Scott Perry

Mr. PERRY

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I talked to you about the true cost of the rule. Given the true cost of the proposed rule, it will put mines out of business, which is really the intent of this rulemaking by the MSHA. The absurdity of this cost estimate necessitates that MSHA stop its rulemaking process until it gets it right. This amendment would do this and prevent MSHA's assault on American mining. The gentlewoman, my colleague, says it is about workers' lives. It is also about their livelihoods, which are going to be taken from them. People in America have the right to make a choice. They have a right to make a choice, and when faced with the facts, the fact is that this rulemaking underestimates the cost vastly and is intended to put mines out of business--put mines out of business. We don't mine much coal in America anymore. I come from Pennsylvania. It used to be a great coal mining State, but not only is that happening, the opposition--my friends on the other side of the aisle--is demanding everybody electrify their lives, electric vehicles only. That is what is coming. They are shutting down copper mines in the United States of America. When was the last time a new mine opened up? They are not going to allow it, Mr. Chairman. They are not going to allow it, which is why this amendment is necessary. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, my friend from the other side would like you to believe that mining companies want to kill all their employees. I assure you they do not. I also assure you that we won't go to a position where there will be no regulations. We will have appropriate regulations with the appropriate costs assigned to them. That is why this amendment is necessary. That is why it is needed. I urge Members to vote in favor of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, maybe, just maybe, I don't know--this might be a foreign concept to my friends on the other side of the aisle, but maybe employees are pretty darn happy with the work environment they are in. If they are not, they have a choice to go somewhere else and be treated better. Maybe the market is working, and maybe that is why unionization is at one of the lowest levels in history. But because they want those union dues--let's get right down to it. Because my friends on the other side of the aisle want those union dues so they can funnel them into campaigns for elections, they are going to try and force these elections, these ambush elections, on our employers to increase union participation where it is not needed, it is not wanted, and it is not helping anything. Mr. Chair, it is an easy vote to vote ``yes'' for this, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I do applaud the chairman of this committee for making the cuts to the NLRB that he has made. They should be made. Obviously, the NLRB is running amuck. They must have too much time on their hands or too many resources. Did my colleague on the other side not hear the list of infractions? It would be absolutely fine if the NLRB focused on unfair labor practices and dealt with that. That is their mission, but that is not their focus. Their focus is expanding the force of big labor everywhere that they can and shutting out the little guy and removing the choice of average citizens of how they want to work and how they want to be represented, which is why they need to be hemmed in. That is just the simple fact of it, and if it takes it back to the point where they are only focusing on unfair labor practices, then I think we will have done our job well. This amendment actually strengthens the chairman's position in negotiations with the Senate when this bill comes to that negotiation. Mr. Chair, I urge all Members to vote in favor, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment prohibits the use of funds for the Mine Safety and Health Administration to finalize, implement, or enforce its proposed silica rule. The Mine Safety and Health Administration's proposed silica rule is overly broad and fails to account for the differences among facilities that fall within MSHA's jurisdiction. It is the old one size does all, fits all, whether you like it or not. While this silica rule may make sense for certain types of mines, the across-the-board application of this proposed rule threatens to impose significant regulatory burdens on an industry that is vital to our Nation's economic health. Companies throughout the industry have worked proactively to address these issues through various measures that ensure employee safety while limiting the cost to producers. Unfortunately, the one-size-fits-all approach taken by MSHA fails to include an applicability threshold, which would ensure it only applies where it is necessary to improve safety. It fails to ensure that the medical surveillance provisions are employed on a risk-based basis. These drafting failures by MSHA ensure maximum regulatory burdens while minimizing the safety impact of the rule, something one would expect from an administration that is hell-bent on ending mining in America. Let's leave no doubt among anybody who is listening or viewing: That is exactly what the administration wants to do. We call them rare earth minerals. Mr. Chairman, they are not rare. They are from the earth, but they are not rare. We are just not allowed to go get them in America. We have to import them from China or let China use slave labor in the Congo to bring them to the United States of America because we won't get them ourselves. We are then bound by China. Most concerning, MSHA's reported economic analysis falsely claims that it will not have a significant economic impact--as usual, the normal lies from the Federal Government. The cost estimate so vastly understates or underestimates the cost to operators that it calls into question the abilities and motives of those doing MSHA's economic analysis. According to the National Sandstone and Gravel Association, MSHA's estimates of exposure control costs in particular are vastly inaccurate. Significantly, one member company's 2023 budget for exposure controls is approximately equal to the MSHA annual estimate for all metal/nonmetal operators. Based on communications with 13 member companies, costs for exposure controls will vary widely but on average are $920,000 annually, with a median of $225,000. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman. Just because we could increase the funding and there was an agreement to increase funding across the board to some level doesn't mean we have to. I know it is a news flash to everybody in this town, but next month in December we are going to be $34 trillion in debt. We simply can't afford it. I don't mean to be pejorative about the NLRB, if my colleague on the other side thinks this is pejorative. These are just the facts. These are things they have done. If the gentlewoman doesn't like them, don't blame me. I am pointing out what they did, which is why we need to take action here and rein this out-of-control agency in. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, this amendment prohibits the use of funds for the National Labor Relations Board to implement or enforce the Cemex decision, which imposes a backdoor card-check scheme. This ruling threatens to take away secret ballot elections for unionization, including requiring an employer to recognize a union if the NLRB alleges unfair labor practices in the lead-up to the election. Just think about that, because I am sure there are a bunch of antiunion people working at the NLRB. Card check allows for a union to be certified once a certain number of employees sign cards in favor of petitioning for a union election. Rarely do unions garner as much support in secret ballot elections as they do with signature cards. Part of the difference in support is that the employers hear competing arguments about the merits of unionization. More concerning, the signature card process exposes workers to mob-like tactics to pressure employees into signing unionization cards. During an organization drive at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, employees alleged that the UAW used misrepresentation, coercion, threats, and promises to get card signatures. Say it isn't so. It never happens, of course not, because there is no money involved. Secret ballots insulate employees from these despicable tactics and allow them to express their true desire regarding the union question without concerns for the safety of themselves and their families. Fundamentally, we all understand the importance of secret ballots and protecting elections from coercion, threats, and corruption. That is why we hold secret ballot elections for public office. For whatever reason, the minority feels it is important to exempt their special interests in the unions from this fundamental truth to rig the game in their favor to make up for plummeting unionization rates around the country. Moreover, this move by the NLRB is a usurpation of legislative power under both the Obama administration and the Biden administration. Democrats have attempted and failed to pursue card check legislatively because they can't win it. Rejected by the elected representatives, the unions and their lackeys on the NLRB are attempting to pursue this by executive fiat. Again, we don't have a king in this country. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, the chairwoman talks about the violence against workers from trying to form unions. Of course, we know the labor history, but this isn't the 1800s. It is not 1910. It is not the Pinkertons and the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies. It is 2023. Mr. Chairman, for goodness' sake, do all the States that have right- to-work laws--are all those people so miserable that they are leaving those States for States that force almost unionization unilaterally? No, it is the other way around. Oh, by the way, if you know labor law, you know that labor unions are actually allowed to break the law with impunity. That is the reality. That is the truth. Read the law. They are allowed to do it. There is no reason that we can't have a secret ballot to unionize. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, allowing for secret ballot union elections free of coercion, intimidation, and threats should be a pretty easy concept to support, regardless of your party or union status. Now, my good friend from the other side says blocking enforcement will equal uncertainty. No, it will not equal uncertainty. We will keep going just like we are going right now. Unions are sometimes being elected in businesses and sometimes are not. That is what is occurring right now. What won't be happening is that there won't be the coercion and the intimidation and the showing up at the home and the showing up when you pull into the place of business demanding that you fill out the card because they know who you are and they just demand you do it by card as opposed to secret ballot. Americans understand secret ballot, because it preserves the anonymity and saves them from the coercive tactics that we saw in the unions back in the 1970s. I remember it. I remember watching it on TV, the murders and the coercion. I watched it and so did she. There is no reason that we can't use a secret ballot. It has worked for this long. It continues to work well, and that is what we should stick with. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment halves the funding for the taxpayer-funded activists at the National Labor Relations Board. The National Labor Relations Board is supposed to act to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private-sector employers and unions. Unfortunately, under the Biden administration, the NLRB has been filled with labor activists who seek only to empower union bosses at the expense of employees, employers, and consumers. Moreover, their recent actions represent substantial executive overreach to implement a radical agenda so toxic that it could not be achieved by this administration when they had both Chambers of Congress or by the Obama administration with a filibuster-proof majority. The fact that this agenda is so radical and out of touch with the American people that it has been routinely rejected by the people's Representatives should be the end of this conversation, but it is not. Instead, the Biden administration seeks, through executive fiat, to impose the PRO Act that failed to pass legislatively. Just this year, the Biden NLRB has issued the following PRO Act provision by fiat: Joint employers standard, which destroys the franchise model and eliminates independent contractors; ambush elections, which shortens the timelines for elections to prevent employees from making fully informed decisions about whether to unionize or not; and card check, which eliminates secret ballot elections and ensures union bosses can intimidate and lie their way into certification. Immediately after taking office, President Biden fired the NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb, even though he had 10 months remaining in his term and he was replaced with an Acting General Counsel, an end- around to the constitutional advice and consent process. This radical acting official rescinded pro-employee memos that: protected employee's rights not to fund union activity; provided injured workers with remedies when they were injured due to union malfeasance; and challenged neutrality agreements as improper efforts by employers to support a union and eliminate the right of its employees to decide whether or not to organize. These actions laid bare the truth that the NLRB is not living up to its mission, nor is it looking out for the interests of its workers. Instead, it is implementing a radical, deeply unpopular agenda through extraconstitutional means at the behest of leftist special interests. Stand up for the American people and stop this madness. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, the good gentleman from the State of Maryland says, well, you are on your own. You are on your own. I don't know.

Mr. PERRY. Well, the gentleman said it over and over again--you are on your own, implying that we are saying you are on your own. In 2019, we were on our own somehow, I guess, because that is what this goes back to. Somehow, we made it to 2023, by the grace of God, I guess, because the good gentleman also refers to the twenties, so I imagine it is the 1920s. Well, it is the 2020s, and things have changed a little bit. I know that my good friend from the other side of the aisle and I are a little bit older, but neither of us were around in 1920. Things have changed a little bit. Now, as a young man, I pumped gas for a living. I do know the difference between gasoline and diesel and kerosene because I have a nose, and I can read. Sure. Do mistakes happen? Do people put gasoline in diesel and diesel in gasoline? They changed the size of the nozzle, by the way, in case you can't figure that out. If you can read, and most people in America can read, they can figure it out. The point is, we are not a bunch of rubes, and we don't need the government to figure out all this stuff for us. We don't need the government wiping our rear end every time we go to the bathroom, but that is what you would have us believe, that that is what we need, that Americans are so dumb, they can't do it without the Federal Government. Somehow this country survived a couple hundred years, and not only survived, became the greatest country on the planet, and it wasn't because the Federal Government was wiping our rear end the whole way. I urge adoption, and I yield the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment reduces the amount available for salaries and expenses of the Federal Trade Commission to FY19 levels at just over $306 million. It should come as no surprise that I disagree with the Biden administration's weaponization of the Federal Trade Commission. Much like other Biden administration approaches to financial services regulation, the FTC policies under Chair Lina Khan threaten to disrupt entire sectors of the American economy by moving away from the consumer welfare standard toward arbitrary metrics that aim to break up companies--or stop them from merging--simply because they are too big. I mean, we can't even be bothered, as my friend on the other side of the aisle says, with the consumer not having the capacity to determine what is in their best interests, which is affronting enough. I mean, all us dumb rubes out here in America, we don't know what the heck we are going to do without the government to tell us what to do. We can't even do that now. We just have to come up with arbitrary things that we don't like and then weigh in. The FTC has targeted the following standard businesses and business practices, citing several concerns, including, the charging of advertising and other fees to sellers that sell on Amazon or advertise using online platforms. Mr. Chairman, when you want to buy something, it is going to cost you something. Somebody has to pay for that. That is how business is done. Other FTC concerns include the use of noncompete clauses in contracts, and the idea that mergers themselves--rather than downstream effects on consumers--negatively impact consumers. Unfortunately, this government seems focused on killing successful American business instead of staying out of its way. Most, if not all, of these practices are agreed upon in contracts between two willing parties. If you don't like what is in the contract provisions, whether it is a noncompete clause or you have to pay for your advertising, there is a simple remedy not involving the government: Just don't sign the contract. It is pretty easy. In the last couple years, the level of FTC salaries and expenses has increased from just over $300 million to $430 million in FY23. That is $130 million in extra salaries and expenses. I don't need to tell everybody here, I hope, but we are $33.7 trillion in debt--the last time I checked the debt clock, 2 days ago--and there ain't no end in sight. As my young daughter told me when she looked at the debt clock for the first time, she said, Well, it doesn't stop. Yeah, no kidding. It doesn't stop, because this place just keeps spending like there is no tomorrow. If we keep going, there might not be a tomorrow for this country. I appreciate that the bill's author wrote it at a lower level than FY24. It shouldn't be too tall a request to lower that number even further to prepandemic levels when, oh, by the way, just a couple years ago, the government was still too big and was spending more money than it took in then, especially given the questionable tactics of this administration's FTC. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I remind everybody that the CFPB was an all- Democrat conference. There were no Republicans. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman).

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, ever since its ill-advised inception and inclusion in the Dodd-Frank Act, Republicans have been largely unified about many, many issues with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Its unconstitutional, unaccountable leadership structure has been litigated before the Supreme Court. Its unaccountable funding structure--chiefly, the fact that its funding comes from the Federal Reserve and not the duly elected Members of Congress--will likely be addressed during the Court's October session. None of us know, nor should we presume to know, what the Court will decide on the latter issue. Nevertheless, as written, the underlying bill addresses concerns with the funding structure by funding the CFPB through the regular appropriations process. This amendment retains that provision at a level of zero. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr).

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, on November 7, 2023, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on Roll Call No. 547; Yea on Roll Call No. 548; Yea on Roll Call No. 549; Yea on Roll Call No. 550; Yea on Roll Call No. 551; Yea on Roll Call No. 552; Yea on Roll Call 553; Yea on Roll Call No. 554; Yea on Roll Call No. 555; Yea on Roll Call No. 556; Nay on Roll Call No. 557 and Nay on Roll Call No. 558.