, on the eve of the Pandemic is Over Act going on the House floor, President Biden finally announced that he is going to end the COVID-19 emergency declarations. I am glad that my bill finally forced the Biden administration to act. However, President Biden has taken too long to act on his statement last September that the pandemic is over, which is why I am moving forward with my bill to end the COVID-19 public health emergency and finally restore checks and balances between Congress and the executive branch. There was a time and place for the COVID-19 public health emergency. On this day 3 years ago, then-Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Azar first invoked the COVID-19 public health emergency. The COVID-19 public health emergency was used at the beginning of the pandemic to establish Operation Warp Speed and provide for CMS waivers that led to millions of seniors receiving critical healthcare services through mediums such as telehealth and removing various forms of red tape getting in the way of healthcare providers' ability to care for their patients. Now, exactly 3 years later to the day of the original disaster public health emergency declaration, we are in a much better position to address COVID-19. We have proven therapeutics in addition to 95 percent of the population either being previously infected with COVID-19 or vaccinated. A senior administration official even stated, ``We are in a pretty good place in the pandemic. . . . Cases are down dramatically from where they were the past two winters,'' according to Politico reporting. It is long overdue for President Biden to unwind the public health emergency. Despite overwhelming evidence that COVID-19 is now endemic and that the pandemic is over, Secretary Becerra just renewed the public health emergency for a twelfth time. The Pandemic is Over Act sends a loud and clear message to President Biden: The American people are tired of living in a perpetual state of emergency, and it is long overdue for Congress to take back the authorities granted under Article I of the Constitution. The Pandemic is Over Act would immediately terminate the COVID-19 public health emergency. Nothing in my bill ends title 42, despite the administration stating that it will. Let me repeat: Nothing in this bill ends title 42. The Biden administration alone controls title 42. That statute was written in 1944 before the authority of the public health emergency even existed. If the Biden administration chooses to end title 42 when the public health emergency ends without working with us to secure the border, then that is just another one of his failures to add to the list. To be clear, we support the ability to declare a public health emergency to address clear and serious public health threats. Maintaining these regulatory flexibilities during a public health emergency is crucial, but these authorities should only be used for limited periods of time based upon the particular circumstances and prevalence or immediacy of the public health threat. Now, it is time to rescind the President's emergency powers, and Congress can address the present and future needs that may arise with COVID-19. Since President Biden took office, we have seen the pandemic used to justify countless executive overreaches. The President has used the pandemic for one-size-fits-all vaccine mandates for healthcare workers, mask mandates, and eviction moratoriums. While ending the COVID-19 public health emergency will not relinquish all the President's power that has been used to make those decisions, it does make it more difficult to justify bypassing Congress to enact his policies. Finally, I want to address the arguments about our unwinding the public health emergency too quickly. Democrats had unified control and could have extended, or the administration could have undertaken rulemaking to unwind, the COVID-19 public health emergency. Congress is already working. We need to work together on extending a number of provisions tied to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Where are their bills that would extend or unwind these things? Where was the hearing on this last Congress if this was such an issue? Mr. Speaker, the pandemic is over. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 382, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 75, I call up the bill (H.R. 382) to terminate the public health emergency declared with respect to COVID-19, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the legislation and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 382.

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Balderson).

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 497, introduced by my good friend from South Carolina, Mr. Duncan. I strongly support this legislation, which would immediately repeal the Biden administration's vaccine mandates for all healthcare workers working in Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services-regulated facilities. CMS officials decided in November of 2021 to tell doctors, nurses, chefs, physical therapists, and anyone else working in the facility that sees Medicare and Medicaid patients that they needed to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or lose their job. This unprecedented, one-size-fits-all mandate came at a time in which healthcare workforce shortages are still challenging healthcare providers all over. This is the only such vaccine mandate in effect by CMS. This overreaching decision requires affected facilities to be 100 percent compliant or risk significant civil monetary penalties, losing payment on new patients, or even the ability to bill Medicare or Medicaid at all. More consequentially, this misguided policy was issued at a time in which the United States is facing perhaps the worst healthcare workforce shortages in history. In the long-term care industry alone, there are 210,000 fewer jobs now than at the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020. We have all read about and heard directly from constituents about the impact this policy had in someone's employment status. The forced choice between getting the jab or losing your job has undoubtedly contributed to an already depleted healthcare workforce nationally and will continue to threaten patient access to high-quality care. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this mandate, and I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I just want to clarify, Russia and Iran-- well, Iran is part of OPEC, so they are not the ones buying out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. As a matter of fact, President Biden went to OPEC to ask them to increase their production instead of doing American oil. Mr. Speaker, I also want to say, 2015--to finish the sentence--it was a Republican controlled Congress in 2015, it was also the Obama administration worked together in a bipartisan way to unleash American energy or give them a worldwide market for American energy, and when you threw in President Trump's administration and a regulatory environment that made sense, we had record production of energy. We did ship it throughout the world. We also had record low prices here in America. The problem we are facing today is because of President Biden and the Democrats in Congress' war on American oil. That is the problem we are here to address. The price of gasoline hit over $5 a gallon in the height of this war on oil, $4.80 a gallon in Kentucky when it was just over $2.20 when President Biden took office. American families are hurting because of this, small business owners are hurting because of this, and they continue to struggle. Instead of taking action to meaningfully unleash America's energy potential, President Biden opted to release supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. What we need to do is get back to unleashing American energy, not sending out of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Even worse, President Biden's abuse of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve has reduced our stockpile by more than 250 million barrels, jeopardizing our ability to respond to supply disruptions posed by natural disasters and other true emergencies. This includes selling millions of barrels of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to adversarial countries, including China. By prohibiting our strategic reserves from being sold to China, this legislation is a significant step toward restoring our energy security and providing needed relief for hardworking Americans. We have the ability to produce, we need to move forward, and we need to ban SPR from going to China and we need to move forward on American energy.

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 4978, State Offices of Rural Health Program Reauthorization Act. This program provides funding to connect small rural communities with State and Federal resources to develop long-term solutions to rural health programs that help improve access to care in underserved areas of our country. This legislation is a clean, 5-year reauthorization at currently authorized levels and will help to preserve the program's flexibility to meet State and local rural healthcare needs. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. MR. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I also would urge everyone, all of my colleagues, on a bipartisan basis to support this bill. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 4120, the Childhood Cancer STAR Reauthorization Act led by Mr. McCaul. This program at the National Institutes of Health is integral to the fight against childhood cancers and also helps inform how best to care for those who are childhood cancer survivors. The Childhood Cancer STAR Act, enacted in 2018, has been fully funded each year and has led to new standards of care for childhood cancer survivors, increased the ability for new childhood cancer research at NIH, and helped collect better data about prevalence of childhood cancers. This straight reauthorization, at currently reauthorized levels, also includes a report to Congress to make sure that researchers outside of NIH are able to capitalize on the work facilitated by the STAR Act. This bill passed the House by unanimous consent and has over 100 cosponsors in the House. I plan to support it today. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, it is hard to come to the floor of the House and talk about childhood cancer and not talk about a young lady that I knew when I was about 9 or 10 years old, Tam Hanback. Over the last probably 45, 46 years, I have thought about her often. Every time I see St. Jude's commercials, I think about her from our Sunday school class. If we had the technology then that we have today, she would probably be 58 years old, just like I am, but unfortunately, we didn't. So in honor of her, Tam Hanback, from Alabama, I will support this bill, and I encourage my friends to do so as well. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Brian Smith for his service to Kentucky's Second District as my director of economic development for more than a decade. Brian, a proud Western Kentucky University graduate, had served on my congressional team since I was first sworn into office in January 2009. Prior to joining my office, Brian had years of government service to Kentucky, including working for my predecessor, Congressman Ron Lewis, and former Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher. During Brian's first month in my congressional office, Brian helped lead my office's emergency response efforts after an ice storm hit Kentucky. He walked constituents through the FEMA process and directed them to federal resources to help with recovery. In addition to covering Green and Hardin counties for my congressional office, Brian guided constituents through the federal grant process and handled issues related to federal agencies, including U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, USDA Rural Development, and HUD. Brian also proudly served as a liaison to Fort Knox, working with both civilian and military leaders. Brian's extensive knowledge of Kentucky and passion for serving constituents made him a valuable asset to my team. I want to thank Brian for his service to Kentucky's Second District, and I wish him the best in the next chapter of his public service career.

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Emma White, who was my legislative assistant, for her service to Kentucky's Second District. Emma, a native of London, Kentucky, graduated from Western Kentucky University with degrees in Criminology, Arabic, and Political Science. After graduating from college, Emma moved to D.C. to work as a staff assistant in my Washington office. Emma's extensive knowledge of Kentucky and strong work ethic made her a valuable member of the team. After a brief hiatus as a legislative staffer for another congressional office, Emma rejoined my office as a legislative assistant. Her ability to excel in many subjects in college was evident in how she excelled in handling her diverse legislative portfolio, including education and labor, transportation and infrastructure, small business, and natural resources policy. As my education staffer and as a proud Hilltopper, Emma worked with her alma mater and other education institutions in my district. I want to thank Emma for her work for Kentucky's Second District through the multiple roles she held in my office. I wish her the best in the next chapter of her career.

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Ian Wilson, who was my legislative staffer, for his service to Kentucky's Second District. The Acton, Massachusetts native first started working for Kentucky's Second District as an intern in my D.C. Congressional office in the summer of 2018. The following year he returned to Capitol Hill to intern for Congressman Adam Kinzinger. In 2020, Ian graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with degrees in political science and Middle Eastern studies. Ian returned to my D.C. congressional office as a staff assistant in January 2022. In this role, he gave constituent tours, managed the U.S. flag order service, and communicated with constituents on policy being debated in Congress. Ian's team player attitude and strong work ethic made him a valuable member of the team. He was promoted to legislative correspondent and used his strong grasp on policy to assist me in responding to constituent inquiries quickly and thoroughly. I want to thank Ian for his work serving Kentucky's Second District as an intern, staff assistant, and legislative correspondent, and I wish him the best in the next chapter of his career.

Mr. GUTHRIE

Mr. GUTHRIE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Nick Ayers for his service to Kentucky's Second District. Prior to joining my D.C. congressional office, the Chesapeake, Virginia, native had great work experience in congressional offices. While he was working on his degree in Public Administration at George Mason University, Nick interned in Congressman Bruce Westerman's office. Following his college graduation, Nick joined Congresswoman Diane Black's office as staff assistant and worked his way up to legislative correspondent. In March 2019, I welcomed Nick to my team as a legislative correspondent. In this role, he did an excellent job effectively communicating to constituents and responding to their inquiries. His strong knowledge of policy earned him a promotion to legislative aide. Nick met with constituents and researched the issues in his portfolio, including veterans, postal services, science, space, technology, fisheries, and federal budget policy issues. I want to thank Nick for his work serving Kentucky's Second District as a legislative correspondent and a legislative aide. I wish him the best as he excels in this next chapter of his career on Capitol Hill.