Scott Perry

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be with my good friend from Texas, standing up for all Americans and all of America in the face of this place known as the swamp. There was a time when the country revered Washington, D.C., and no one ever would think of it as the swamp. I was listening to your comments about World War II and visiting the museum this summer. I hope to visit it myself. I think about just recently the use of the Defense Production Act. In the past, it was used to build tanks, airplanes, munitions, the equipment that the American soldier and servicemember needed to go fight tyranny, fascism, and totalitarianism and be successful. This government said to the factory that was building a car, that was building some other machine implement: Whoa, hold on a second here, bigger calling here. We have to save the world from tyranny, so you are no longer going to build a car. You are going to build a jeep. You are no longer going to build something for agricultural production. You are going to build a howitzer. Where are we in 2023? Well, we are going to use the Defense Production Act to force companies--there is no declaration of war, but we are going to force companies to build solar panels and batteries and electric vehicles, windmills, all sourced--my good friend from Texas already talked about where the sourcing of these raw materials come from. Even if you are not buying the solar panel from China, 90 percent of polysilicon comes from China, so we are forcing companies to build these things that, by the way, don't help. If you are talking about carbon, it actually costs more to produce these things than it does just to produce the energy that they in turn produce. That aside, it is using the Defense Production Act to force companies in America to do this because of a political whim. I make the argument that this is not needed and is not needed at this time, and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle don't agree. I am astounded. I am astounded that some Okie from Muskogee, a guy from Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, who has read the Constitution and says, my goodness, it is pretty obvious. The Federal Government is limited in its powers--limited. We are not supposed to be telling people what kind of car they can drive or if they are a business and want to produce one thing, and we are telling them, no, they are going to produce batteries instead because we demand it. Today in a hearing, the Energy Department is proposing rules for new efficiency standards on dryers, washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, you name it. If you have a gas stove in your home, they are going to exclude 95 percent of the market. They are saying, well, it is not a ban. I say to myself: Man, I am just a guy from Dillsburg who used to work with his hands underneath a car. I went to vo-tech school. If I understand that the Federal Government shouldn't be telling me this, why doesn't the rest of the country understand it? Am I missing something? I am not missing anything because when I did spend a week home, just like Mr. Roy did, the great Representative from the State of Texas, I can imagine what he heard. I will tell you what I heard. Time after time at the gas station, when I came out of the movie theater with my wife, when I am at the grocery store, people walk up to me, and they say: Keep fighting. They don't even tell me what to keep fighting on. They know what Chip Roy knows, what Scott Perry knows, that this country is rotting from the inside. They can't necessarily explain how it happened or what it is, but they know that they can't afford their groceries. They know that they can't afford to move to a bigger home. They know that they can't afford a mortgage on a car. They know that when their parents had a house, the biggest bill they had was their mortgage, and the second biggest bill if they decided to take out a car loan was a car loan. Now, the second biggest bill people have is health insurance. Health insurance--I thought we solved that problem in the United States of America. Do you know who sounds like they are getting rich? It is not doctors. It is somebody in the middle. It is bureaucrats siphoning off all the money. This town created it. This town solved the problem that it created by making the problem worse. Now my bosses and Chip's bosses, my constituents and yours, can't afford to live their lives in America and be healthy, take a vacation, have a decent car, a decent home, a decent education for their children. They are making choices: ``Well, I don't know. My house has a gas stove in it. I can't afford to rewire it for an electric stove, but the bureaucrats at the Department of Energy''--I talked to her today. I said: Do you know what is involved in changing from a gas stove to an electric stove? Do you know what is involved? Well, she had no idea, but thank goodness my colleague on the other side of the aisle said, well, if you have to run electricity, we have a $4,000 grant provided by the Federal Government to do that. The citizens who get up early in the morning, pack a lunch box, and kiss their kids good-bye are paying for that $4,000. They don't want to. They can't afford to. They want the $4,000 for their kids and their home, not the Federal Government to tell them how to spend it and what they are working for. It is absurd and obscene.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I know my good friend is from California so I have to restate things over and over again, but this prohibits the obligation of the preference--the preference--for sustainable building materials. It does not prohibit the use of these materials. They can be used. It just doesn't say that the government is going to put its thumb on the scale. By the way, all we are doing in this NDAA without this amendment is saying the taxpayers are going to bear the burden. You folks up there are going to bear the burden of seeing if this stuff works, how long it works, and how expensive it is. The railroads, yes, absolutely, because there wasn't a railroad. Nuclear energy did not exist without the government. That is a little different from things that already exist and things that already work. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment prohibits the use of research development, testing, and evaluation funding for electric vehicles, electric vehicle charging, and photovoltaic technology in the NDAA. For the past decade, the Department of Defense RDT&E funding has been squandered on wasteful, ineffective green technologies at the expense of enhanced readiness and lethality. This misguided push by the left and this administration has only worsened this misallocation of resources in their dangerous efforts to force the American people to abandon the forms of energy and transportation that allow for our prosperity and security. This effort has now moved in a dangerous direction toward the procurement of electric tactical vehicles without regard to the numerous drawbacks of EVs compared to the internal combustion engine vehicles. What happens when the batteries die on the battlefield and our soldiers, sailors, and marines are stuck for hours while the battery is recharging in a sandstorm? How does prioritizing the green energy cult over the safety and lethality of our warfighters promote our national security? More concerningly, the component minerals necessary for these technologies are almost entirely controlled by our enemies in Beijing. That is great. The supply chain for our military comes from China, giving our literal enemies complete control over our military supply chains and our ability to disrupt the defense of our Nation. Mr. Chair, I urge support of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment doesn't prohibit the use of any of this material--not what the chairman said and not what my friend from California is going to state. It doesn't prohibit any of that. All we are saying is that the Federal Government shouldn't put its thumb on the scale and demand and require that we use these products. The market will work it out. The engineers will work it out. The sustainability over time of using these products will ensure the cost effectiveness and the integrity of the construction. We can't wait, we are going to force this on everybody whether they want it or not, and when it fails, they are going to come back to this place and say: Well, we need more money to fix these things that we screwed up 10 years ago by using this stuff that wasn't ready for prime time. I am going to remind you when the time comes because I am going to be voting against all that funding. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment simply prohibits the obligation of funds for promotion of, or preference for, sustainable building materials, including low-embodied concrete or asphalt, or net- zero emissions in military construction. Let me be clear: this does not prohibit the use of those materials. You can still use them. It ensures a fair playing field for all types of construction materials, including ones that we have a long history of knowing about and knowing what their integrity is without the government's thumb on the scale. We don't need the government's thumb on the scale. We know what works, and we don't need to be experimenting with things that might be unsafe. The Biden administration is already demanding so-called green concrete and asphalt standards across the whole of government. They have committed to a governmentwide effort to buy clean, including through construction materials. I don't know, buy clean? I don't know what you think is dirty about concrete, it comes out of the ground, there is aggregate in it--Portland cement. I don't know what is unclean about stick-built construction made of wood grown all across the country. Hopefully, it is grown across this country and not coming from China. Despite GSA issuing the first nationwide green concrete and asphalt standards, according to their 2022 sustainability plan, environmentally preferable paving hasn't saved any money at the initial six job sites. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the technical changes in concrete mixtures, in other words, replacing Portland cement with things like fly ash and hemp, are durable enough for any and all scenarios. Even the loudest voices advocating these technologies worldwide acknowledge the inability for the free market to adopt these technologies on its own. I am going to quote the World Economic Forum because we love them so much, they are for America. In their 2023 report, it said: ``It is a chicken and egg situation: If . . . firms and their clients as well as policymakers don't prioritize''--put their thumb on the scale for-- ``the use of low-carbon concrete in buildings and infrastructure projects, many manufacturers will be loath to allocate capital expenditures for materials production. And until low-carbon cement and concrete products are produced at greater scale, their availability and cost will be a concern for the industry.'' You know what the answer is? The Federal Government is going to demand it. That is the answer. Again, if green construction materials somehow become more cost effective than traditional building materials, they will be used in private and public projects alike. I am going to give you a scenario in my hometown where they used fly ash underneath the asphalt at new government construction. After about 6 months, when the asphalt on top of it all cracked because it was expanding and contracting due to heat and moisture, they tore it all back out and put the old stuff in that works. I am not saying that we shouldn't endeavor to find new things that are better. What I am saying is that the market will figure these things out without the Federal Government forcing us to accept things that we don't know about, cost more, and we are unsure about the long term viability. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, that money is being spent right now on the Taliban and people are dying. Americans don't want this blood on their hands. They don't want to spend their tax money on the Taliban. Yet, 20 years to defeat the Taliban, and they walked away. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, reclaiming my time. I don't think the American people trust this President to spend any of their money in Afghanistan on the Taliban. This is about the Taliban and spending tax dollars. People get up in the morning, while it is still dark out, and they pack their lunchbox. They don't even see their kids before they go to school, and they go out to work to make a living and pay their taxes. They dutifully do that. They want to support their country, including the national security of their country. I bet this is what they don't want to do: Spend their hard-earned tax dollars on the Taliban to persecute women and children and not let them go to school and hang up their adversaries on poles and crucify them and all of those kinds of things. That is what they don't want to pay for. They don't trust this President to make the right decision, because the last time he had the opportunity to do that, he screwed it up. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, for nearly two decades, brave American servicemembers gave their blood, sweat, tears, and many made the ultimate sacrifice, to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, fighting terror and ensuring our national security. In a few short days of abject incompetence from President Biden and his administration, those gains were erased. After 3 long years, the Biden administration has yet to take any accountability for its despicable withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. I still struggle to grasp the level of abdication of leadership and sheer dereliction of duty that occurred in Afghanistan on that day. To this very day, it should infuriate every single American to see the hateful and terrorizing Taliban regime regain control of Kabul once again, touting our American weapons, aircraft, and machinery in a mockery of our longstanding fight for the freedom of Afghanistan. While the underlying bill does have a section prohibiting the transport of currency to the Taliban, which I applaud, by the way, this amendment goes further by prohibiting any funding to the Taliban. I mean, truth is actually stranger than fiction. We fought these people for 20 years. In their mind, we surrendered. In the world's mind, we walked out, abandoned the fight that Americans gave their blood, sweat, and tears for, and now we are paying them. It would be some kind of clown show if it weren't so sad. I ask my fellow colleagues to support this amendment to refuse any kind of support to this hideous regime, especially since the special inspector for Afghanistan reconstruction recently confirmed to the Oversight Committee that he cannot assure that American taxpayer dollars are not going to fund the Taliban. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Luna).

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, let me speak to that. If there is no funding in here and no authorization for spending any American tax dollars in Afghanistan, then you certainly won't mind an amendment that does nothing.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I remind everybody that this is the National Defense Authorization Act. It has to do with the military. If you want to keep spending money and sending money to Afghanistan, God bless you. Then do it in State and Foreign Ops or do it in Intel. Do it somewhere other than in the National Defense Authorization Act. This is about the defense of our country, about what is important to us and our military, not spending money in Afghanistan that should be spent on troops from the United States. Yes, we absolutely do want to tie the hands of this Commander in Chief. He has absolutely no clue what he is doing. He is the one that walked out of the battle, gave everything to Afghanistan, gave everything to the Taliban, gave premier weaponry to the number one terrorist organization on the planet. You want to send them more money? If you want to do that, you can vote for that, but don't do it in the National Defense Authorization Act. People wear the uniform with the flag on their shoulder in defense of this country, in defense of our ideals, not so that you can spend money on whatever quixotic crusade that you are on in Afghanistan that you have already failed at and now you are trying to make amends for. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I have got an amendment at the desk.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As someone who did serve and did use the vehicles for over 3 decades, I rose from the bottom to the general ranks, so I would say at some level, when you are a GO, you are in top leadership. Not one person in those over 3\1/2\ decades ever told me--not one--we are not going to be able to win this fight without an electric tactical vehicle. Not one. As for the first prisoner in Iraq who made a wrong turn driving a fuel truck, it wasn't because they ran out of fuel. It was because they made a wrong turn. I know where the wrong turn was made because I served in Diwaniyah. It has nothing to do with the issue at hand. The issue at hand is that we shouldn't be spending our R&D money from the military on things that can be bought off the shelf once they are proven. If the military does want to buy this stuff, let the contractors prove it to them so that the taxpayers don't have to pay for all the failures along the way, and even more importantly, so the servicemembers in contact don't have to pay with their lives for the failures along the way. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chairman's remarks, and I certainly live better because satellites exist in space. Unfortunately, I have to live with the fact that the satellites in space are powered by Chinese-made solar panels. When the chairman can tell me that the solar panels are all going to be made in America without slave labor from the Congo or from East Turkestan, then maybe this wouldn't be germane, but I don't think we should be dependent on our enemy for our power or our satellites. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Texas, for bringing up this subject. Each one of us feels maybe differently. I don't know whether people know this or not, but there is actually a United States Flag Code. There is a decorum that we are supposed to follow when displaying the flag: how you wear it, if you wear it. The flag is not supposed to be festooned. The flag is not clothing. The flag, the standard of America, the standard of freedom, and the standard of liberty recognized around the globe, is second to no other flag at all. To have it fly flanking the Pride flag on the White House--my friend said he was at a loss for words. I too am. I communicate home every day. Just this morning, I talked to my wife. I let her know I love her. We get on with our day, and we reconnect in the evening. This morning, I reminded my children--not thinking about what was going to happen at the White House, having no clue--but I reminded my children that tomorrow is Flag Day, make sure you get up early, get the flag, and fly the flag in the front of our House because it is important that America and my community know that their Representative respects what our country is about and its standard. It is a new low every single day. My friend from Texas has talked about it as appropriately and as particularly as anybody can, the destruction of this country, evidenced in so many different ways. Every day you wake up, you turn on the TV, you open a newspaper, you listen to the radio, or you talk to somebody, and you say to yourself: I can't believe this is happening in America. Every day you think we have reached the apex of the nadir, the lowest of the low. Every day the left takes us to a new place of a new low of a new disrespect of a new destruction of the country that we love. So I am very, very proud to stand with my friend, the gentleman from Texas, to say that there is an urgency to saving and to restoring this Republic. We always stand up speaking of the flag and pledge allegiance to the flag, and we say: ``to the Republic for which it stands.'' Most people, I would guarantee you, Mr. Speaker, don't know what a republic is. I am going to school you really quickly here: A republic is a place where the individual citizen is supreme and is sovereign, and their views, represented by the people they elect, are supreme and sovereign. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, in a country where there is some agency-- where no one was elected and there is no accountability--that says: You are not going to be able to drive the car you choose and you are not going to be able to buy a stove to cook your family meal unless the government approves, is that a republic? I would argue that it is not. I would argue that it is not, unfortunately. So I am proud, I am happy, and I am gratified to stand here in the people's House with my good friend from Texas and say that I, too, understand the urgency. I too, will not accept any more. I, too, will withstand the ire of some of my colleagues here if it means defending the people at home who sent me here to defend them from the tyranny that emanates from this town, this building, and this institution by the uniparty or by the establishment or whatever you want to call them that feathers their nest with the hard-earned dollars of the people whom I represent at home who can't afford their groceries, a new house, a new car, or to send their kids to school. I am sick of it. I'm going to do everything I can with the moments that I have every single time I have a moment so that I don't have to look back and say: I wish I would have. I am not going to do that. Every single moment of every day where there is fight in me and there is a fight to be had, I am going to be in it supporting those folks and defending those folks back home from Pennsylvania's 10th district and, quite honestly and quite literally, across the great United States of America. I will stand by.

Mr. PERRY. Well, as you know, I am in the same position as you with the bill. We never thought--look, we got together, this House, Republicans stood united, passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act. We stood united, and it was supposed to get us in the room. We knew it wasn't going to be perfect. We always knew that. We never expected to get everything we wanted. We understand that President Biden didn't want any of it. We understand that Chuck Schumer couldn't pass any bills over there and wasn't going to agree with any of it, but we thought we would get something from it, something. It was $1.5 trillion for a date certain, a number certain for said policy. We lost on both ends of the deal. It is $4 trillion, uncapped spending, and none of the policies. The REINS Act, to stop the unbridled regulatory state, that is not there. Work requirements that would actually save us money, not saving us money. Rescissions, where we took money and were going to send it back to the Treasury, that didn't happen. We rescinded it, but we are going to spend it. That is not saving money.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue. Mr. Speaker, let's be clear. We are not talking about the Clean Water Act. We are talking about the waters of the United States of America, Mr. Speaker, and definitionally what has happened here is the administration didn't like what was in the rule and the regulations, and it has changed the definition. They didn't like it, so they changed the definition such that under this rule, nearly every single property across the entire United States that is subject to one drop of rain is now open to enforcement by the Federal Government--not your State government, and not your local government--the Federal Government coming in to tell you that you are a polluter and that you are misusing your land because a drop of rain landed on it. People say: Oh, you don't really mean a drop of rain. Yes, I do mean a drop of rain. You see, Mr. Speaker, it is the EPA that will determine the definition on a case-by-case basis arbitrarily, which is what they want. That is why it is important that we override the President's veto. You see, Mr. Speaker, he didn't veto on behalf of the United States of America. The United States of America sent the people to this Chamber to vote on what they wanted, and we passed the Congressional Review Act to say that we don't want the definition changed. The President doesn't like that. Half of the bureaucrats who work in Washington, D.C., probably don't even have a yard. They probably live in a high-rise. They don't even have grass, but yet they are going to tell you how you are going to live your life and how you are going to use your land based on the Federal Government's rule. Threats of imprisonment under ambiguous terminology and threats of financial ruin is what belies this bill and the American people if we allow this to go. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption. We must override the President's veto. We must stand for the American people and individual property rights which are the bedrock and the foundation of the United States of America.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, the FAST Act provides for certain projects to be covered, which means projects that meet statutory requirements can gain voluntary access to a permitting timetable that contains all the necessary Federal environmental reviews and authorizations in one centralized location. The underlying text ensures certain Defense Production Act projects also receive that covered status unless the project sponsor opts out. This amendment specifically excludes the Defense Production Act projects related to solar panel and EV projects from that preferential treatment. This amendment does not alter the actual authorities provided in the Defense Production Act; it just says that the administration--any administration--can't get special treatment for projects that have absolutely nothing to do with national security. Solar energy is often unreliable and cannot compete without subsidies. EVs cannot compete in the competitive market without subsidies. Mr. Chairman, as far as I know, Congress hasn't declared war since I have been here. Using wartime authorities to subsidize these technologies simply doesn't change those facts. Worse yet, the projects empower the Chinese Communist Party and exploit their regime of slave labor. Roughly 50 percent of the world's polysilicon necessary to produce solar components comes from Xinjiang and Turkmenistan where they have the slave labor operation. Industry representatives have actually acknowledged the major disruption caused by this Congress' efforts to stop forced labor in the region. We should try to stop it every way we can, and this is one of the ways. Again, the solution is not to abuse wartime authorities to prop up domestic industry incapable of making a profit without generous taxpayer subsidies. Finally, while this amendment is relatively narrow in scope, I hope we have a broader conversation about the Defense Production Act on our side of the aisle to prevent abuses from this and future administrations. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk as approved by the House Rules Committee.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I thank the chairman and would echo his gratitude for the staff. There are long nights and a lot of details to be worked through. To get these things right, we rely on folks that oftentimes are more the experts than we are. We sure appreciate their sacrifices on our behalf and on behalf of the Nation. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.