Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Madam Chairwoman, while the estimate of the economic impact of any rule by the GAO would be highly speculative and should be considered with caution--as the GAO itself said--this rule would at least lessen the harm that this dangerous bill would effect. Although this amendment does not cure all the ills in the REINS Act, the amendment would at least reduce the number of rules REINS would apply to, and, therefore, I support the amendment.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, this amendment amends the definition of rule to include interpretive rules, general statements of policy, and all other guidance documents. However, guidance documents from agencies are not given the force of law in court. Expanding this bill to also require any guidance the agency gives to businesses about how the rules will be enforced is a gross expansion of the Congressional Review Act and would ensure that agencies provide less guidance for business thus creating more uncertainty. More uncertainty in business stifles business. Madam Chair, you want to know the environment you are operating in if you are a businessperson. This amendment is an overstep and would stifle further the work of our agencies and would make it much more difficult to conduct business in this country. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I am prepared to close. Madam Chair, at the risk of sounding repetitive from what I have said in several other amendments, Congress is not capable of making the judgments--the thousands and millions of judgments--on specifics like how many parts of arsenic per billion in the atmosphere is safe? What should the tolerance of a braking system in the automobile be? How many units of radiation can a person tolerate that is worth risking in an MRI or a CAT scan? That is why Congress has delegated to agencies, which we created, the power to make these decisions which we are not competent to make, the thousands and thousands of specific decisions on scientific and other questions; mostly scientific questions. The REINS Act is a very bad piece of legislation because it would say that the agencies can't do this, that Congress must do it, and we don't have the capacity. We don't have the time, and we don't have the knowledge. How many people here know how many units of radiation are safe? How many hearings must be conducted for the thousands or even millions of decisions that must be made each year? The REINS Act is a bad idea. This amendment, in effect, expands the REINS Act to include interpretive rules and general statements of policy. It makes it even more impossible. Therefore, it makes a very bad bill worse, and I oppose it and urge its defeat. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, the REINS Act would already frustrate the point of government by grinding the critical actions of our agencies to a halt. Why, Mr. Roy--and I presume the majority generally--feels the need to also include efforts to protect some of the most vulnerable among us is beyond me. America has a long history of discrimination, and efforts to include these historically marginalized groups should be celebrated and supported, not subjected to further scrutiny by Congress just because the majority disagrees with supporting these individuals. May I remind you that we represent all the people, and amendments like this undermine our service to our constituents. I would ask, why should we tell hospitals not to perform certain medical procedures? If gender-affirming surgery is necessary for the patient and the doctor says it is, why shouldn't the VA hospital provide such surgery? We do not, I presume, want to say it is because we want to discriminate against transgender people, or we want to discriminate against gay or lesbian people. I hope that is not what we are saying, but that is what this amendment seems to do. I oppose this amendment because it goes against our notions of equality and our notions of fairness. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, the gentleman says: Why don't we legislate on some of this? We have. Might I remind the gentleman that last year we passed the Respect for Marriage Act, codifying the rights of two men to marry each other or two women to marry each other because we respect freedom? The amendment does not respect freedom. The amendment, by its description by its sponsor, would say, no, we don't want to do gender- affirming surgery. We don't want to perform surgery that people need because we disapprove of them. That is wrong. The REINS Act is a very bad act for all the reasons I have stated many times already today. I am not going to repeat them. This amendment would make it worse because diversity, equity, and inclusion executive orders are things to be celebrated, not things to decry. Madam Chair, I include in the Record a list of organizations opposing H.R. 277. Opposition to H.R. 277 The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, consisting of over 160 labor, consumer, and environmental organizations, including:

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, yet again, we have another amendment aimed at dividing us instead of allowing us to serve the people who elected us. Vaccinations help us eradicate terrible diseases, like smallpox, polio, measles, mumps, tuberculosis, rubella, and on and on and on. Adding this amendment would not help us govern. It will not help us serve our constituents. Instead, it would just serve to undermine necessary health and safety rules. We here in this Chamber cannot know what contagious diseases we may face in the future, and I oppose any amendment that would undermine our ability to protect our constituents. Madam Chair, before I was allowed to go to school--I won't tell you how many years ago that was--I had to be vaccinated for diphtheria, for whopping cough, for the diseases that they then knew how to vaccinate against. Nothing has changed. We are to vaccinate people to prevent diseases and pandemics. The fact of the matter is that people should be required to be vaccinated, especially a nurse, a nurse who is dealing with patients, who is breathing on those patients. She can transmit the disease. So certainly, she should be required to be vaccinated because the vaccination not only protects her, but it also protects against transmission of the disease to the next person. The healthcare worker certainly ought to be required to be vaccinated. When we have a pandemic like the COVID-19 pandemic that we had, 2- year-olds should have been required to wear masks. It would be child abuse for parents not to do that because there was no vaccination available for 2-year-olds. The only way to protect them against COVID was to have them wear masks. These mandates are meant to protect the public's health and safety. God willing we won't have another pandemic such as we had, but in the future, we will be required, I presume, to be vaccinated against major threatening diseases. That is right. To expand the major rule to include any increase in mandatory vaccinations is intended to prevent mandatory vaccinations. That is a crime against the public health. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, why the COVID-19 vaccine should be more politicized than any other vaccine, I don't know. I don't understand that. And why the COVID-19 vaccine is considered by the gentleman to be politicized, I don't understand that either. It is just another vaccine. It is another vaccine for a very raging pandemic we just had and which is hopefully over--although people are still dying of COVID-19. People should get vaccinated against it, if they haven't been vaccinated. But the REINS Act would make it much more difficult to require or even to drop the requirement for vaccination, and this amendment would specifically make it more difficult. That is ridiculous from a public health point of view, therefore, I oppose the amendment. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this resolution, which would ignore the considered judgment of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and make stabilizing braces, a favorite tool of mass shooters, widely available without a background check. Today is one of those clarifying moments when the priorities of the Republican majority are on clear display. Instead of taking up legislation to reduce gun violence in America, we are advancing a bill to ensure that more deadly weapons are in the hands of mass shooters in this country. What a disgrace. Mr. Speaker, gun violence continues to take the lives of more than 100 Americans every day. It changes how safe we feel in our schools and in our houses of worship. It reduces vibrant cities to somber headlines. It takes our loved ones, old and young, and leaves us with another anniversary of lives cut short and a community forever changed. Today, rather than stand up against gun violence, the majority plans to pass this bill so that they can yet again stand with the gun industry. Rather than support the law enforcement officers who are on the front lines of protecting our communities, the majority is attempting to weaken law enforcement by rolling back a rule created by the ATF meant to protect us from dangerous weapons. The ATF is the law enforcement agency tasked with keeping guns out of the wrong hands and keeping our gun laws in line with congressional intent through rulemaking. In 1934, Congress passed the National Firearms Act, creating additional requirements to own certain especially dangerous firearms, like short-barreled rifles, which were widely used by violent criminals. Congress included short-barreled rifles because they combine the firepower of a rifle with the concealability of a smaller gun. In recent years, the gun industry discovered a way to circumvent the restrictions of the National Firearms Act by selling stabilizing braces, an accessory that allows a pistol to be fired from the shoulder, turning it into a deadly yet concealable short-barreled rifle. In 2020, under the Trump administration, the ATF concluded that stabilizing braces were being widely used to create short-barreled rifles and published guidance regarding their use. House Republicans cried foul. Just 4 days after the guidance was published, 90 House Republicans sent a letter to the ATF and the DOJ expressing their opposition, and just a few days later, the guidance was withdrawn. A few months later, under the Biden administration, the ATF revived its efforts to regulate stabilizing braces and published the final rule in January to ensure that our laws stay in line with the intent of Congress, dating all the way back to 1934, when Congress decided that deadly, concealable short-barreled rifles should be subject to heightened regulation. Republicans will stop at nothing to block the ATF from taking this simple lifesaving measure, even though they know that blocking this rule could have deadly consequences. Mass shooters used guns with stabilizing braces to kill 9 people outside a bar in Dayton in 2019; to kill 10 people, including a responding officer, in a grocery store in Boulder in 2021; to kill 5 people in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs last year; and just this past March, to kill 6 people, including 3 children, in a school in Nashville, the nineteenth school shooting this year. The Nashville shooting occurred the day before the Judiciary Committee initially planned to mark up this resolution, so the majority, apparently sensitive to the optics, if not the substance, of marking up this resolution, postponed the markup. Three weeks later, they decided that enough time had passed since three more families woke up without the child they had taken to school, and they were ready to advance a bill to enable more mass shooters to inflict death and destruction in our communities. I guess they thought that we had forgotten the lives lost in that terrible tragedy. We will never forget them or the countless others who lose their lives to gun violence every day. Now, today, the majority seeks to pass this bill on the House floor, despite the deadly consequences. How many more lives will be lost because Republicans refuse to acknowledge that these weapons are a favorite of mass shooters for their ability to make a gun both deadly and concealable? How many more people have to die before Republicans will value the lives of our children over the profits of the gun industry? During the last Congress, Democrats put forth a range of solutions to prevent gun violence, to support law enforcement, and to solve violent crimes, but our colleagues across the aisle continue to push for unfettered access to every firearm and accessory imaginable. As Republicans continue to seek freedom from gun regulation, we will continue to seek communities free from gun violence. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this dangerous legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, we will certainly go home and explain to the people why we support the ATF's absolutely necessary actions to defend the safety of the American people. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman says that the cause of gun violence in this country is homicidal maniacs. We have 78 times as much gun violence per unit of population than any other country in the world. Does the gentleman think that we are 78 times as mentally ill and that we have 78 times as many gun maniacs in this country as anywhere else per unit of population? That is a slander on the American people. The obvious cause is we have guns run amok. Mr. Speaker, Republicans have claimed this rule affects forearm braces. It does not. If a disabled veteran needs a forearm brace to shoot a pistol, he or she can still get one without registering it. The only firearms affected by this rule are those that have a brace that is ``designed, made, and intended to be fired from the shoulder.'' If a veteran or anyone else wants a covered brace, all they have to do is register it. It was even free to do so until June 1. The ATF waived the fee to encourage compliance. All this rule does is close a loophole so that all short-barreled rifles are subjected to the commonsense requirements of the National Firearms Act: Registration and a background check. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin).

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Lee).