Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Alaska (Mrs. Peltola).

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the House's lead upholsterer, Mike Dean--a master craftsman from Maryland's Fifth Congressional District whose work has touched the lives of every person who serves the House of Representatives. After nearly four decades of hard work on Capitol Hill, Mike recently announced his well-deserved retirement. If you have ever sat on a bench, chair, or sofa in the Capitol, you have benefited from Mike's steadfast commitment to his craft. To Mike, upholstery is an art as much as it is a trade. He and his colleagues do not cut corners. From the ``eight-way tie'' to the ``fox edge,'' Mike and his team have mastered traditional techniques that most people in their field have sacrificed to save time and money. He operates perhaps the most interesting contraption in the Capitol complex: a vintage horsehair picker from the 1930's. Most of the House's furniture contains horsehair that Mike has recycled and fluffed using the picker, and experts at the Smithsonian believe it is the only machine of its kind still in active use today. To reupholster just one of the beautiful, century-old Turkish chairs you see around the Capitol, it can take Mike and his team eighty hours of labor and forty pounds of horsehair. Unsurprisingly, the chairs remain just as comfortable today as I imagine they did in Speaker Joseph Cannon's time. Although modern techniques and materials would be easier to use, Mike knows that there is no substitute for quality and durability. As Members of Congress, we strive to uphold longstanding political and procedural norms and traditions to treat this institution with the reverence it deserves. Mike's work is not so different. He is committed to historical preservation and authenticity because he knows it is the only way to produce and maintain furniture worthy of adorning the People's House. For as long as the Capitol has stood, artisans like Mike have served as its custodians. For that, they will always be a part of its history. I ask all my colleagues to join me in thanking Mike Dean for his decades of diligent service and in wishing him a happy retirement.''

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I want to honor a remarkable constituent of Maryland's Fifth Congressional District who is beloved by me and many others on Capitol Hill: House of Representatives Barber Giuseppe Quattrone, more commonly known as `Joe Q.' After a rich career of 52 years, he recently announced his retirement. Joe has cut hair on the Hill for more than a fifth of American history. Indeed, he has worked in the Capitol five years longer than the most senior senator and more than ten years longer than the most senior House Member. From Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush to Congressional leaders like Speaker Tip O'Neal and Senator Ted Kennedy, those at the forefront of American politics have frequented Joe's barbershop in the Rayburn Building. Joe's story is an American story--and not just because of his impressive clientele. He grew up in Archi, Reggio Calabria, in Southern Italy under Mussolini's rule but dreamed of making it to America, just as his older brother had done. As fate would have it, America came to him. During the Second World War, Joe and his family would hide in local caves to escape the aerial bombing. When they emerged from the cave one morning in 1943, they found a U.S. Navy armada that stretched all the way to the horizon. Joe went down to the beach and waved an American flag to welcome the liberators. In time, Joe would be able to call that flag his own. A few years after the war, Joe joined his brother in America where he quickly became a naturalized citizen. I first met him in 1966 when Joe helped me campaign for State Senate in Maryland, and I was grateful for his assistance and his support. Later, in 1970, he began his work as a barber for the House of Representatives. His barbershop has served as an oasis for Democrats and Republicans alike ever since--one of the few places free of partisanship left on the Hill. Joe's clients didn't come to talk politics; they came to enjoy his wit and geniality. Joe's story is not just a paragon of the American dream but also a testament to the dedicated support staff who serve behind the scenes to help Congress function. Although they do not draft legislation or vote on amendments, their work is no less important. Whether cleaning the Capitol, serving food, or cutting hair, they do their jobs so we can do ours representing our constituents. I ask all my colleagues to join me in congratulating Joe on his well- deserved retirement and in thanking him and the many other support workers who enrich our lives here on Capitol Hill. Although Members of Congress often have trouble reaching consensus, we can all agree that we will miss seeing Joe roam the halls.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Today will be the culmination of the meeting of promises that President Biden made to the American people resulting in some 7 to 8 million more people voting for President Biden than the incumbent President. My colleagues, we have just heard from the leader of the party of: You are on your own. The leader who just spoke voted against the American Rescue Plan that put money in the pockets of American families, put American children back to school, and resulted in our not wearing masks today by--with some exceptions--putting vaccine in arms. The leader who just spoke voted ``no,'' as did every one of his colleagues. They said ``no'' to money to help families not fall through the cracks, to help them afford their groceries, to help them afford to pay their mortgage, and to send their kids to school. They voted ``no'' to make sure those vaccines were in arms. They voted ``no'' to help small businesses, restaurants, and others be lifted up. The party of: You are on your own, America. And yes, when they came to office, what did they try to do in 2017? Repeal healthcare support for the American people. We are doing the opposite. We plead guilty. The leader of the Republican Party who just spoke voted ``no'' on the infrastructure bill to respond to building roads and bridges and to making sure they are maintained and safe; to respond to broadband to make sure that rural areas are connected, and with airports to make sure we had a grid that made us competitive. The gentleman who just spoke voted ``no.'' As far as the CHIPS bill, the gentleman talked about China. China was lobbying against the CHIPS bill. The minority leader voted ``no'' on the CHIPS bill, which was a bill to make America competitive and create hundreds of thousands of jobs. That was bipartisan in the House by a small degree and in the Senate, as well. But the minority leader voted ``no.'' So I must say that I am not shocked that he is voting ``no'' on this bill, which is aimed at helping Americans with their healthcare, which is one of the greatest reasons for inflation. I am not surprised that he mischaracterized the reaction on this side of the aisle when he said gas prices were high and haven't come down. In fact, in the last 40 days, they have come down 20 percent. The gentleman is shaking his head, no, no, they haven't. I don't know where he is buying gas, but they have come down from $5 to $4, and in some cases less than $4. Is that too high? Yes, it is. Should we be concerned about that? Yes, we should be. We passed two bills. One was a bill to make sure that we didn't have price gouging. No American wants to see price gouging. The minority leader voted ``no'' on that bill. We offered another bill that dealt with food and fuel prices and to try to make sure that we have delivery systems and supply chains that worked. The minority leader and his colleagues voted ``no''--not everyone. We had a bill on this floor that tried to help and is going to help millions of veterans who had been exposed to toxic burn pits--cancer, heart disease, and lung disease. The minority leader, it will not shock you, voted ``no'' to help veterans. We had another bill on the floor to make sure that we could preclude and try to help women who had violent acts committed against them. It may not surprise you that the leader of the party of: You are on your own voted ``no'' on the Violence Against Women Act. It is time to say ``yes,'' yes to the people, to focus on people and not on the politics of 87 days from now. That is what this is about: politics pure--well, impure--and simple. It is time for us to say ``yes'' to bringing prices down. Now, I want to add just a couple of things, and I want to talk about the four pieces of legislation that are changing America for the better. He wrings his hands about the awful situation that America is in. In January of 2021, before Joe Biden became President of the United States, unemployment was 6.4 percent. During the course of the Trump administration, we had lost 2.8 million jobs; a net loss after 4 years--net loss. Over the last 18 months, we have created 9.5 million jobs. That is almost a 12 million-job turnaround, to the best, to the good, to the appreciation of ability of Americans to get jobs. And he mentioned something about gas prices. Are they high? They are. Let me tell you when they were higher. In July of 2008 they were higher. Hear me. Go check the records. $4.14, which in real dollars today would be $5.62 under George Bush. Are prices too high? They are. Do we want to bring them down? Yes, we do. That is why we fought price gouging on food and fuel, both of which the minority leader voted against. As I said, unemployment in January was 6.4 percent. It is now 3.5 percent; halved. Is inflation too high? It is. We passed a bill. Some people said, Well, that is going to cause inflation. What it caused was people didn't fall through the cracks. They were able to pay their bills. They were able to send their kids back to school. That is what it did. That is what the American people are going to remember, that the Democratic Party was there for them and the Republican Party was not. Then we talk about this money that we are going to give to IRS, which has been reduced 20 percent under the Republican leadership when they were in charge. What did they reduce? Enforcement. Why? Because they didn't want their big, fat cat people to be caught not paying their fair share. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. America, you are paying a higher price because some people pay nothing. You don't think that is fair, and we don't think it is fair. And, yes, we want to make sure the rules are followed. In order to have the rules followed, you need referees. And when you have 100-some-odd million taxpayers, you need a number of people to find that out and make sure that you obey the law. Yes, we support that. We believe in facts, and we believe in truth. There is a Republican leader--no longer a leader--who believed in facts and truth, and Liz Cheney was fired from her position because she told the truth and confronted a former President who promotes lying. Madam Speaker, when President Biden took office with a Democratic Congress, we promised the American people results. We are delivering. We promised we would make progress on the issues where progress has been stalled for far too long. We promised, in short, responsible government that gets things done ``for the people.'' People, not politics. We promised responsible government that puts the needs of our people over politics. Over the past 18 months, many have questioned whether that would even be possible. Our country is too divided, they said, to achieve big goals and enact really consequential legislation that benefits the American people and our economy. Madam Speaker, 9.5 million new jobs in 18 months. Over these same 18 months, however, our Democratic majorities and the Biden-Harris administration have proven those doubters wrong. The legislation we will pass today and send to the President's desk is the fourth leg of a table of support and opportunity Democrats have built for the American people. The first leg was the American Rescue Plan. That law put more than 200 million shots in arms and made it safe again for workers to go back to their jobs, for students and teachers to go back to school, and for entrepreneurs to take risks and invest in their businesses. It worked. Since then, we have seen record job growth. As I have said, 9.5 million jobs have been created since last January. That is the largest number of jobs created in 18 months in the history of our country and the lowest rate of employment in half a century. Only Republicans could call that failure, because it wasn't their success. More Americans are working today than at any point in our history. We also cut child poverty in half. Perhaps that is not seen as a success by the other side of the aisle. Next, we brought Democrats and Republicans together in a historic effort to enact the bipartisan infrastructure plan, which is already rebuilding roads, bridges, transit systems, seaports, and airports in every corner of our country, after President Trump said in 2016 that he was going to do a trillion dollars. In 2017 it didn't happen. In 2018 it didn't happen. In 2019 it didn't happen. The Republicans were in charge of the House, Senate, and the Presidency of the United States. Inattention and disrepair. For years, we heard people talking about ``infrastructure weeks.'' Do you remember that? The minority leader and others: We are going to have an infrastructure week. It never happened. Last November, we put people over politics and got it done. That decision was so successful that even many of the Republicans who voted against it are cutting ribbons that will facilitate commerce and improve the lives of their constituents, even though they didn't support the bill. One side effect of the pandemic was to magnify the cracks in our economic system and our reliance on the unreliable in our supply chains. Any family trying to buy a new car or trying to budget for a new appliance in the last year or two understands what that means. And by the way, on inflation, Europe didn't have the rescue plan. Asia didn't have the rescue plan. Other nations didn't have the rescue plan. Guess what, Madam Speaker? All of them are experiencing inflation, half of them greater inflation than is present in the United States of America. Does that mean we have to stop our efforts to reduce it? Of course not. Is it hurting our people? It is. Are empty shelves on grocery stores troubling? They are. Rather than blame one another, perhaps we ought to look at the real villain, and that was the pandemic. Earlier this week, President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, the third leg of our table of support and opportunity, into law. That bipartisan legislation will ease inflation by bringing manufacturing and sources of critical components and products back to the United States so that we make them in America, and our workers make it in America. It means that we won't cede the next century of innovation to China or anybody else. China--let me repeat--lobbied against that bill, and almost every Republican voted against that bill, just like China wanted. Instead, American labor and American innovation will continue to lead the world in research, innovation, and advanced manufacturing and continue to draw the brightest minds from around the world. That also will mean lower costs for American families. The CHIPS and Science Act was another significant piece of legislation under the Make It In America agenda. It is hard to think that somebody would vote against all four of these bills--a promise made to America and a promise that they relied on and they voted for in an election--not a poll, not a survey, and not a focus group--in an election. That is because it gets to the heart of what government is supposed to do: help provide our workers, businesses, and people with the tools and confidence to make it in America. Today, we are going to send to President Biden the legislation that represents the fourth leg of our table of support and opportunity: the Inflation Reduction Act. As its name suggests, it will further help lower costs for Americans. First, it will lower healthcare costs by extending the cost-saving premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act that we included in the American Rescue Plan, which has gotten us to 92 percent coverage in America. And, very frankly, it would be higher if there weren't States who had refused to provide the Medicaid opportunity for citizens who fell in the middle of the income spectrum. We included that, of course, but our Republican friends in the United States Senate would not agree to it. This bill will provide for quality, affordable healthcare to almost every person in the United States, irrespective of their income. The national uninsured rate has fallen, as I said, to an all-time low of 8 percent, with 5.2 million Americans gaining coverage since the start of the Biden-Harris administration--in large part due to having made those cost-saving premium tax credits more widely available. My understanding is our Republican friends are going to vote against this bill. Millions of people will be unable to afford their insurance. That is extended by 3 years. Next, it brings down the cost of prescription drugs by allowing Medicare for the first time ever--but not uniquely because the Veterans Affairs does that, and it makes sense--to negotiate lower prices from manufacturers. Democrats have been working for decades to achieve this goal. As I mentioned at the outset of my remarks, our majority is delivering on that promise. The bill also caps the cost of insulin at $35 a month. It would have been extended to everybody, but our Republican friends refuse to support that alternative, so it is only going to apply to Medicare at the beginning. We are not going to stop. We also capped the cost at $2,000 a year for seniors on Medicare. We want to extend that to the private market as well, and we will work on that. Madam Speaker, this is a historic achievement that will save lives and allow more seniors to access life-saving and life-sustaining medications. Additionally, the Inflation Reduction Act is the largest single investment addressing the climate crisis that any nation has ever made. I don't know how it was at your place, but with temperatures of 95, 96, 97, and 98 degrees and high humidity, we have a climate crisis. The deniers have undermined our ability to respond. This bill responds. It responds consistent with the desires of the American people. It will bring down the cost of energy for Americans by investing in developing and deploying cleaner, more sustainable energy technologies like electric vehicles and solar panels. At the same time, we are doing it without raising the deficit. In fact, the legislation reduces the deficit by closing loopholes so the largest corporations with profits over a billion dollars will pay a minimum tax rate of just 15 percent. The rate is 21 percent on corporations, but if they get over a billion dollars, they are going to pay at least 15 percent. Why? Because we protect their shipping lanes with our Navy. We protect their roads that they transport goods across. They get a lot from their taxes, just as we all do. Maybe that is why the Republicans don't like this bill. That is well below the regular 21 percent tax, as I said. We do it all while ensuring that individuals and families earning less than $400,000 a year won't see a single tax increase. Let me repeat that. Nobody making less than $400,000 a year will see a tax increase. Those four legs: the rescue plan, the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS bill, and now this reduction in inflation act will provide for growth, opportunity, and competitiveness for our economy and for our people. There is, however, another critical piece of legislation that helps keep that table sturdy. Let us recap this list of major enactments: Getting Americans back to work from the pandemic. That is what we did. Securing long-overdue infrastructure investments. That is what we did. Easing the inflation by helping American companies build more chips, semiconductors, and other critical components here instead of importing them from unreliable countries. Over 100,000 new jobs. That is what we did. Reducing inflation by lowering healthcare prescription drug and energy costs while combating the climate crisis. That is what we did. We will keep on doing it for the American people in the next Congress. In addition to all these, the Democrat-led House has passed many, many more important bills that have yet to be considered in the Senate--blocked by Republicans. Today, with the Inflation Reduction Act, we will answer any who still doubt whether we can deliver on our promises. Today, Democrats and this administration are showing that we can and will continue to put people over politics and ensure that our people can make it in America. Vote for America. Vote for the American people. Vote for this bill.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Chair, in September of 2020, as the El Dorado fire raged through California, Big Bear hotshot firefighter Charlie Morton said to his loved ones what he always said when there was a fire in the area: ``I've got to go protect my mountains.'' Hotshots like Morton serve in the Vanguard. They are tasked with making the area safe for other firefighters to operate. As one hotshot explained: ``We do not get to turn around and walk away.'' I am hopeful that the Congress today does not turn around and walk away. This bill is a step to deal with the extraordinary consequences of climate change that is afflicting our country. Yes, it is the West of our country, but it is afflicting us all, in particularly, the West. Firefighter Morton knew his work was extremely dangerous, but he did it anyway because he believed in the importance of protecting our Nation's forests and the communities they sustain. On September 17, 2020, backed into a corner by the encroaching flames, Morton laid down his life in defense of that conviction. It was a noble sacrifice but one that no one should have to make. Much like Morton and his fellow hotshots, America cannot afford to turn around and walk away from the issue of wildfires. We must do everything we can to ensure that other brave firefighters do not have to give the full measure of their devotion as Morton did. That is why I am proud to serve as co-chair of the Congressional Fire Service Caucus and to bring this Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act to the floor today. Exacerbated, as we know, by the climate crisis, parts of the American West are experiencing the worst drought in 1,200 years, and this is fueling deadly and damaging wildfires affecting millions of Americans. These disasters, Madam Chair, tear through communities and inflict untold destruction and grief. This issue doesn't just affect those living in the West, however. As I have said, the effects of drought and wildfires cost our country tens of billions of dollars each year. We all pay a price; not the price that Morton paid, but we pay a price. To my friends on the other side of the aisle who constantly deride our attempts to address the climate crisis as too expensive, I would remind them that the cost of inaction in the form of more frequent, more severe fires, droughts, and other natural disasters is far greater. From time to time, I quote a former Governor of our State, Ted Agnew, who, in his inaugural address in 1967, on the east front of the capitol in Annapolis, where I was just entering as a new State senator, said: ``The cost of failure far exceeds the price of progress.'' That is true here. We must not fail, and we must respond. And we must respond effectively. This legislation will help us prevent and fight future wildfires by making investments to support our firefighting response and to protect vulnerable communities from wildfire. This bill, for instance, would establish a minimum basic pay of roughly $20 an hour for wildland firefighters and ensure they have access to other benefits, such as at least 1 week of mental health leave. Additionally, this legislation will authorize a 10-year national wildfire response plan, building on actions already taken by the Biden administration, and it will expand the role of Tribes and conservation corps programs in reducing wildfire risks. This bill, Madam Chair, also includes $500 million in Federal funding to programs to preserve key Colorado River reservoirs, an absolutely critical objective for us all. Tens of millions of Americans rely on that water. All of these provisions will help us build on the progress we made with the fire and drought protection measures, including the bipartisan infrastructure law, which included close to $17 billion for wildfire and drought prevention and response. As an aside, Madam Chair, I am told some say this is an authorizing bill. It is an authorizing bill. That is regular order. It will be our responsibility to then appropriate the funds that are necessary to carry out the objectives of this bill, and I hope we can do so in a bipartisan way. I thank House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva for his leadership and Mr. Neguse, the ranking member, as well, for the work that they have done. Whether they agree or not, there has been joint work on this bill. I thank Chairs David Scott, Frank Pallone, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and Carolyn Maloney for their committees' contributions. We can take meaningful action to address these wildfires and drought by voting ``yes'' on this bill. Madam Chair, although Charlie Morton perished in the El Dorado fire, his courageous efforts and those of his fellow firefighters made it possible to extinguish, ultimately, the flames. They were able to protect Morton's mountains, including a pristine meadow now named in his memory. They did their part to defend our forest and our communities. Today, Madam Chair, we must do our part.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. This is, of course, an emotional debate. Some have talked about fear, and they instill fear in the process. As Mr. Nadler has pointed out, no weapons are taken away. A number of Members on the other side of the aisle have gotten up and said this is an unconstitutional bill. Yet, from 1994 to 2004, that bill was tested in the courts. None of those courts found that unconstitutional. In the Heller case, which has been quoted over and over again, a very simple statement was made by that superliberal Antonin Scalia. He said, ``Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.'' From Blackstone through the 19th century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever for whatever purposes. One indication of that, of course, is that we have a ban on machine guns in America. Now, one could answer, ``Well, they are not in common use.'' That is correct, because they are banned. Mr. Speaker, 67 percent of Americans support an assault weapon ban. Fifty-three percent, over half, strongly support, and another 14 percent somewhat support, for a total of 67 percent. That is in a poll by Morning Consult on May 25, 2022. There was another poll by Pew in September 2021 that said that 63 percent of Americans support it. In both polls, over 60 percent of Americans, over two-thirds of Americans, think this action makes sense. I am sure the Founders, as they were discussing the Second Amendment, debated whether we ought to have mass rapid-fire weapons covered by the Second Amendment. They had no idea. Such weapons certainly didn't exist, and they acted within the framework of the times in which they lived. Mr. Speaker, Congress must take action today to protect all Americans from dangerous and deadly assault weapons. If we do so, we will still be the country that has the most weapons per capita in the world, more weapons than people, which you would seem to think, therefore, we ought to be the least dangerous nation if the premise that the more people who are armed, the less crime we will have. That seems a little counterintuitive to me. The weapons that we are talking about are able to kill large numbers rapidly, used to kill 6 adults and 20 children at Sandy Hook, used to kill 61 people in Las Vegas, used to kill 19 students and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Texas, just a few weeks ago. From Aurora to Orlando, San Bernardino, Buffalo, El Paso, and Highland Park, they have been mentioned today, and we ought to mention them on a regular basis to remind us. We have watched assault weapons inflict mass destruction in our communities time and time again. Not only do these weapons claim the lives of innocent civilians, but they frequently kill members of law enforcement who have worked to keep their communities safe. That is why law enforcement largely, not all of them, support this bill because they see that as one of the greatest dangers to their lives. Indeed, one study by the Violence Policy Center found that nearly a quarter of all the police officers killed in the line of duty between 2016 and 2017 were killed by the same firearms that would be outlawed under this ban. Of those police officers killed by assault weapons, almost a quarter of them were wearing body armor that was nevertheless penetrated by a bullet. These types of attacks and police killings are not inevitable. We know there is a better way. We know that because these attacks became far less common when an overwhelmingly bipartisan coalition-- this was not some Democratic bill. It was a bipartisan bill. I will speak more to that in just a second. They came together in 1994 to pass a ban, including 46 House Republicans. That measure had support from law enforcement and from both Democratic and Republican Presidents, including Ronald Reagan. After Republicans were in control of Congress, they allowed that ban to expire in 2004. Mass shootings tripled. Today, I am pleased to bring Mr. Cicilline's bill to the floor to reinstate--reinstate--a bill that has been taken to court already. This legislation would prohibit the possession, manufacture, sale, and transfer of semiautomatic assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. It does not take any of those away from any citizen. To be clear, we are not undermining the Second Amendment. I am for a person having the right to have a weapon not only to hunt but in his home, in his business, to protect himself and his family, and, where authorized, to carry upon his person--where authorized. This bill will not lead to confiscation of firearms, notwithstanding the fear that has been expressed, of weapons that were legally purchased before its enactment. However, it will set safety requirements. Doesn't that make sense? We have safety requirements for our cars. Doesn't it make sense to have safety requirements for weapons that can kill? Additionally, this legislation will provide funding for buyback programs for those who would prefer to be responsible neighbors and community members and relinquish their assault weapons voluntarily. But, of course, our NRA friends have this slippery slope concept that anything we do, even banning cop killer bullets, goes too far because of the next step and the next step and the next step. These commonsense reforms will save the lives of law enforcement officers and innocent Americans across the country. The Speaker said that we are going to bring additional community safety legislation to the floor to support our police because as much as the Republicans would like to say we Democrats are for defunding the police, it is absolutely incorrect and false, and they know it. Why do they know it? Because we bring appropriation bills to this floor which fund the police, not only at the national level but at the State and local level as well, which gives lie to that assertion. Are there some people who used that comment? Look in the mirror, folks. There are some people on your side of the aisle who say absurd things. There are many people on both sides of the aisle who say, ``Let's support and protect police.'' This is a way to do it. Today, we have an opportunity to put votes behind our words and show who is ready to do exactly that. Now, I hope my Republican friends and Democratic friends and my fellow Americans will listen to the quote that I am about to give from a President that used to be revered on the Republican side of the aisle but is now not looked at as such a reverential figure. Ronald Reagan said this: ``Listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of these weapons.'' A moment of silence is not enough. I should have counted how many moments of silence we have had on this floor this year and lamented the loss of children and the elderly and everybody in between because of a weapon that is designed to kill a lot of people quickly. No more moments of silence. Let's act. Vote ``yes.'' Pass this bill.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I regret that we find ourselves in this position of being divided on this bill. This, like every piece of legislation we pass, is not perfect. And very frankly, if we made a judgment on every piece of legislation that we considered that I don't like some other bill, we would be in real trouble. And maybe we are in real trouble. There was a manifesto put out by Xi and Putin when they met some months ago. Essentially what that manifesto said is the dictatorships, the authoritarian regimes are going to win because democracies cannot make decisions, they are too divided, they are too slow. This is what they were thinking about. This is a good piece of legislation. It is not the piece of legislation that I would have written, but it is a good piece of legislation that does good things for America, and more importantly, good things for our competitive status in the world. Mr. Speaker, the pandemic has taught us many lessons. One of those lessons, reinforced by Vladimir Putin's criminal war against Ukraine, is that we cannot and must not rely on the unreliable. Let me repeat that. America must not rely on the unreliable. We saw from the pandemic how reliable we were for so many things we needed to meet the crisis of the pandemic. The minority leader, who told us all that he was going to urge all of his colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill, talked about inflation. One of the reasons we have inflation is because we have shortages. That is what drives prices up when demand is high and supply is low. You don't have to be an economist to get that lesson. This bill seeks to address that issue because as we all know, chips are ubiquitous in almost everything that we have that has anything to do with electronics. Every day, Americans see examples of why we must take steps to make our supply chains more secure and more reliable. This deals with that. Yet my Republican friends urge a ``no'' vote, not because they think this bill is bad--they may--but because they don't like another bill. That is what Xi and Putin are counting on. That is what the autocrats and authoritarians around the world are counting on, that democracies come to a halt. Because as democracies they debate and they differ, and they can't make decisions even when a significant number of the minority party is for this bill. One-third of the United States Senate Republicans voted for this bill because they thought it was good for competition between us and China and between us and everybody else. That is why it is so sad for me to come here seeing this division on a partisan basis because of another bill. And so America, if we don't prevail on this bill, will see our competitive edge squandered because as the Secretary of Commerce says, there are a lot of countries that are going to put money on the table and say come to me. I am ready. You build your factory here. You build your chips here. And if America needs chips, if our manufacturers need chips, well, they can come to us. Not good. Good for Putin. Good for Xi. Not for us. We must not rely on hostile foreign competitors to supply critical components that sustain America's manufacturing base. Chips are at the heart of that. That is what this bill is about. That is why we bellied up to the bar. That is why we are putting a lot of money on the table. This is not the reconciliation bill. This is about America. It is not about Republicans or Democrats. This is about America, American workers, American competitiveness, American manufacturers, American technology. I thank the chair for the extraordinary investment she has led in making our research and development compete with China in a way that we will win. And if we win, our workers and our people will win. Microchips. In 2022, microchips are in nearly every product, as I said, from phones to cars to children's toys. At the same time, advanced semiconductors are becoming more and more integral to high- tech, advanced manufacturing processes, making them critical to our economy. Yes, we can wait, maybe until tomorrow, maybe until January when the minority party takes over--so they think. Maybe we will wait until then. Or maybe that won't happen, and we will wait 24 months and Xi and Putin will be saying, hey, yeah, you go to it. They are lobbying against this bill. They are lobbying, paying to defeat this bill. Do not be their handmaiden. America needs a unified Congress if it is going to compete. Indivisible, one Nation. One of the best ways for us to ease inflation and bring costs down for American workers and consumers is to remove these supply pressures by making more of these critical components here in our country instead of relying on importing them from abroad. That is what we heard over and over and over again from the United States Senate. We are making materials here at home, creating jobs, and streamlining our supply chains with this bill. This bipartisan legislation--17 Republicans, one-third of the United States Senate Republicans voted for this bill. This bipartisan legislation, the CHIPS and Science Act, which will always be for me the Make It in America Act, represents the most significant investment in easing inflation and promoting American manufacturing and innovation that we have seen in a generation. This is a Make It in America bill. Every time I say that to an audience, no matter how red or conservative or how blue or how liberal, they all shake their head, yes, we need to make it in America. That is what this bill is about. While it is not as broad as I and others in the House had hoped for, the bill, nevertheless, achieves so many of our goals. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and say no. It makes good on promises that our majority made to the American people to govern responsibly and build a post-pandemic economy that works better for more Americans. But this was a bill that was fashioned in a bipartisan way. Nobody said at the time, well, it will be for this bill if we like every one of the bills you are supporting--what a negative way to perceive legislation to approach how you vote. This legislation contains substantial new investment in science, research, and innovation--again, thank you, Eddie Bernice Johnson-- which will help us maintain our competitive edge, commercialize new discoveries, and train our workforce to succeed in the global economy. The investments we are making in this legislation are not only a major victory for American businesses and workers; they achieve a big part of the Make It In America plan, which I have talked about since 2010. That is, making supply chains more resilient. When we make microchips and semiconductors in America, more of our workers and entrepreneurs will surely ``make it'' in America. Across America, we are now observing Made in America Week. Isn't that ironic? This is Made in America Week, yet we have a bill on the floor which invests in making it in America. The minority leader said on this floor: I am urging all of my Republican colleagues to vote ``no.'' Surely not because they are against making it in America but because they don't like some other bill, and they are going to stamp their feet and have a tantrum about the other bill. This legislation now truly looks forward in ensuring that our workers and businesses will continue having opportunities to make it in America long into the future. This is not about today. It is not about tomorrow. It is about the next year, the next 10 years, the next generation. That is what this bill is about. I plead with my colleagues, don't reject this bill based on a political perception of it. Mr. Speaker, I again thank Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson for her leadership on the House's similar legislation, as well as all the Members who had policies that were incorporated into this bill. Today, we have a chance to deliver our promise to enact a major priority from President Biden's economic agenda, and I would suggest a major economic agenda of Republicans in the United States Senate, as articulated by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. I hope some across the aisle will still vote for this bill as their Republican colleagues in the Senate did and as they had signaled they would do for a long time. The politics changed, but the challenge we have has not, and the reality has not. Let us not lose this opportunity. It is disappointing that some in this House have decided to whip against this bill because of its leadership's opposition to the agreement announced yesterday in the Senate to move forward with the Inflation Reduction Act. Whether you like that bill or not, do not pay the price of this bill. Do not pay the price of setting our competition with others aside. One would hope that all of us would be both for investment in American competitiveness and for reducing inflation and the deficit. Sadly, that seems not to be the case. Nevertheless, I hope we will have a bipartisan vote today on this bill. Let's come together to make our supply chain stronger, protect our national security, invest in our innovation-driven economy, and advantage American workers so they can make it in America. Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues: We talk about the loyal opposition. The loyal opposition need not be loyal to the other party. It does need to be loyal to the country.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I have three daughters. They are all adults. They are all amazed that we are here debating this issue. The ranking member said, me too; obviously, for different reasons. In 1965, the Supreme Court--long before any of the present Justices had these theories about what due process is and is not--said that women had a constitutional right and, in addition, men, to seek services related to family planning. Madam Speaker, women's rights are under assault in America. From the very beginning, of course, women were second-class citizens until we radically, in the beginning of the last century, decided, oh, well, women are part of America and we are going to let them vote. And successively, we have taken steps to treat women equally. The Supreme Court's extremist Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned 49 years of legal precedent and erased decades of progress toward women's equality. This bill deals with 57 years of constitutional law, since 1965, when Griswold was decided 7-2. It was not a controversial opinion with the American people nor, frankly, is this bill controversial, of whatever faith you may be. Not only did Republican-appointed Justices strip women of their constitutional right to access safe, legal abortions, they also opened the door for lawmakers to restrict women's ability to make reproductive healthcare decisions. Justice Thomas, of course, as all of us know, issued a radical concurring opinion that called for a reconsideration of landmark legal precedents, one of which we are dealing with today, Griswold v. Connecticut, as I said, decided in 1965, which established Americans' constitutional right to contraception. Birth control allows women and their partners to make essential decisions about their health and their lives, including whether to have children and start a family. That is the consensus in America, overwhelmingly. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has put all forms of contraception in jeopardy with this decision. Now, some say, No, it doesn't. But Justice Thomas points out that the rationale of Dobbs is equally applicable from his perspective and, in my opinion, from his perspective, he is probably right, for himself and for radical members of the Court. Restricting contraceptives means undermining women's health, personal privacy, and bodily autonomy. Now, there are many authoritarian regimes in the world that don't take any consideration into the rights we have over our own bodies. Madam Speaker, we need to do everything we can here in Congress to ensure that all Americans have access to safe, reliable contraceptive care. That is why I am pleased to bring this bill to the floor. And I thank Kathy Manning for her leadership on the Right to Contraception Act. I also want to thank Representatives Williams, Jacobs, and Craig, as well as Lizzie Fletcher, who just spoke, for their leadership on this bill. I am grateful to them for standing up on this issue, as well as to Chairman Pallone, for moving quickly to advance this bill through the Energy and Commerce Committee. This legislation will enshrine the constitutional rights established by Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird in Federal statute, ensuring that Americans can access contraceptive care legally wherever they live. As I said at the beginning, my three daughters are amazed that this legislation is on the floor; amazed that there would be a premise that somehow the Constitution did not guarantee to my three daughters the right to make these decisions and not all of us. This is about freedom. This is about individual integrity. And this vote will show the American people where Members stand on this question of whether it should continue to be legal for people in this country to pursue family planning as they perceive they want to do. So let's vote ``yes'' to promote women's health. Let's vote ``yes'' to prevent further restrictions on women's basic rights to privacy and autonomy. Let's vote ``yes'' for freedom. There is a lot of talk about freedom, right up until the time one decides to restrict that freedom, and then it is okay. I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' to protect the Constitution, the constitutional precedents, and freedom.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Scalise for yielding. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed, as usual, to 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. I reiterate that because that's 2 hours earlier than the usual meeting, but we have a lot of business to do. So the House on Wednesday and Thursday will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, the scheduled last day of the session before the August break, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. Next week, pending action of the Senate, hopefully, the House will consider the CHIPS Plus legislation to combat inflation by easing supply chain bottlenecks and semiconductors that are critical components in everything from cars to dishwashers to small electronics. Essentially, all of that, so many things that we use, rely on having chip presence. That will help lower costs for Americans and increase supplies. This bill also will authorize a generational shift in research and innovation in America, helping ensure the next big ideas will start here, and, importantly, stay here. The House will also consider H.R. 5118, the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act. All of us have seen the awful drought and wildfires that are occurring in the West and in other parts of the country, actually. A package of bills aimed at helping those living in Western States meet the challenges of fire and drought exacerbated by the climate crisis will be in that legislation. It would save lives, property, farms, and businesses from damage and destruction from fire and extreme drought. The House will also consider, Mr. Speaker, Representative Kildee's bill, the Susan Muffley Act, to restore retirement benefits for over 20,000 hardworking Delphi salaried employees. That is a bipartisan bill. We will also consider Representative Quigley's H.R. 263, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, which would ban the private ownership of big cats and bring an end to the harmful cub petting industry in an effort to enhance the safety of our communities. You may not think about this, but law enforcement has indicated this is a significant issue for them because they are the ones that are called in to handle it. This is an effort to enhance the safety of our communities and protect first responders and safeguard these wild animals. The other reason it is on is because the Senate has asked, and I think there is a possibility that they will pass this through their unanimous consent process. Representative Jayapal's bill, H.R. 3771, the South Asian Heart Health Awareness and Research Act, will also be on the floor to raise awareness regarding the alarming rate of heart disease in the South Asian community and invest in reversing this trend. Lastly, I would say that we are going to have Representative Liz Cheney's H.R. 4040, the advancing telehealth beyond COVID-19 Act, which would further extend critical telehealth policies implemented during the pandemic, while also making it easier for seniors, especially those in rural areas, to access emergency healthcare technology. Additionally, Mr. Speaker, the House may consider public safety legislation, including legislation marked up yesterday by the House Judiciary Committee with a focus, as well, on accountability in terms of enforcement. The House will consider bills under suspension of the rules, of course. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business today. As always, additional legislative items are possible, particularly in this last week for us of our planned session prior to the August break. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Republican whip for yielding the time.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen for his question. Of course, we are hearing rumors all the time and press reports all the time about what may happen. I think most of us don't know actually what will happen. But to speculate, we clearly on our side of the aisle, and, obviously, there is discussion that continues in the Senate about taking some parts of the reconciliation bill that can be agreed upon by sufficient numbers to pass it through reconciliation. If something does happen, and it doesn't happen next week and it happens the following week when we will not be here, then we may well have to come back. I tell the gentleman the reason for that is it may well deal with the Affordable Care Act and the premium subsidies that were included in the American Recovery Plan and then further extended in the Build Back Better Act. The reason that is important is because the insurance companies will be setting prices in September and maybe as late as October. In order to price their product properly, they will need to know what we are going to do. Now, with respect to the gentleman's--and everybody's interested in this, of course. The gentleman asked the question, I think, that everybody wants to know: Are we going to come back in August? I don't know the answer to that, but I will tell you this--and you and I have discussed this before--one of the reasons we are leaving next week and the week thereafter is because we have a lot of people with young children. We see them on the floor all the time. Of course, schools now are going back earlier than they used to. When I was in school in the 1800s, schools went back after Labor Day. Now, as you know, we have schools going back as early as the middle of August. Therefore, what we have tried to do is have 2 weeks that Members will have to be with their families on vacation. So my expectation is if we have to come back that we will not come back during the first 2 weeks. That would be from my perspective, and I don't want to guarantee that, but I feel pretty strongly about that. I am telling our Members that, and I want to respond publicly, but we may have to come back in August, again, because if the Senate passes language, if it has an impact on ACA, then we need to let the insurance companies know, not as a favor to them but as a favor to our constituents, so the pricing of their product will be more affordable.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. We are all very concerned about inflation, and one of the things that I talked about in the Affordable Care Act, a significant cost for Americans is their health insurance, and that bill is designed specifically to help them with the costs that they are incurring. But I would point out to the gentleman: Gas prices, which are a significant part of inflation, have come down 36 days in a row, have come down over half a dollar in most areas of the country, and so we are making some progress, but not enough. We passed a bill, of course, through this House which talked about price gouging. I don't know that anybody is for price gouging. Obviously, how to define price gouging is not simple, but having said that, I think certainly Americans want to make sure that they aren't gouged because they have to have a product. We have also passed the act related to food and fuel to help with supply lines, to help with competition and help consumers bring their food prices down and gasoline prices by, for instance, helping out in the Midwest with E-15 being available, which is a cheaper price. The gentleman is correct. We have and we are dealing with inflationary issues. In fact, hopefully, the CHIPS bill is going to pass the Senate. Hopefully, we are going to pass it here, and it will have other items involved in it, hopefully dealing with manufacturing. I have an agenda that I think the gentleman has heard me talk about probably ad nauseam, Make It In America. I believe we ought to make things in America, and in doing so, help bring prices down because we will have supply availability here. I don't know if the gentleman has heard me use a phrase, we need to stop relying on the unreliable. I think the gentleman has made some of those comments himself. I also want to say that there is a lot of, in my opinion, political assertion of the fact that this administration has caused inflation, which I think is completely without any factual support. In fact, although clearly inflation is unacceptably high at 9.1 percent in June, the OECD average of economically developed countries in the world is 9.6 percent, so this is not something unique to America. It is a global inflation. It is not Biden policy inflation. It is global, largely caused by the pandemic, largely caused by the reduction in supply of goods and the reduction in demand for a period of time. And then with the American Rescue Plan we saw, not only in our country, but all over the world, there came a surge of demand, but because you had had the pandemic and you had sent workers home and they hadn't come in to produce goods, the supply was down, the demand went up, and unfortunately, inflation followed, which is very harmful to our people. As I say, the average OECD, however, is higher than we are. We are not an outlier. The G20 average is 8.8 percent, just about exactly what we are, and our closest peers--Germany, Canada, and the U.K.--are all around 8 percent inflation, so we are all in that place where inflation is causing our people a lot of pain, and we need to deal with it. The President has been trying to deal with it, and I think we have been trying to deal with it. As I said, we passed a lot of legislation. I think the CHIPS bill is going to have a really big impact. The car industry and related industries are one-third of inflation. Why is that? Because the chips shortage has caused literally millions of cars to be sitting on docks or sitting in parking lots somewhere unable to be sold because we can't get the chips. Used car prices have gone up because they are in greater demand. Again, when you have greater demand, prices go up. So I would say to my friend, you and I agree 100 percent that inflation needs to be dealt with. The Fed, obviously, is trying to do that as well because one way you deal with inflation is to increase interest rates and try to slow down the economy. When you slow down the economy what you are trying to do is reduce demand to meet supply and stabilize prices. So I say to my friend, we have been doing a lot of things to try to deal with inflation. I mentioned a number of those bills that we passed. A number of them are still in the Senate. But let us hope that gasoline prices keep coming down. There are some who expect they may go back up. They are not set by us. They are set on the international market, and clearly there is no doubt that the war has had an impact on those prices, a significant impact on those prices. That is not the only reason because, as I said in our colloquy a couple weeks ago, the oil companies reduced production by 800,000 barrels per day. Why? Because demand was down. Why? Not for a bad reason. The pandemic kept people in their homes, and they weren't driving, so demand went down, so the normal reaction of the supplier was to reduce their supply. This President believes that inflation is one of the top problems confronting the American people and the administration, and he is going to continue to work to try to bring that down. I am hoping the CHIPS bill comes over soon, the Senate gets that done. In whatever form it comes, I hope it is more robust than less robust. I think it will have a positive impact on bringing down inflation.

Mr. HOYER. And it would surprise him. Mr. Speaker, we have had this discussion for over a month now about these bills, but also every time we have it, there is the plea that we produce, and if we would only produce. I bring this statistic up. As the gentleman knows, as a result of our going back and forth, my staff has prepared a paper--and they have done an excellent job--as to what actually is the fact. Fact one, U.S. rig count--that is what drills for oil--is at current levels of 733. That is up 272 from 1 year ago. That is a 59 percent increase from a year ago, so that there is no doubt that we are producing more. Now, as a practical matter, those of us who believe in the private sector and the capitalist system understand that the reason production goes up is because demand goes up and, therefore, companies want to sell more. But there are also companies that have not chosen to produce more for reasons of their own business judgment as to whether they think producing more will cause them to have better profits or lower profits or stay even. This administration has presided over greater production in their first year than was true in the first 3 years individually--2017, 2018, and 2019, each one of those 3 years--under the Trump administration. We are producing oil, and we are producing product. We are going to continue to do that. I can give you statistic after statistic of how many applications have been approved, are ready to go, and are not being used. Rather than just rehash that, I will simply say, back to the issue of the gas prices, gas prices are lower today in real terms than they were at the end of the Bush administration in 2008. I pause for emphasis. In real dollars, the cost of gasoline at the pump at the end of 2008 was higher than it is today, and it is way too high today. I was out in Virginia, in a rural area, and I saw gas for $4.36. At home, it had been almost $4.95, and that was an extraordinary decrease. I said: Boy, look at that. Then I caught myself because it is still a burden on our consumers, middle-class, working families, when, as the whip says, they confront a price of two or three times what they were used to when filling up their car. So, we need to continue to work on that. I disagree with the whip in the sense, Mr. Speaker, that I think the President's visit overseas--there was some controversy to it. I get that. I think it was very positive vis-a-vis our close ally Israel, and Israel said it was a very productive visit. I am glad the President did that. I also think that it gave additional stability indicating that this President, although we are focused like a laser on Ukraine and focused like a laser on the Far East, we are still focused on the Middle East and trying to make that region of the world a stable region of the world.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson demonstrated not only the extremist majority of justices' disregard for constitutional precedent; it also showed their disregard for the individual liberties of the American people. As if depriving women of their constitutional right to reproductive health care weren't enough, Justice Thomas' concurring opinion specifically opened the door to the overturning of United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges--and implicitly we can read this to mean Loving v. Virginia as well. These cases established constitutional protections for same-sex and interracial marriage in America. Today, 1.1 million Americans arc in same-sex marriages. Almost ten times as many are in interracial marriages. One of the very first votes I took as a young state senator in Maryland after my first election to public office was to repeal our state's vile and racist anti- miscegenation law. That was in 1967, five years after the Supreme Court's decision in Loving v. Virginia. Fifty-five years have now passed since that ruling. It has been nine and seven years, respectively, since the Windsor and Obergefell rulings. Americans have become used to knowing that they have a constitutional right to equal marriage. Indeed, American women had gotten used to the security of knowing that they had a constitutional right to reproductive choice for forty-nine years until last month. Just as was the case with the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs ruling, at least thirty-five states already have laws or amendments in their state constitution that would outlaw same-sex marriage if Obergefell were overturned. We must do everything in our power to ensure that Republican-controlled state legislatures don't have the opportunity to restrict the rights of LGBTQ or interracial couples in America. Neither government officials nor Supreme Court justices should be able to decide that consenting American adults cannot marry. That's why I'm bringing the Respect for Marriage Act to the Floor today to codify the marriage equality precedents set by Loving, Windsor, and Obergefell into federal statute. I want to thank Chairman Nadler, Rep. Cicilline, all the Co-Chairs of the LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, Chairwoman Beatty, Chairman Ruiz, Chairwoman Chu, and Democratic Caucus Chairman Jeffries for taking the lead on this crucial legislation. We cannot afford to underestimate the risk to marriage equality. We cannot afford to be complacent and take for granted the rights we have under the constitution as Americans. The millions of same-sex and interracial couples throughout the United States should not have to live with the fear that extremist Supreme Court justices--who act as though they are legislators--could end legal recognition for their families or prevent millions of others from being able to build families with equal legal status. They deserve the assurance that their marriages will always be recognized in every city, county, and state across the country. That is the overwhelming consensus of the American people, and it is the clear view of our constitution. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting `yes' on this legislation to protect and respect marriages across our country.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chair, this is a bill that has to pass if we are going to keep the government operating. The chair of this committee has worked very hard to get that done, and she has been successful, as chair, of moving most of our bills through this House. The Senate has not yet moved any of its bills, as it did not last year. This is an important, critical part of our process to fund government and keep it operating and invest in the priorities of the American people. That is what we are doing today in these appropriation bills. Mr. Chair, I thank Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro and members of the staff of the Appropriations Committee for their hard work on this package. Once again, our majority is passing appropriation bills in a timely manner. Sadly, as I said, the Senate has yet to bring any appropriation bills to the Senate floor. Today's package funds about a quarter of the total expected discretionary funding for next year. It reflects the budget request from the Biden administration, and in some cases funds programs at levels we have determined should be increased. It also includes Community Project Funding for investments in our communities that will help improve public safety, encourage economic growth, and fight poverty. Bringing back Community Project Funding was an essential tool in helping to restore Congress' power of the purse. I add that it was done in a bipartisan way, and it was done--thanks to the chair--in a very transparent way. We wanted to make sure that more funding decisions are being made by the Members who know their districts best. There is much to celebrate in this package, which is why I rise in support of this package. Many important and worthwhile investments in the American people, in our communities, in economic opportunity, and in so many areas--I am not going to go into all of them, they will be discussed. I do want to highlight just a few of the important victories in this bill, particularly for the constituents and communities I represent in Maryland's Fifth District. First, Mr. Chairman, this bill moves us a major step closer to realizing a new, badly needed, consolidated FBI Headquarters, a critical national security project that many of us have worked on for more than a decade. In fact, I started working on this in 2009 when the director of the FBI said: This building is very out of date, does not accommodate the work that we need to do, and we must have a new building--and requested that there be a campus-like setting where all of the FBI could be consolidated from the almost 20 different locations that they were located in in the city. This legislation will ensure that we can build a fully consolidated FBI Headquarters that meets the needs of the Bureau with a substantial payment of $500 million toward that project. It limits the GSA to committing any of those funds only to one of the two sites in Maryland and one in Virginia. The GSA just recently adjudged all three of those sites to be eligible sites. This project, first requested, as I said, by the FBI in 2009, is now ready for final site selection. This building, which had been delayed at a cost of giving the Bureau the tools and facilities necessary to fulfill its missions, can now be advanced in the timeframe I have understood from the administration, which is before the end of the fiscal year. In May of last year, the four Senators from Maryland and Virginia wrote to President Biden and urged his administration to move forward expeditiously. That was some 15 months ago. It is long past expeditiously, and I look forward to seeing this project realized. Mr. Chair, I thank the chair and the chair of the subcommittee, Mr. Quigley, for his help on this effort. It is an important one for our country. Furthermore, this package would provide civilian Federal employees with a 4.6% cost-of-living adjustment--at parity with the raise being provided to military personnel--and makes DREAMERS eligible to serve as Federal employees. It increases the V.A. Health Care System's budget by nearly $22 billion over last year, which will help provide high-quality care to 7.3 million veterans in our country. And it provides the Army Corps of Engineers with $3.5 million to further oyster recovery in the Chesapeake Bay. In addition to these priorities for Maryland's Fifth District, there are other critical investments for which I have advocated for a long time. These include $400 million in Election Security Grants through the Election Assistance Commission, which was created under my Help America Vote Act Legislation in 2002. It also funds a program I've championed to encourage college students to become nonpartisan poll workers in their communities. I was also glad to see the inclusion of $100 million for the Technology Modernization Fund, which was launched under bipartisan legislation I led with Leader McCarthy. This will help agencies upgrade technology systems so that they can serve americans more efficiently and securely. Additionally, this package makes a strong investment in combatting hunger by providing W.I.C. funds to serve more than 6 million people and $28.6 billion toward child-nutrition programs. It will also ensure that S.N.A.P. does not run out of money in 2023 and can continue helping those with the lowest incomes put food on the table. Mr. Chair, this is a very solid and robust funding package, and it is--as I said--a first step in our effort to continue funding government and delivering the priorities of the american people on time. I urge the Senate to match our pace in the appropriations process so that we can continue governing responsibly `for the people.'

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Costa, for yielding this time. I thank my friend and the ranking member, Mr. Turner, for his role in bringing this to the floor. Mr. Speaker, as has been said over and over again, Vladimir Putin made a terrible strategic and tragic miscalculation by illegally invading the sovereign and democratic nation of Ukraine. His false justification for that invasion was the supposed threat posed by NATO expansion. His other false claim was that Russian Ukrainians were being terrorized and threatened. Neither of those allegations was true. Now, his actions have led directly, as Mr. Turner just pointed out, and as Mr. Costa pointed out, to the opposite of what he intended. That is, we are going to be adding two extraordinary members of the European community, two countries that have shared our values, our democratic values, our nation of laws values, and our humanitarian values with us for literally over half a century. Together, Finland and Sweden will add substantial capabilities to NATO's collective defense and make the Baltic region much more secure against Russian aggression. But much more than that, they will add value, because of their values, to our alliance. Mr. Speaker, I was in Denmark in April, meeting with senior officials. I can attest that the addition of Finland and Sweden to the NATO family will create a Scandinavian bloc--Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland--within NATO that will be more than the sum of its parts, significantly contributing to the peace and stability of Europe and to the security of all NATO nations, including the United States. As I have said before, we must ensure that Putin's invasion will result in a strategic defeat for Russia. I pause, Mr. Speaker, to emphasize that point. Vladimir Putin must not win this war, not only for the sake of the Ukrainians and their extraordinary bravery, and the bravery and the leadership of Mr. Zelenskyy, their President, but because the free world needs to send a very strong, clear, and unmistakable message that tyranny will not prevail. We must send a message to dictators around the world that this action is unacceptable and will be opposed until victory by the free world. We must defend the hard-won principle in international laws and norms that a nation cannot simply invade and seek to conquer territory from a neighbor by force. That was accepted for centuries, indeed, millennia, but it is not acceptable today in a world of nuclear weapons, in a world that has a United Nations that stands for the principle that no nation can by force take the land of another nation. I thank Representative Keating for his leadership on this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I hope we can all come together, Democrats and Republicans, as I think we will, in a resounding, unanimous vote to show our support not only for Ukraine, which we have demonstrated over and over again by votes of this House, but also for our new NATO allies, the people of Finland and Sweden. I thank the Prime Minister of Sweden, Magdalena Andersson, and the Prime Minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, for their leadership in taking what is in many respects a courageous stand. The Finns, of course, have a very long border with Russia. They believe, correctly, in my view, that their security is contingent, and that is why they are joining NATO. As we have reiterated time and time again, this House is committed to honoring Article 5 of the NATO Charter. Mr. Speaker, this is a good resolution that will stand us in good stead as a nation and as a global community.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlemen for yielding. Madam Speaker, as the doctor has just said, this is an extraordinarily complex and difficult issue for all. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill and the Women's Health Protection Act that we are also considering today. Three weeks ago today, the United States Supreme Court's unprecedented decision reversed nearly 50 years of established precedent overturning Roe v. Wade and paving the way for trigger laws across the country to criminalize access to abortion instantly. With this ruling, women in 2022 will now have fewer rights than their mothers or grandmothers and less control over their own bodies and their own healthcare. Today, the House of Representatives is responding to protect the women of our country. Today, this House will vote to stand with women and affirm their freedom to make their own healthcare decisions. It is not an easy decision, and it is not made lightly, but it ought to be free from interference from politicians. We must do everything, in my view, in our power to ensure that women are free to travel wherever they need in order to access reproductive care safely, legally, and without fear of punishment. That is why I brought to the floor this bill, the Ensuring Women's Right to Reproductive Freedom Act. This legislation would prohibit States from preventing, impeding, or obstructing women from traveling to other States for reproductive care or retaliating against them for doing so. Over a century and one-half ago it was legal to own people because of the color of their skin. They could escape, as Harriet Tubman did and as Frederick Douglass did, from their slavery on the Eastern Shore of our State and go to a so-called free State. But then, tragically, the Congress enacted a bill which allowed people to go and reimpose slavery on those folks. Let's none of us do the same. This legislation would prohibit States from preventing, impeding, or obstructing women from traveling to other States for reproductive care where it is legal or retaliating against them for doing so. These draconian and authoritarian laws that States are talking about are going to criminalize behavior no matter whether it is legal in the State to which you went. One of the first bills I voted on in 1967 when I first went to the State senate--at that point in time I was about 8 months out of law school--was to repeal the miscegenation statutes which said that a Black person could not marry a White person or a person of Japanese extraction or Chinese extraction. The Supreme Court held that unconstitutional. It would be like saying: You can go to a State where that certainly is legal for an African American and a Caucasian to marry, but if you come back here, you are going to be a criminal. That is draconian, authoritarian, and almost Communist-like. It is dictatorship that China tried to pursue and did. This bill would also extend the same protections to healthcare providers who perform abortions for out-of-state patients and to anyone who helps them with transportation. Let us not set up a society where people are watching their neighbor, reporting on their neighbor, and criminalizing behavior which has, for one-half century, been the decision of a woman. Yes, she could consult her doctor and she could consult others, but it was her body that was at stake. It is her decision. Additionally, this bill would protect the movement in interstate commerce of prescription drugs approved by the FDA to end pregnancies safely at home. I am grateful to Representatives Lizzie Fletcher, Marilyn Strickland, and Jamie Raskin for introducing this legislation and to Chairman Pallone for advancing it through the Energy and Commerce Committee so speedily. I also want to thank Diana DeGette and Barbara Lee for their leadership on this issue as co-chairs of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus. While protecting interstate travel is an important step, Congress must do much more to ensure that every woman in our country can access healthcare and reproductive choice safely, legally, and affordably. That is why we are also considering an updated version of the Women's Health Protection Act today. I thank Judy Chu, again, for her leadership on this effort. Make no mistake, Madam Speaker, until we codify Roe v. Wade's 49-year precedent in Federal statute, women in many parts of our country will not be safe or have access to the healthcare they need. I am old enough to remember when it wasn't legal and when people died in back alleys going to charlatans and did not have proper medical care. Let's not return to those dark and tragic days. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, to support freedom, and to support the women of our country. That is the right thing to do.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Ladies and gentlemen----

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I just admonished some people. This is a serious issue of how the House operates and how your time is respected. We have proxies. We are going to keep proxies. We can debate that, but the fact of the matter is, as long as we have proxies, we are going to have to take into consideration proxies. But we don't have to simply waste time by people not showing up, proxy or not. That is my whole point, so that we can respect one another's time, respect the work of this institution, respect the work of our committees. I would urge--and I will yield again--I would urge us to respect one another, respect our time, and respect the constraints of voting within a timeframe, whether it is 15 minutes or 5 minutes. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy).

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, this is going to be a very busy week. There are over 600 amendments made in order to the defense bill. Clearly, if we do what we just did, and we do it too often--take three times the time allotted to vote; this took about 47 minutes, 48 minutes to vote in the first vote--we will be here for a very long time. No one wants to shirk their duties, but they do want to do their duties on time. I want to make it clear to the House that I have asked the leadership, the Speaker's Office, to join with me in ensuring that 5- minute votes are 5-minute votes. My colleagues, invariably, that announcement brings cheers, and invariably, those cheers come after 10, 15, 20 minutes have elapsed on a 5-minute vote--not all of us, but some of us, and many of us sometimes. In consideration of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, some of you are going to be angry because you are going to miss a 5-minute vote. Now, for those of you who are casting proxies, I ask you to cast them immediately upon the vote opening so that we can process the proxies at the desk. Yelling at one another doesn't help trying to bring some self-respect to this institution. Each of us has to take personal responsibility to do our job, which is to put our card in the voting machine, to put our proxies in, to move along. I ask all of us to respect that because I am going to try, to the extent humanly possible, to end votes at 5 minutes. Some of you are going to be upset. You are going to walk down the aisle.

Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. HOYER. Let me conclude, Madam Speaker, by urging everybody to stay on the floor. What we are seeing happen many times is somebody votes, they are registered, and then when you go to the next vote they are 10 minutes, 15 minutes late. That is not what we ought to be doing. We are going to hew to the time limits as closely as humanly possible within the constraints of our clerks who are working very, very hard to accommodate us. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I rise to thank Velmon Washington for his twenty-two years of dedicated service as an employee of this House. Mr. Washington began his service with the Office of the Clerk in October 2000 as a Data Processing Specialist, and he was in that position for three years before being promoted to an Assistant Requisitions and Printing Clerk. Most recently, he was made Senior Requisitions and Printing Clerk. Mr. Washington's service with the Office of the Clerk caps eighteen years of outstanding service. I congratulate him on his retirement at the end of June. Mr. Washington's many years of experience made him an expert in the inner workings of the Clerk's Office and the operations it oversees. He has worked directly with customers from Member and House Committee offices, supplying them with official letterhead and other important materials needed to serve constituents effectively. Mr. Washington also provided valuable assistance to many of the divisions within the Clerk's organization, including the Office of Communications and the Clerk's personal office in support of special projects. He was responsible for keeping track of dozens of requisitions every week using a unique requisitions website, and, for each new Congress, Mr. Washington prepared for months in advance to assemble--and often hand deliver--materials to all new Members on their first day in session. Madam Speaker, outside of work Mr. Washington is a dedicated husband and father. He inspired his two children with patriotism and public service, and both have served in our nation's Armed Forces--something that makes him very, very proud. I thank Mr. Washington for his dedication, his love of country, and for his many years of service to the Clerk's Office, and I wish him all the best in his retirement. I hope my colleagues will all join me in expressing the gratitude of this House and offering our congratulations.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, for years, the gun violence epidemic in our country has forced us to cope with immeasurable grief and loss. Throughout America, many communities have begun to erect memorials to remember those they have lost through gun violence. These monuments are not much different than those right outside The National Mall that honor Americans killed in war. Just last week, people in San Bernardino, California, unveiled the Curtain of Courage made of steel and bronze to pay tribute to the 16 people who were murdered at a mass shooting there in 2015. In Newtown, Connecticut, a planned memorial will feature a spiral of granite inscribed with the names of 20 children and 6 teachers killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. Memorials are being built or planned, as well, to honor those who died in shootings in Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, El Paso, Buffalo, Uvalde, and many others. The best way to honor those we have lost to gun violence, however, is not with bronze, steel, or granite. Rather, it is with meaningful action to prevent others from suffering the same fate. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was overwhelmingly passed by the United States Senate, and which I am pleased to bring to the floor today, is a step in the right direction to take action. This legislation includes measures that will reduce the threat of gun violence and save lives across the country. It will help implement red flag laws that empower law enforcement officers to keep guns out of the hands of people at risk of using them to harm themselves or others. Closing the so-called boyfriend loophole in this bill will prevent people convicted of domestic abuse in a dating relationship from possessing deadly firearms. If they have displayed violence, they ought to be prohibited from getting weapons that will make mass violence more probable and possible. It will also require more thorough background checks for Americans under the age of 21 who seek to purchase a gun. We passed expanded background checks through this House, and 85 percent of the American people say they are for that--and that is the minimum--but no action has been taken in the United States Senate. They have taken some action, and some action is better than no action. Additionally, this legislation includes $250 million in funding for community-based violence prevention programs. Do we not want to see community violence diminished? It will also crack down on those who make straw purchases, purchases of guns that otherwise, under the existing system, could not be purchased by the ultimate user of those guns. Mr. Speaker, I thank Senator Murphy, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, Representative Lucy McBath, Representative Robin Kelly, Chairman Mike Thompson of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, and those Republicans who said that ``NRA'' does not stand for ``no Republican action.'' They took action. They stood up, even in the face of boos from their own party. This legislation, as I said, is a step forward. That is how we make progress in America, a step at a time. None of us have had the opportunity ever to vote on a perfect bill in this House. We vote on good bills that we feel will move our country forward. This is that kind of bill, a step forward but not enough. Many of us feel that we need to do more. We need to do comprehensive background checks. We need to close the Charleston loophole. We sent those bills to the Senate. We can and must do more. Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that will weaken commonsense gun safety laws all over the country. Yes, we can return to the O.K. Corral and everybody having a six-shooter on their hip. Anybody who thinks that would make us a safer, more civil community I think is sadly mistaken. That fact ought to disturb all of us very deeply. The Court's decision to make it even easier for bad actors to carry dangerous concealed guns without restrictions should serve as a reminder that we need to take additional active steps to protect our communities and our kids, actions that are supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people. If we fail to do that, if we allow this legislation to be the end instead of the beginning, parents will continue to receive that dreaded, unfathomable call that they will never see their children again, and new monuments honoring victims will continue to pop up in communities across the country. Mr. Speaker, I say to my House colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, we don't need additional memorials. We need action, and we need new laws. If we can follow today's legislation with action on comprehensive background checks and further gun safety measures, however, future generations--perhaps it is not guaranteed, but it is certainly worth the effort to reduce the gun violence and to reduce the need for memorials. If we do not, then those who come after will wonder why their forebears allowed such violence to be perpetrated uniquely in America. Mr. Speaker, you don't find this in other countries--democratic countries and free countries--that protect individual rights. Mr. Speaker, today, in just a few minutes, let us begin to end the cycle of tragedy and inaction. Let us pass this bill and say: No more. Let us pass it and then do more. Vote ``yes.''

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay my respects to Dave Finger of the National Volunteer Fire Council who passed away on June 3rd following a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. Prior to joining the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) as its Chief of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs in 2005, Dave served as the lead staffer on first responder issues for the Research and Technology Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Dave worked closely with my staff and the staff of my three fellow co- chairs of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus sharing input on legislation pending before the House Science Committee that benefited our nation's fire and emergency services. As NVFC's Chief of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Dave represented the interests of our nation's volunteer firefighters on Capitol Hill. His efforts played a critical role in the passage of federal legislation that not only advanced the health and safety of our nation's volunteer firefighters, but all firefighters and emergency services personnel. Dave was the embodiment of collaboration. While his primary focus was always on advocating for the volunteer fire service, he understood the importance of working together with the other national fire organizations to advance a common agenda. Tributes from his colleagues expressed appreciation for his passion, integrity, and character. Cerebral in nature, he possessed a depth of knowledge and insight on the issues he championed. There was never a time when he walked into a meeting with Members of Congress or their staff unprepared; he was the consummate professional. Dave was only forty-four when his life was cut short by cancer. He leaves behind his wife, Allison, and their two children: Vivienne, 7, and Sullivan, 2. He also leaves behind many friends and thousands of firefighters across the nation who owe him their deep gratitude for the work he performed on their behalf throughout his career. Madam Speaker, on behalf of my fellow Co-Chairs of the Congressional Fire Service Caucus, I extend my sympathies to Dave's family and to his colleagues at the National Volunteer Fire Council and throughout the fire and emergency services community for the loss of their loved one and friend.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Obviously, in order to serve the American people and to serve their needs, we take in a lot of information--in this case, voluntary information, to determine what we can do to assist and make better the lives of people and the challenges they face. This Pride Month we celebrate all the progress we have made over the years to help LGBTQ Americans express themselves more openly, to help their community become more visible, and to be free from the danger of violence perpetrated against them because of who they are. We must acknowledge, however, that the Federal Government does not do enough to ensure that that community is seen and considered when making key policy decisions. Although there is evidence that LGBTQ Americans, especially transgender people, still face substantial prejudice in areas such as housing, employment, and education, we need more data to determine the scope of these challenges and to devise a policy solution that works for all. To promote visibility, foster inclusion, and build equity and equality for LGBTQ Americans, this legislation would ask the Federal agencies to collect voluntary information on orientation and gender identity whenever they ask for other demographic data. I want to emphasize, as I know has been emphasized, that although this data will be processed anonymously, submission of this information will always be and continue to be completely voluntary. Americans should never be forced to disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity to the government, period. To that extent I think we all agree. I thank Representative Grijalva for introducing this legislation, as well as Chairwoman Maloney and her colleagues on the Oversight and Reform Committee for their efforts to advance this bill. Although we still have much to do to address the disparities and marginalization of the LGBTQ people and what they face in America, this bill will help equip policymakers with the tools and information needed to make further progress. Our vote today is a continuation, frankly, of the efforts of Johnson, Milk, and other leaders who showed courage in the LGBTQ community to come forward and to say that we are people and we need to be treated as equal under the law. And this will, I think, help us meet that responsibility.