Nancy Mace

Ms. MACE

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1258) to require the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to submit to Congress an annual report on projects that are over budget and behind schedule, and for other purposes, as amended.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this measure.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, Congress must ensure that every taxpayer dollar is spent efficiently. Every year, the Government Accountability Office reports government projects that are above cost projections or behind schedule, from Federal IT programs to projects at the National Nuclear Security Administration. However, there are likely additional government projects that fly under the radar, falling years behind schedule or costing billions of dollars over budget. The Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act would address this by informing policymakers of government-funded projects that are behind schedule or above cost projections. Under the bill, agencies must report to Congress on projects that are more than 5 years behind schedule or have expenditures that are at least $1 billion more than the original cost estimate for the project. Agencies must provide an explanation if there is a delay in completion or an increase in costs for the project. Congress has a duty to oversee the Federal Government for inefficiency and waste. This bill informs policymakers and allows Congress to address failing government projects before further taxpayer dollars are wasted or misused. Mr. Speaker, I thank Senator Joni Ernst for her leadership on this issue, and I thank Representative Miller-Meeks for introducing the House companion bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks).

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to support this commonsense bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MACE

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1973) to require the purchase of domestically made flags of the United States of America for use by the Federal Government.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this measure.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, American flags should be made in America. This bill ensures that the Federal Government buys U.S. flags that are made from 100 percent American materials. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Census data, in 2017, the U.S. imported 10 million American flags. Of those, all but 50,000 came from China. The Department of Defense and individual military departments are already generally required to buy American flags that are made entirely of U.S. materials, but civilian agencies do not have such restrictions. The All-American Flag Act applies current DOD requirements and exceptions across the government. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the House companion bill, and I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill to ensure American flags are made right here in America. This is something every American can get behind. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support sending this legislation to the President's desk, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MACE

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7385) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 29 Franklin Street in Petersburg, Virginia, as the ``John Mercer Langston Post Office Building''.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this measure.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, which would rename a post office in Petersburg, Virginia, for Mr. John Mercer Langston. Mr. Langston grew up in Ohio and became an attorney who helped recruit African-American troops during the American Civil War. Later, Mr. Langston went on to serve as Virginia's first African-American Member of Congress from 1890 to 1891 and the first president of Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, known today as Virginia State University. I support naming a post office in memory of former Congressman Langston, and I encourage my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my House colleagues to support this bill honoring an American academic leader and former Member of Congress. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MACE

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6162) to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 379 North Oates Street in Dothan, Alabama, as the ``LaBruce `Bruce' Tidwell Post Office Building''.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this measure.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6162, which would name a post office in Dothan, Alabama, as the LaBruce ``Bruce'' Tidwell Post Office Building. Mr. Speaker, Bruce Tidwell, a U.S. Navy veteran, served the community of Dothan, Alabama, as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service for many years. It is fitting that this post office being renamed is in the community where Mr. Tidwell worked. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Moore).

Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my House colleagues to support this bill honoring an American veteran, hero, and postal letter carrier. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MACE

Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Chairman, in 2022, over 100,000 Americans lost their lives due to drug overdoses with nearly 70 percent of those fatal overdoses being due to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. The fentanyl trafficked across our southern border has turned every town into a border town. In South Carolina in 2022, we lost 2,296 lives due to drug overdoses with 1,660 of those due to fentanyl. With deadly fentanyl taking the lives of so many Americans, I was distressed when reviewing the State-Foreign Operations appropriations bill to find out we were spending more to subsidize migrants and refugees from other countries than we were spending on combating international narcotics trafficking. My amendment would simply transfer $500 million from the migration and refugee assistance account to the international narcotics control and law enforcement account. This would provide law enforcement with much-needed resources to combat the deadly scourge of fentanyl trafficking. Fentanyl is a nationwide problem that requires a truly international approach. The primary source of fentanyl killing American citizens is from China. This fentanyl is brought by international drug cartels, trafficked into the United States through the southern border, and distributed into each and every one of our communities. This is a chemical attack on our Nation to weaken our society and kill our young people. It is critical that we bolster funding to combat international narcotics trafficking. Further, this additional funding is necessary to combat Mexican drug cartels who are seeing soaring profits under the Biden administration. According to a House Budget Committee report, the cartels are bringing in $30 million a day, or nearly $1 billion every month or more from their human and drug trafficking operations. The amount of human suffering taking place at the hands of these criminal cartels is heartbreaking. Criminal cartels who control our border force migrants, including women and children, into indentured servitude, sex slavery, drug trafficking, and worse to pay their way into the United States. On the path to the border, there are rape trees where cartel members will hang the underwear of women and girls they have raped and abused on their journey to America. Studies estimate approximately 60 percent of unaccompanied minors are exploited through child pornography, sex abuse, and drug trafficking by the cartels on their journey to the United States. This cruel reality is enabled by the Federal funds that go to entities that fuel cash payments to migrants. Not only are Biden's open-border policies enabling this human suffering, taxpayers are funding it. It is critical that we put people over politics, citizens over cartels, and pass this amendment to bolster law enforcement and counternarcotics operations to put an end to the cartels' cruelty. Mr. Chair, I urge passage of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. MACE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of my amendment to ensure that no funds in the Department of State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill from being obligated, expended, or otherwise made available to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR. In 2022, the United States contributed a total of $2.2 billion to the UNHCR, which accounts for approximately 40 percent of total funding. You might think that given America's outsized role in funding of the UNHCR that it might work to serve in the national interests of the United States. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Like many international institutions, including the International Organization for Migration, which we debated earlier, the UNHCR has become hostile to American sovereignty and undermined our border security. UNHCR's 2018 report, which the Trump administration wisely voted against, emphasized a need to limit detention of migrants that arrive at our borders, which is inconsistent with Federal law and inconsistent with our national interests. We need to be detaining more illegal aliens that arrive at our border, not less. In 2021, in the thick of COVID-19, the UNHCR was actively lobbying the United States to terminate title 42, which allowed the U.S. to expel migrants back to Mexico or their country of origin. This is one of the most important tools to stem the tide of illegal immigration. While Americans were stuck in their homes under onerous pandemic restrictions, UNHCR wanted to fling American borders wide open to illegal aliens. In perhaps the most egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars, UNHCR and other international entities hand out cash, debit cards, and other funds for lodging, movement, and other expenses to migrants in South and Latin America bound for the United States. These migrants receive cards with hundreds of dollars on them, funding migrants from throughout the world to travel to our southern border. U.N. documents say the money can be handed out as cash in envelopes and transferred to bank accounts for lodging assistance and even for transportation costs to move migrant caravans. In one Mexican town on the road to the United States, UNHCR was doling out $400 payments every 15 days to migrants, funded on the backs of American taxpayers. These funds are unrestricted and unconditional and can be used for any purpose. America is experiencing the worst crisis at our southern border in our Nation's history, and these policies UNHCR is advocating and the cash payments they are handing out to migrants are only making the problem worse. They call these payments cash-based intervention. My amendment ensures that we give the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees a cash- based intervention by cutting off Federal funding. We cannot continue to fund the invasion of our own country, and I strongly urge the passage of my amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.