Thomas Massie

Mr. MASSIE

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. If I had a nickel for every time the other side of the aisle uses the word ``extreme,'' I would buy you lunch today. It must be poll tested. ``Extreme'' must be good for them in the polls. Let me tell you what is extreme and what every American thinks is extreme: $33.7 trillion is extreme. The fact that we are now paying, this year, a trillion dollars in interest on that debt, on that national debt, that is extreme. Spending money we don't have is extreme. Funding an FBI that targets its own citizens who have done nothing wrong, funding the censorship of speech of Americans, that is extreme. The American people know that is extreme. The inflation that is caused by this is extreme, and it is affecting everybody. The cost of transportation, the cost of food, and the cost of housing are skyrocketing. That is extreme. Now, my colleague mentioned that we didn't allow every amendment in this rule. Well, as the ranking member of the committee, surely he knows not every amendment is in order. We have certain rules in the Rules Committee, and a lot of these amendments, unfortunately--and I have to tell some of my friends this--failed our own test. For instance, they weren't germane to the underlying bill. Americans don't want amendments tacked onto bills that have nothing to do with the underlying bill, so the amendments have to be germane. We are protecting the American people when we keep this process for allowing amendments that are only germane. The amendments to spending bills, as a rule--it has been a rule since I came here 11 years ago--they can't increase spending, yet unfortunately some of my colleagues introduced amendments that do sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, but especially the Democrats like to increase spending. We can't allow those amendments. Finally, we don't allow the amendments that try to legislate on an appropriations bill. We don't allow you to change laws on a bill that has to do with spending. That is the primary reason most of those amendments that the other side is always complaining about are not in this bill. There are 119 good amendments that were allowed that we will debate later today and that we will vote on in transparency and full light of day, not snuck in at the last moment. The American people will get to see how they are being represented through these 119 amendments. This appropriations bill, I would like to point out, satisfies some of our constitutional obligations. Adam Smith said there are three primary roles of government: to provide for the national defense, to fund public infrastructure, and to institute a system of justice. It is that third obligation that we are fulfilling here today with this bill. Then we have some constitutional obligations beyond that that are fulfilled in this bill. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, intellectual property, which is in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution. That is an obligation of Congress, to provide for the protection of intellectual property. That is in this bill. The Bureau of the Census is funded in this bill. We are directed by the Constitution to have a census every 10 years, so that is another function in this bill. This bill funds the National Institute of Standards and Technology, sometimes called NIST. This used to be called the Bureau of Weights and Measures. The Constitution, Article I, Section 8, directs Congress to establish the weights and measures so that we are not all using in this country a different set of weights and measures. There are many constitutional obligations provided in this bill, many necessary roles of government, some things that aren't technically in the Constitution, but we agree publicly that these are in the benefit of our country. For instance, NASA is funded in this bill. Mr. Speaker, that is why I urge my colleagues to support this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I look forward to the passage of this rule because there are 119 amendments that are going to expose 430-plus Members of this body to their voters. How is that? Well, each of these amendments gets 10 minutes of debate. If so ordered, there will be recorded votes on these amendments. They address issues fundamental to our rights. There will be amendments in this debate after this rule passes on protecting the First Amendment to the Constitution, the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, will we allow our government to censure us on social media. They have been doing it through NGOs and private organizations and research grants. I don't think we should allow it. I don't think it is constitutional. You can't launder a violation of the First Amendment. There will be a debate on that after this rule passes because of this rule. There will be a debate on whether you support the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms. There is an amendment that we will debate when this rule passes that prohibits the ATF from using funds to maintain a database. They are prohibited already, but they keep trying to do it, so we have to defund them from that. There is even an amendment--I am particularly fond of this debate that is coming up--to prevent Federal funds from being used to prosecute a Presidential candidate. We look like a banana republic when our justice system indicts candidates for President to try to bring down their poll numbers. This is something that you do in Third World countries. In any event, there are 119 amendments. I think the other side is against this rule because they don't want to have these debates. They surely don't want to have to vote because that record will be for all time. Every 2 years, each of us faces our voters with those records that will be created today as a result of this rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the word of the day is ``extreme'' because the other side uses it in every sentence. Let me tell you what is extreme: Violating the First Amendment, the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. That is extreme, and that is going to be addressed in this bill and this rule, utilizing the power of the purse. Violating the Second Amendment rights of Americans, their God-given rights to defend themselves; that is extreme. This bill addresses that. This rule provides for robust debate on that issue. Extreme is violating the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and the rights there enshrined. Violating the 10th Amendment and Federalizing our police forces. That is extreme. These are the things that Americans find extreme. These are the things that are addressed in this rule and in the underlying bill using the power of the purse. The most extreme thing--and I do have to say that the Democrats are really good at this form of extremism--the most extreme thing is to continually spend money we don't have, to borrow until they won't lend us any money, and then to print money so we can spend more of it. Extreme is putting ourselves $33.7 trillion in debt. When I say ourselves, I mean, the American taxpayers. They are on the hook for this. Even if you don't pay taxes, if you have worked a hard life, you have saved and you have got money in the bank and you are relying on your Social Security, what is extreme is the inflation that we have created through out-of-control spending in this Chamber over many, many years. Both parties are guilty of it. It is extreme because it hurts every American when we devalue the dollar through extreme spending. What does this bill do? It cuts spending. This fight is really simple. The disagreements between both sides of the aisle--we can argue about the minor issues--but the major issue is: Do you want to expand government? Do you want it to be more prevalent in your life? Do you want to pay more taxes? Do you want to put your grandkids in hock? If you do, vote for that side of the aisle. If you want to put us on a path to fiscal responsibility, if you want to have open debates, if you want to have 72 hours to see what is in the bill, if you don't want to have to vote for a bill to find out what is in it, then you are with this side of the aisle. You should support this rule. I urge adoption of this rule.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. MASSIE

Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I rise in support of my amendment, which states: ``None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to fund any grant related to any transgenic edible vaccine.'' Madam Chair, does the term transgenic edible vaccine sound like something out of a science fiction dystopian novel? Does the term transgenic edible vaccine sound like something out of a horror film? Well, it is not. It is the scientific term that is used for research that we are funding with U.S. taxpayer dollars. This concept that we would inject RNA or DNA into our food supply, that we would encourage plants to grow vaccines within them, and that we would then encourage animals or people to consume these vaccines by consuming the food. Yes, we are funding this, but we should not, and there are several reasons that we should not be funding this. One is, you can't control where the pollen goes from a plant. Many of these experiments happen outside of a greenhouse, outside of controlled facilities. In fact, we saw an incident where a transgenic edible vaccine was being grown in corn many years ago. What happened the next year when they grew soybeans on the same plot where this transgenic edible vaccine was grown? By the way, this vaccine was for pigs. It was to keep them from getting diarrhea. It was never meant for humans. The next year they grew soybeans on that same plot of land, and some of the corn sprouted on its own and was mixed with these soybeans. Five hundred bushels of soybeans were harvested that had to be destroyed because they were commingled. This transgenic edible vaccine that was meant for pigs was commingled with soybeans that could have gone into human food consumption. The offending researchers had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. However, do we know if we caught all of the instances of these escapes of this pollen? In fact, this happened not just once, but it happened again and in a different way. The pollen wafted over to a different field, and it pollinated corn in a different field. Over 150 acres of corn had to be destroyed in that instance because they were experimenting with transgenic edible vaccines. In that case, those vaccines were meant for animals. Here recently, however, we have been funding transgenic plant vaccines, edible plant vaccines for human research at University of California, Riverside. They are right now trying to grow spinach and lettuce with the idea that humans would then consume this at a salad bar or something. How do you know the dosage? What does it mean to have informed consent when you don't know what is in your food? What does it mean to have informed consent when you don't know when you are being served medication for dinner? This is such a ridiculous concept that we shouldn't even have to debate it, but here we are. We funded it through the National Institutes of Health, the USDA, and NSF. I will close by saying this: I offered this amendment on the Agriculture appropriations bill to prevent the USDA from funding this type of research. I am offering it on this appropriations bill to prevent it being funded in this appropriations bill, as well. This amendment passed by a voice vote on the Agriculture appropriations bill. I hope that we will see the wisdom in this amendment today and pass this also with unanimous support. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I rise in support of my amendment which essentially prohibits funds from being made available to conduct or support gain-of-function research. Section 533 of the underlying bill says that none of the funds in the bill can be used for gain-of-function research in China or Cuba or North Korea or Russia. The problem is that it doesn't prohibit this dangerous type of research anywhere else in the world. Why should we be funding it in France or Great Britain? In fact, why should we be funding it here? I will argue later that we shouldn't, that the risks far outweigh the benefits and that we should have learned our lesson. Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks).

Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I think it would be useful at this point to define gain-of-function research. I will use the written testimony of Richard Ebright, Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and laboratory director of Waksman Institute of Microbiology. In his testimony in a Senate hearing, he said that gain-of-function research is defined as ``research activities reasonably anticipated to increase a potential pandemic pathogen's transmissibility, pathogenesis, ability to overcome immune response, or ability to overcome a vaccine or drug.'' Why would you want to do this? Why would you want to do gain-of- function research? It is a seductive idea that you can take one of hundreds of thousands of viruses that exist in the animal kingdom outside of humans and try to predict, poke and prod on the virus, encourage it to be transmissible among humans so that you could then predict the next virus that might come into existence among humans, and then come up with a vaccine for it. Statistically, there is no way you are going to predict what the next natural virus is going to be. What you will do, though, in the process of this research is create a cookbook, a blueprint for the next pandemic. Part of the danger in this research lies in the fact that you are uncovering secrets that will then be published and that can be used to create a pandemic of existential proportions. It creates new health threats, health threats through 10,000 years of evolution that may never come into existence but in 10 days of research could come into existence in a lab, threats that don't exist in nature. Why are we still doing this research right now? In 2014, this research was put on pause, from 2014 to 2017--wisely, I would say. The pause was suspended in 2018. By the way, the projects that were paused did not include the projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, unfortunately. When the pause was removed, this research began again in earnest, creating tremendous risk for the human race. Why would we do this to ourselves? We shouldn't be doing this to ourselves, and we shouldn't be doing it with taxpayer dollars. There is no practical application of this outside of the curiosity of a government lab. This research will not continue in private labs because it is just not profitable. We should stop it here. Madam Chair, I urge adoption of the amendment. I think it is common sense. Let's protect America by not funding this research. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of my amendment, which states: None of the funds made available by this act may be used to conduct a competitive analysis when evaluating mergers. Beginning January 1, 1989, Congress vested primary authority to review airline mergers with the U.S. Department of Justice. Since that time, the Department of Transportation has deferred to DOJ to determine whether a merger between U.S. airlines should be challenged on competition grounds. The Department of Transportation's general counsel under President Obama described the DOT's role in airline mergers as follows: ``With respect to DOT's competition and public interest review authorities, DOT's practice has been to use its expertise with respect to the airline industry to provide the Department's views and otherwise assist the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in DOJ's analysis of airline mergers or acquisitions.'' The Department of Justice recently challenged an airline merger. This amendment doesn't have anything to do with that court case. In fact, it is well within DOJ's rights and authority to challenge mergers, but what concerns me is that the DOT's Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, expressed publicly that his Department has ``generally not gotten involved in these merger cases, but that is changing today.'' Between 2009 and 2016, under the Obama administration, there were nine successful airline mergers. In fact, in over 30 years, the DOT has not prevented the transfer of operating certificates for any airline merger. This begs the question: Why now? Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa), my friend across the aisle, the ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Rutherford), my colleague.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, as a member of the Transportation Committee, I had the honor to question Secretary Buttigieg on whether he had this authority and what metrics he would use to exercise this authority. It was obvious that they don't have any experience in the DOT to review these mergers because they haven't done it. It is for that reason that I urge adoption of this amendment. We don't need redundancy among the Departments. We need an all-of-government approach, and that is what this amendment seeks to do. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this bipartisan amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of my amendment, which states: ``None of the funds made available by this act may be used to implement section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.'' My amendment is simple. It will defund the Federal mandate that requires all new vehicles after 2026 be equipped with a kill switch that can disable a vehicle if the vehicle has monitored the driver's performance and the vehicle determines that the driver is not performing well. It is so incredible that I have to offer this amendment. It almost sounds like the domain of science fiction, dystopian science fiction, that the Federal Government would put a kill switch in vehicles that would be the judge, the jury, and the executioner on such a fundamental right as the right to travel freely, but here we are. It is Federal law that this is mandated, and so I am offering this amendment to defund this mandate. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, drunk driving is a serious problem. That is why 31 States already have a law to implement interlock ignition technology where if you have been convicted of a DUI that you have to pass this test in order to operate your vehicle. This Federal law that I seek to defund goes far beyond that, and I regret that I have to spend some of my time reading the law to the other side of the aisle, but I will do that. This law that was passed in a 1,000-page bill 2 years ago requires that automobiles can passively monitor the performance of a driver--not the blood alcohol content, but the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle--to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired-- not drunk; it says impaired--and prevent or limit motor vehicle operation. That is a kill switch. Now, the question is how much time do you have once your dashboard tells you that it doesn't approve of your driving? What if you are a single mother and you're out in bad weather and you're trying to avoid some obstacles, ice perhaps, and you have swerved three times and your dashboard says swerve one more time and you are going to be put over to the side of the road, that you will have 100 yards to park this vehicle in the middle of nowhere with your children in the back seat? This isn't some fantastical scenario. This is what will happen if this is implemented. This is the law. I have read it to you here. Now, you maybe should have read it 2 years ago when you all voted for it on that side of the aisle, but it was in a bill that was 1,039 pages long. I can understand how you don't know what the law has in it, but I have read it to you. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, we actually don't know how this technology is going to work. They don't know over at the DOT either, because we have sent a letter to them, that they haven't responded to yet, asking them: Will this have cameras inside the car? Will it monitor your eyes to see if you are focused on the road? Will it have cameras on the outside of the car? How will it know what your performance is relative to the road that you are driving on, if it doesn't, in fact, know which road you are driving on? Will it need to know where you are when you are driving? If so, who has access to this data? Who has access to those cameras? Will the Fourth Amendment be followed? Will you require a warrant for your insurance company to access this data? Will you require a warrant for the government to access this data? Once your car has been disabled and now you are on the side of the road with your children in it, for reasons you don't understand, how long until the police show up? What if you truly are disabled and you are over to the side of the road, does anybody show up? How long do you have to get out of the vehicle? Who decides when your vehicle kill switch is disabled and you get to drive again? Who is going to adjudicate that on the side of the road? What if it is rush- hour traffic? What if you know you have already got points against you, according to your dashboard, and it has monitored your performance and now somebody's pet is in the road? Do you swerve to miss it and get your car disabled? What if there is an emergency vehicle approaching from behind you and you know the right thing is to swerve off the road and let that vehicle pass? What if after you have done that three times and now your car says do it one more time and we are going to leave you on the side of the road? This is in the law. This will become law in 2026, every vehicle manufactured after that. It is not about drunk driving. If it were, it would just be about blood alcohol content. This law has far more than that in it. It violates the Fourth Amendment. It violates so many amendments. It violates things that are so fundamental to our rights that they are not even in the Constitution, like the right to travel. Mr. Chair, I urge support of this amendment. It will defund the law that was passed 2 years ago that the other side of the aisle doesn't even know exists. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, as the only still-serving coauthor and cosponsor of the motion to vacate Speaker Boehner, I can tell you this motion to vacate is a terrible idea. As the only Member who is serving here who took every chance to vote against Speaker Boehner and to vote against Speaker Ryan, I can tell you that this Chamber has been run better, more conservatively, and more transparently under Mr. McCarthy than any other Speaker that I have served under. As a member of the Rules Committee, one of three conservatives who was placed there out of trust--the Speaker gave us a blocking position by putting three of us on there to keep an eye on the Rules Committee, to make sure the process was fair and even--I can tell you it has been fair and even. None of us are voting against the Speaker today. Regular order is at odds with predetermined outcomes. Yet, the Speaker is being accused of not holding to regular order and predetermined outcomes at the same time. It is not possible. You cannot be for both at the same time. I was a party to the January agreement, and I can tell you that there were promises in there, but there was never a promise for an outcome. There was never a promise that you could force Joe Biden to sign something. There was only the promise that we would try, and try we have. We have tried in the Rules Committee. We have tried on the floor. We have been trying since this summer. There is enough blame to go around for why we don't have 12 bills, but part of it was a relitigation of the debt limit deal. By the way, there was no promise on the debt limit deal. There were no conditions on that in January--zero--whatsoever. I was in the room for that. The 12 bills were delayed over what? $100 billion. That is a lot of money, but it is nothing compared to the $2 trillion that I came here to object to when Speaker Pelosi and President Trump pushed that bill through. We have had over 500 amendments. Listen, this is a referendum on this institution. We have tried regular order. Speaker McCarthy has tried regular order. If regular order fails today, if you vote to vacate the Speaker, no one is going to try again. This institution will fail. Please do not vacate the Speaker.

Mr. MASSIE

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this bipartisan amendment. This amendment is very simple. It states that: ``None of the funds made available by this act may be used to transfer cluster munitions to any foreign country.'' Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), my friend on the other side of the aisle.