Scott Perry

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. That is exactly right, it is an adversary. Because they say so. We wish it weren't true, but they say so. I am reading that 26 million low-income households who had managed to put aside a nest egg over the term of the last Presidency and the last economy before a year ago have had that savings wiped out just trying to keep up with the prices that are now occurring, and we are only 1\1/ 2\ years into this. You know, we heard in the beginning, well, inflation is transitory, don't worry, it is not going to last. Then we heard, it is only going to be a point, a small interest rate raise here or there to control this inflation. When are we going to stop believing these lies? This is not transitory. Now, of course, they are saying, well, look, this is not a recession. A recession is two quarters of declining GDP, that is what it has always been described as. Now, since the left is in charge, it means something else. Here is what it means to families who are struggling. They see no light at the end of the tunnel. They don't know where this ends. They are having a hard time paying their mortgage, their car payments, and trying to figure out if they can afford their insurance payments which the government has really messed up by being involved in--too involved in--healthcare. There is no free market there. There is no price competition there because the government is too involved. People have to pay their bills. And they didn't have this stress 1\1/ 2\ years ago, but they have got it right now. The worst part is, there is no end in sight. They don't see anything changing, right? They just saw basis points go up again today. Look, if you are a young couple that is trying to start out--look, maybe you are an older couple and you are trying to downsize and you got preapproved for a loan, then the Fed goes ahead and raises the interest rate, and you start the process all over again because you are not preapproved anymore because your buying power just went down, I don't know, maybe about $100,000, which is significant when you are trying to buy a home and get started or when you are trying to downsize from the home you can't afford now. Go ahead, Mr. Hice.

Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, thank you for recognizing the time. I also thank my colleague, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good), for being here with us. I am going to talk this evening and kind of follow up on my good colleague from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert). Some astounding information, and I know that he offers it on a regular basis, and I wish more people would tune in. Of course, I wish more people here would hear his message and, more importantly than hearing his message, take some action in that regard. It is astounding that, in a year and a half, the people who are working, and everybody is that can do it, they have lost a month and a half of wages. Think about how long you work every year, essentially for free, because you are still working but you don't get the money because you have to pay your taxes, and that date moves a little back and forth. Sometimes it is in May. Sometimes it is in April. But then add another 2 months. If you add another 2 months onto that that you are working, but you are not being paid, that is astounding. As I understand it, the average wages under the President for a typical family--and I represent typical families. The average wage of a typical family right now has dropped $450 a month. Now, that might not seem like a lot of money to people in Washington, D.C., people that invest on Wall Street, people that drive fancy cars and belong to the country club. But where I live, $450 is real. That is groceries. People are trying to pay the bill for daycare so that they can be at work. Of course, the cost for that is going up. People are paying more every single day to drive the vehicle that they are struggling to afford. I talk to people every single day. Every single day, they tell me: ``I can't pay my bills right now, and I am not sure what to do. I am trying to decide how much to spend on food because I know I have to have enough for gas, and it is not just enough for the end of the week. I am never going to catch up at the rate we are going. I am not going to catch up. What is happening? What are we doing?'' I mean, look at the price of gas. I mean, the President just released another day's worth of supply from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Mr. Good, you haven't been here very long, but you know the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is meant for natural disasters or national security events. It is not meant for political crises. A day's worth of oil sold on the open market, I imagine so that the President can say, ``Look, I am trying to help.'' But it is like the fireman saying, ``Hey, look, I am putting out the fire,'' when the fireman started the fire in the first place. Nobody says, ``Well, that is great. We are happy you are putting out the fire, but if you hadn't started it in the first place, we wouldn't be in this problem.'' Mr. Good, are you talking to folks like this where you live?

Mr. PERRY. It is an egregious failure. I have to remind everybody that that oil, that strategic reserve, was put in there at rock bottom prices.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Right.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Faulkner was killed in Philadelphia by Mumia Abu- Jamal, and all they usually ask me about that is: What are we going to do to get that killer out of prison?

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, the right to defend ourselves. Mr. Good and I, our colleagues on this side of the aisle, we haven't voted to defund the police. We support law enforcement. Even though we support fully law enforcement, here is what we know: When someone breaks into your home and you pick up your phone, it is going to take a certain amount of time, unless law enforcement is sitting out in your driveway. You are going to have to do something about it at that moment. What our colleagues on the other side of the aisle right now are telling us is: No, you are not going to have any opportunity. You are not going to have any ability to do anything about it. You can use harsh language. I suppose you can throw the lamp that is on your bed stand in self-defense, but that doesn't stop the assailant's bullets that are coming into your home for who knows what reason. Mr. Speaker, we deserve--because we have earned the right to defend ourselves. We live in America. We have a Constitution that we live under. It outlines our rights as ordained by the Good Lord above. We cannot have this Congress and man take them away from us.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from the State of Virginia (Mr. Good) for helping host this Special Order and being here in my absence. Oftentimes, I think that we make this partisan. Republicans are seen or characterized as unempathetic or uncaring in the face of so many tragedies. Of course, it couldn't be further from the truth. We are empathetic. Our hearts break just like everyone else's. But we recognize that in this imperfect Union that seeks to be more perfect every single day, with every single action, that the right to defend oneself, the right to bear arms, is enshrined in the founding documents, the founding documents that we all take an oath to uphold and defend. We don't just dismiss that like it doesn't exist. We understand that, unfortunately, there are evil people in the world and that this right exists, given to us by God, outlined in our Constitution, so that we can then defend ourselves from any assailant, from any attacker, because we have the God-given rights of liberty and of life. We have that. We seek some kind of protection for ourselves that also protects our God-given rights but doesn't allow the criminals to prevail upon us in our homes, in our businesses, and on the streets. Yet, right now, while Americans are suffering the worst cost of living in 40 years--I know the administration doesn't want to talk about it. Right now, violent crime is up 30 percent, an unprecedented rate, not told to us by Scott Perry or Bob Good or Ralph Norman, but by our FBI, an unprecedented rise in violent crime. Right now, right down the hall, instead of dealing with the rise in crime; instead of dealing with the fact that DAs, supported by the extreme radical left, are letting criminals out on the street; not dealing with the issue that millions of people are flowing across our border, certainly laced with a certain criminal element with no regard to American laws coming across our border; notwithstanding the fact that some of the people that lead our country at the highest levels bailed out violent criminals and paid for their bail to be on the street to then assault and assail their neighbors, that is all happening right now. Down the hall, as we speak, our colleagues on the left are trying to reinstitute the assault weapon ban, the assault weapon ban that they know, since 1994, when it was instated then, did absolutely nothing to solve this problem. Because they don't really care about crime--they don't care at all. We are seen as unempathetic. Meanwhile, every city, every weekend across the country, is like a war zone. You would actually be safer in a war zone. I know. I have actually been to a couple of them. You would actually be safer in a war zone than downtown Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, or New Orleans. But they are down the hall working on a solution that doesn't fix anything. It doesn't fix a thing. It takes our rights away and doesn't solve anything. We are here because we believe that Americans have the right to defend themselves, to be free, and to be safe in their homes. We are here as Freedom Caucus members to say that we do stand with the Constitution. We actually believe in our oath. We think that we can do both. We think that we can defend ourselves and stop most criminals' violent activities. But there have to be consequences. What you are seeing right now across the country are the consequences of not holding people accountable. That is what you are seeing right now, violent criminals being let out on the street over and over again. The message being sent by this administration and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is it is okay. It is okay to just do that. It is okay to commit any crime you want. Heck, there was a gentleman in New York minding his store. He was attacked. He defended himself. Unfortunately, the attacker's life was taken. What did the district attorney do? He charged the man who defended himself with murder. That sends a signal to every criminal that it is okay to commit your crimes. Mr. Speaker, it is not okay. This solution is not going to solve anything except disarming law-abiding citizens, meanwhile knowing that the criminals that are willing to disregard the law and use the weapon to kill somebody are certainly going to disregard the law and maintain that weapon when you tell all law-abiding citizens that they must turn theirs in. Mr. Speaker, this cannot stand. We are here today to say that no matter what happens down the hall, no matter what vote they bring out of that partisan-led committee to disarm America, we will oppose it with every fiber of our being. We will oppose it. Even if we lose on this round, in 6 months, when we are in the majority around here, if they were to be successful in imposing this confiscation on American citizens, the confiscation of not only the rights to life but the rights to self-defense, we will reinstate them. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good) for carrying the load for us here.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Virginia is absolutely right. That is our duty here. People think that the Federal Government maybe is supposed to provide so many things. I am sure that every one of us has different visitors that come in and ask us what the Federal Government can provide for them. What this government was set up for by our Founders--and, unfortunately, many of our citizens don't know it--is to provide us with the rights that have been given to us by God and to defend them. That is what we are supposed to be doing here. Right down the hall, it is not about making sure that we maintain our rights to defend ourselves, to maintain the rights that everybody in that room swore an oath in the Constitution to uphold and defend. They are actually looking to strip the very people that are law-abiding, the very people that would follow the law, would purchase the weapon legally, would file the paperwork and do everything that is required in their States. Those are the people that they wish to disarm. They are not in there talking about stopping criminals. They are not talking about stopping criminals. They are talking about stopping law- abiding citizens who are trying to defend themselves when somebody breaks into their home at night or their store or prevails upon them on the street when they are out with their children or, heaven forbid, our citizens dare to travel to one of these cities anymore. I represent a company in my district called Starbucks. Their CEO is closing stores all across the northwest of our country because of safety. People want to go to Starbucks. They can't because it is not going to be there anymore, not because of sales, but because of safety. If that is not a sign of a sickness--and the CEO of Starbucks, I don't know that he thinks that the answer is an assault weapons ban. Maybe he does. But I haven't heard of the Starbucks being held up by an assault weapon. Every single week, every single weekend, people are killed in major cities, horrific violence, perpetrated whether it is with a knife or whether it is with a handgun. But it is the people that do it. These are inanimate objects. Great Britain banned handguns a long time ago and is now considering banning knives because knife attacks are on the increase. Our country has a sickness, and we are sympathetic to it. But taking the tool away doesn't address the sickness. Unfortunately, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so focused on the firearm that they can't even see past the fact that they are disavowing their oath to the Constitution.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, I am honored to recognize Ms. Janine Guido for her tireless, selfless, and relentless commitment to the protection and rescue of animals in and outside of our community. Janine grew up around avid horse-riders--where her affection and love for animals and all wildlife began. When her family built their 18-acre horse farm in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, she and her sister not only trained the horses, but also gave lessons/taught other children the joys and value of horses. Though horses were her main focus, her heart also led her to rescue myriad stray, injured, and unwanted animals in her free time. In 2011, after several knee injuries that made it impossible to train/ride horses anymore, Janine turned her focus fulltime to rescuing animals. Using the family's farm as her home base, Janine went on to save numerous creatures--dogs, horses, goats, and cows, for starters. In the Spring of 2012, she began the process of establishing an official, non-profit Animal Rescue organization named ``Speranza''--the Italian word for ``hope''--which is now known around the world. Janine is passionate about rescuing and rehabilitating animals-- particularly those deemed ``lost causes.'' She ensures that not only do these special creatures get a second chance at life, but that they truly learn the meaning of friendship, acceptance, trust, and love. Any animal that is, has been, or will be in Janine's care--which in some cases even means at the tragic moment of their last breaths in her arms--will know how much they're loved, cared for, and how much their lives mattered. Janine's tireless support by her loving family and longtime boyfriend continue to allow her not only to realize her life's work, but to give 100 percent of her time, heart, and soul to this critical mission. She has set the standard not only for the numerous volunteers and good Samaritans who selflessly give of their time and/or treasure to share in this calling, but for all of us to follow. I am humbled and honored to recognize and commend Ms. Janine Guido and Speranza Animal Rescue of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, on the auspicious occasion of their 10th Anniversary, and dedication to, support, and protection of our creatures great and small. I wish her Godspeed as she continues these spectacular and meaningful adventures.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from California said, nobody in uniform wants civilian casualties. We work very diligently to make sure that there are not civilian casualties, but this almost assumes that we don't, that we actually don't care about civilian casualties when it couldn't be further from the truth. Mr. Speaker, what this does is add more bureaucracy and takes the focus off of what servicemembers need to do in very difficult circumstances, when oftentimes the difference between life and death, between the servicemember's own life and those of his or her troops who are following him into combat, it is a moment to make a decision. Mr. Speaker, at that moment, when lives are on the line, when American lives are on the line, in the face of our enemies, in the face of terrorists, what the gentleman from California would have those servicemembers do is take that moment to figure out if the decision they are making is optimal or not. Or in the case where I watched servicemembers who pulled the trigger, come back, and the first thing they had to do was go to the JAG and explain why they returned fire. Mr. Speaker, those moments cost American lives. That is what this amendment is going to do, and that is why I adamantly oppose it. I ask my colleagues to oppose it.

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

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for the opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I think what is most important about this is it has already been said that we are not signatories to this treaty. With all due respect to the gentleman regarding the House didn't follow the Senate, we should do our own thing, I agree with that. But the Senate is the one that ratifies treaties, not the House. But the bigger issue is that requiring rogue nations who are criminal actors who don't honor their commitments--like North Korea, like Russia, and like China--to not do something on a piece of paper is not going to stop them. They don't honor anything that they sign anyhow, and we would be fools to think that they would. All this does, Mr. Speaker, among other things, all it does is tie America's hands behind its back. Yes, we do certify currently. But we don't know what the future holds, and we don't know what technology is going to be, and we should not tie America's national defense and national security behind her back for the sake of people and countries that refuse to honor the commitments that they sign. And we certainly shouldn't encumber hardworking, tax-paying citizens and their money to some international organization who does not have the best interests of the United States--the sovereignty of the United States--in mind, some global organization that somehow is going to tell us that because North Korea signed a treaty, because Russia signed a treaty, and because China signed a treaty that they are not going to violate it. Mr. Speaker, when they violate it, it might be too late. We don't have time or the luxury of hoping that they will do the right thing. We absolutely must reject this amendment, and I urge our colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3(s) of House Resolution 8, the yeas and nays are ordered. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question are postponed. The Chair understands that amendment Nos. 53 and 65 will not be offered. Amendment No. 79 Offered by Mr. Levin of Michigan

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, this amendment, as has been stated, establishes an office of climate resilience in the White House and a climate resilience equity advisory board, including outside stakeholders, to develop a national climate resilience action plan. What does ``outside stakeholders'' mean? I mean, to me, what I hear is people who do what a lot of people do in Washington. They grift. They are making money. They are making policy that makes their friends money. That is what that means. The stakeholders should be the American people, outside stakeholders developing a national climate resilience action plan. Now, quite honestly, this is, again, the National Defense Authorization Act. How this amendment made it to the floor under this bill is, quite honestly, beyond comprehension. It is just another level of Federal bureaucracy in the name of climate that does nothing to improve the readiness of our military or support the warfighter. That is what we should be discussing this evening. That is what the underlying bill is about, the National Defense Authorization Act. This has nothing to do, again, with supporting the warfighter, nothing to do with increasing readiness. I remember filling out officer evaluation reports with all kinds of requirements. I had a paragraph I had to fill out on every officer, all kinds of requirements that I had to put a statement in about this or that. It left me about one sentence to talk about their warfighting capability, each officer, about one sentence left in all the space of the requirements that I had to complete that had absolutely nothing to do with the servicemember's ability to do their job in combat. So, here we are going to add some more because we don't have enough of that. The folks responsible for developing a nationwide resiliency plan would be those with emergency management experience if they were going to do it, but that is not required. Again, we have outside stakeholders. I mean, it doesn't even belong in this bill, but even if it did, it doesn't get anything right here because we are not going to protect anybody. This is just another bureaucracy for activists on the left to impose these things on United States citizens. I mean, we have real problems. It would be great if we had a task force in the White House, since apparently the President can't handle it, to deal with the record inflation that we have. It would be great if we had somebody in the White House, maybe a task force, to deal with fuel prices. I mean, we have our national leaders traveling all around the globe, thousands of miles away, to try to get other countries to pump more oil, refine more oil. We won't do it in the United States of America. It would be great to have that task force. Maybe that would help national security so we wouldn't have to go fight these foreign wars. But I guess we are going to do this social justice climate fearmongering. It just creates another activist entity within the Federal Government and fails to protect folks from disasters or actually protect the taxpayers. It will actually undermine resiliency efforts by focusing on socialist ideas that are failing. They are failing in this country right now. What we are seeing happening in our economy is the result of these types of things. We don't let the market work. We don't want the market. We are going to impose our will on the American people and say, ``You are not going to drive that kind of car, you are not going to use that kind of fuel, you are not going to buy that kind of electricity. We know better than you do. We are Washington, D.C.'' Most of us have no experience in these industries that we are forcing on the American people. It undermines America's prosperity and promotes technologies that enrich our enemies, like China, rather than supporting the military, which is what this bill is supposed to be about. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would just offer this to my colleague, my friend. I have served in uniform, and I know what the existential threats are. Madam Speaker, I know, having served long in both the enlisted ranks and the officer ranks, the troubles that national security pose to this Nation. While you might find woke officers and enlisted members infiltrate the Pentagon to destroy the military with this tripe, I am not one of them. I am not going to fall for it. Neither should anybody here. We need to focus. Our military, our national defense, needs to focus on real enemies, enemies like China, Iran, terrorism, and potentially Russia, but not in a proxy war in Ukraine. These are real enemies. Climate change can be handled by other agencies and should be handled by other agencies. DOD and men and women in uniform need to focus on defending our country from our enemies, not this, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, there are a lot of issues with this amendment, not the least of which is that my colleague is the subcommittee chairman on the committee of jurisdiction for this amendment, yet we are not taking it up in that committee because I suppose we don't want the debate. While we are talking about national security in the National Defense Authorization Act, this amendment adds to the already excessive bureaucracy at the State Department, not at the Pentagon. It has nothing to do with national security. This is about political ideology and using the National Defense Authorization Act for more bureaucracy, a climate change officer at embassies, consulates, diplomatic missions, et cetera. It is alleged to provide expertise on climate change in the State Department, and it stipulates that this must be done in an equitable, inclusive, and just manner. Do you know what is not equitable or just? Sending State Department officials around the globe to tell other countries trying to emerge in their world, in their economies, by adopting ineffective, destabilizing green energy just so that John Kerry can fly around in his private jet and rub elbows with billionaires in Davos. It is certainly not equitable or just to tell other countries they must transition to electrical systems built on the horrific, forced slave labor and child labor facilitated by the Communist Party of China. That doesn't seem equitable, doesn't seem just, doesn't seem fair. This amendment also contains the sense of Congress that would affirm climate change as one of the core tenets of foreign policy priorities. Madam Speaker, we are talking about the National Defense Authorization Act. This is not the State and Foreign Ops reauthorization. This doesn't belong here. This has nothing to do with this. Everybody here knows, or should know, that we face enormous challenges around the globe for a national security policy. But if we want to talk about State and Foreign Ops, we can talk about Sri Lanka. They have an ESG score of like 99 or something like that. They just overthrew their government because they can't eat because of these policies, these policies imposed on them by the United States of America in the accolades of this Green New Deal garbage. Ghana is the same thing, moving up in the world, electrifying their country so everybody could afford electricity in a Third World country. Now it is dark at night in their homes because there is no electricity because of this kind of stuff. This doesn't belong here, Madam Speaker. Actually, it doesn't belong anywhere, but it certainly doesn't belong as an amendment to this bill. I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no.'' Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I sure appreciate my good friend and colleague. It is always about people, to my good colleague. But on this particular evening, and on this bill, it is about national defense. It is about national security. It is not about this. This does not belong here. We could have a conversation, and we should have a conversation about this, but not here, not now, not tonight, and not on this bill. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, this amendment reauthorizes the Delaware River Basin Conservation Program for 10 years and increases the Federal cost-share for the projects. Now, it is the same kind of theme here at the end of the evening. I guess it is late. Looks like it is about quarter after 2. Nobody is supposed to notice that we are talking about the National Defense Authorization Act, but this is about the Delaware River Basin Conservation Program. I am sure it is important to my good friend and colleague. We served together in the statehouse. But he knows and I know the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee shares jurisdiction over this legislation with our colleagues on the Natural Resources Committee, not on the House Armed Services Committee. This doesn't belong here. As a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I can tell you that this bill has not been considered. This amendment hasn't been considered in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Neither side has taken a look at it, so we don't know the pros and cons. But we know this: This has nothing to do with protecting the residents of Pennsylvania or the Delaware Bay or the Delaware River from invasion from the Chinese or from the Russians or some kind of amphibious force. My good friend even talked about the trails, the environment, and the conservation around the area, which is all a great discussion. But we are here to talk about the National Defense Authorization Act. This is not to pass nondefense-related amendments, and it is completely inappropriate, completely unrelated to national defense. It actually undermines our national security by providing resources to the Delaware River Basin Commission that should go to the Pentagon. As long as we are talking about it, let's be clear here. Unelected bureaucrats at the DRBC have usurped the authority of the Pennsylvania legislature, which my colleague on the other side of the aisle and I served in, and have deprived Pennsylvanians of their property rights by instituting a ban on hydraulic fracturing. Maybe there is a national security nexus because preventing the responsible development of Pennsylvania's wealth of natural gas has enriched the Putin regime. It has funded its aggression in Ukraine and continued European dependence on Russian gas. That is what it has done. This bill absolutely has no place in the National Defense Authorization Act. While most of America might be sleeping at 2:15 in the morning, I am not. I am here in opposition to this because it doesn't belong here. It belongs in another committee, in another discussion where we can get into the details of what this would do, what this reauthorization would do. We are not going to be duped by adding this to the National Defense Authorization Act and continuing the egregious overreach of the unelected activists at the DRBC. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves).