Chip Roy

Mr. ROY

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

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

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, while I thank my friend and colleague and I appreciate the fact that through his work and the work of Republicans, we did reduce it by $1.5 billion, but there remains another $2 billion of funding. I say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle: How are we going to ever balance the budget when we continue to fund things like this? That is my question. Why don't we pay for this, then? Can we at least pay for this out of something? Why don't we pay for this out of the Inflation Reduction Act? Why don't we pay for it by eliminating some of the IRS agents that got expanded? Tell me. Go to the American people and say, what would you like to give up to pay for that? That is what I would like to know. I would like to know for the American people: What would you give up in order to pay for $2 billion of more of this kind of subsidy? By the way, in the Inflation Reduction Act, 90 percent of the subsidies go to corporations making over a billion dollars. Mr. Chair, 78 percent of electric vehicle tax credits are claimed by Americans making over $100,000. Couples making up to $300,000 are still eligible. These subsidies could make wind and solar account for nearly 60 percent of U.S. electricity generation by 2050, which might sound fine in unicorn land, but for the people who need reliable energy on a cloudy, windless day, we might actually want to have gas or coal or nuclear. By the way, all of this subsidizes the heck out of China. We are talking about making us not reliant on foreign energy sources. Well, what about China? China is the one producing most of these solar panels and a lot of the battery elements. Why are we continuing to do that? I suggest that that is a waste of taxpayer money, it is unpaid for, and we shouldn't continue to perpetuate it. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker Pro Tempore, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of Lieutenant Colonel George Carruthers. October 22, 2023, marks Lt. Col. Carruthers 100th birthday and the awarding of the prestigious French Legion of Honor medal--the highest level of recognition awarded by the French Government for his service to the country during WWII. Lt. Col. Carruthers began his military career by joining the Army Air Corps at nineteen years old, where he proceeded to be a 2nd Lieutenant Bombardier during WWII. During the war, his B-17 was shot down, and he spent 22 months in the German POW camp Stalag Luft 3, home of the Great Escape, the largest escape by allied Air Force personnel of the war. After the war, he went on to have a thirty-plus year career in the United States Air Force, being awarded numerous medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, several Air Medals, and the Purple Heart in recognition of his outstanding and selfless service. We are able to live free today because of the courage of men like Lt. Col. Carruthers, who put their lives on hold and answered their country's call when it needed them most. Love of family, country, and a life dedicated to service sum up the character of Lt. Col. Carruthers, a member of the Greatest Generation. These stories will inspire future generations of Americans to pursue a life dedicated to causes greater than themselves. I hope this testament to Lt. Col. Carruthers' life serves as an acknowledgment of the immeasurable debt of gratitude owed to him by the American people. On behalf of Texas' 21st Congressional District, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the extraordinary life of Lt. Col. Carruthers and his dedicated service to our country. Today, a grateful Nation thanks him.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation, strongly in support of this legislation. This is legislation that will make sure our troops are paid. It will make sure that our military can continue to do its job. It will make sure that our border is secured, and it will simply return funding of the Federal bureaucracy to pre-COVID levels. That is what we are talking about here. That is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so up in arms about, that we must have a bureaucracy, bloated with massive expenditures in a post-COVID universe, or your life, as you know it, is going to end. When the Declaration of Independence was written, when our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were drafted, those rights did not emanate from this floor. That pursuit of happiness did not come from this floor or anywhere in this building because this building didn't exist. It didn't come from Congress because Congress didn't exist. The fact is that no matter what happens heading into this weekend, whatever the result, there are 50 State governments that are continuing to operate. There are 3,000 counties, county governments operating. There are 20,000 city and municipalities with governments operating; 12,000 independent school districts, because we have a Federal system of government and we are supposed to take care of ourselves and our families and our communities. We are not supposed to bankrupt our country and devalue the dollar and drive up inflation such that the American people can no longer afford to live. That is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing with blank checks, with more borrowing, more taxing, more spending, destroying the future of this country. That stops now. We stand up on this side of the aisle for sanity and a secure border. Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, my Democratic colleagues claim they are saving the world by pursuing renewable energy. They always neglect to mention the important part. The Congo produces 70 percent of the world's cobalt, a key component of the EV batteries they promote. These mines are powered by what NPR, that bastion of conservatism, described as modern-day slavery. Let's stop this foolishness. Let's focus on putting America first, and let's make sure we end President Biden's executive orders. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from Florida for all of his work on this legislation and the underlying bill. I offer an amendment that would prohibit any of the funding made available in the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act from being used to carry out President Biden's executive orders on climate change. Now, I do want to pause for a minute before I describe my amendment to thank the gentlewoman for our work together in trying to address ongoing authorizations for use of military force that have long since come and gone and that Congress needs to ax. Congress needs to dispense with the 2002 and 1991 AUMFs that no longer, I think, are relevant, and I appreciate working with the gentlewoman to that end. I hope we will see some movement on that at some point and would ask leadership, at least on this side of the aisle, to follow through and bring a vote forward. The Senate has dispensed with `02 and `91, and we need to address them here. I would note, in response to the gentlewoman with respect to what she said to my colleague from New York about averting a shutdown and what we are doing here, what we are doing here is trying to move bills through regular order. Now, I have conceded that I wish this were July or August or earlier in September, but we are, in fact, doing our job. Only four times in 50 years--and I am 51 years old, so four times in my lifetime--have we managed to move 12 appropriations bills through on time. That is absurd. We are not going to do it this time. We are not going to get 12 bills through on time, but what we are trying to do is restore muscle memory in this place to actually do our job of getting appropriations bills out of committee, onto the floor, debated, passed, sent to conference committee, and do our work of actually legislating. It is an important thing, and we should do it. Again, I would have done it earlier, but here we are. We ought to finish the job. If we do our job, and we do our job tonight, hopefully, the House will have moved legislation that will fund upward of 73 percent of government. That is a good thing. We can move forward with figuring out how to get the rest of our work done. We can have a debate. If there is any kind of a shutdown, I want my constituents and the rest of the American people to understand that it is because the President of the United States and the Senate majority leader, a Democrat, are choosing to shut down government rather than shut down an open border that is damaging the United States, undermining our security, endangering our citizens, endangering migrants, empowering cartels, and empowering China, rather than doing their job. Mr. Chairman, 304,000 encounters in August, 11,000 in Eagle Pass 2 nights ago, thousands of Americans dying from fentanyl poisoning. They say, okay, well, why bring up amendments? Because we are trying to move forward this bill, which deals with State and foreign operations, and we have an administration that while also ignoring securing the border is using the State Department and all the functions of government to advance a radical climate agenda that is undermining our national security and empowering our enemies, empowering China by pursuing more technology that is created by China rather than advancing things like American natural gas. I believe it is important, and I am offering this amendment to say let's not have funding to carry out the executive orders of the President that are marching forward on things like empowering John Kerry to jet set around the world, to go around saying, oh, let's go combat climate change while I fly in my fancy jet. Meanwhile, India and China are pumping out coal faster than we can even talk about it. There are 1,100 coal-fired plants in China. They are building two a week. We think somehow that we are going to convert our entire internal combustion engine fleet of cars in this country to EVs and solve the problem when, in fact, it will, at most, dent CO2 by about a percentage point. Let's get real. Let's have policies that actually advance the cause of America. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I missed an amendment vote today. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall No. 475. Amendment No. 45 Offered by Mr. Steube

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, the amendment I put forward prohibits funding in this act to President Biden's executive orders that put needless limits on immigration enforcement, scale back sound asylum policies, and establish its own set of immigration directives that Congress has not passed. The executive orders that President Biden put in place as soon as he got into the White House have had an enormous negative impact on the ability of Border Patrol and ICE to carry out their job--in particular, ICE. The results are pretty clear. Deportations of criminal aliens plummeted by 62 percent between fiscal year 2020 under President Trump and fiscal year 2021 under President Biden. It went from 150,000, 103,000, all the way to 38,000 under Biden. The fact of the matter is this is not shocking. When you issue executive orders that place restrictions on the ability of ICE to do its job, shockingly, it can't do its job. Congress, Article I in the Constitution, has not only the power but the duty to tell Article II in the Constitution: Hey, you don't get to use the funds that we are appropriating to not do your job. This amendment would simply say to the President of the United States and the Secretary that we have this crazy idea that maybe, just maybe, the President should follow the law instead of issuing executive orders to undermine the ability of law enforcement personnel to do their job, leaving the American people exposed to dangers, fentanyl pouring into our communities, and criminal aliens being able to carry out crimes on the streets of the country. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, this amendment prohibits--as I have done in a number of our other appropriations bills, successfully so far. This amendment prohibits any of the funding in the Homeland Security appropriations bill from being used to carry out President Biden's executive orders on climate change. These executive orders are pursuing a climate fetish to the detriment of our ability to have national security and energy security. It is driving up the prices of energy and making us more dependent on China and foreign sources of energy. It is making lives more difficult for the American people. Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, has literally said, the climate crisis is the most prominent threat we face. Meanwhile, we have had 6 million migrant encounters, 2 million releases in our country, and 70-some-thousand Americans die from fentanyl poisoning. There are little girls and migrants getting abused in the sex trafficking trade and getting distributed through the United States. That is what the Secretary focuses on. It is absurd. This is pretty simple: Stop doing that. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chairman, I have great respect for my colleague on the other side of the aisle from Texas. On this matter we disagree. The Secretary of Homeland Security has entirely abdicated his responsibility to follow the laws of the United States. He has done so purposely, he has done so with complete disregard to his constitutional obligation to run the Department of Homeland Security, which by definition means he is supposed to secure the homeland--having released some 2 million people into the United States. He has come before the House Judiciary Committee, and literally said, yes, we have operational control of the border, while staring directly at a statute defining operational control of the border under the Secure Fence Act. He later went back to the committee and said, no, no, no, that is not the definition I was talking about. He knew full well what he was doing. He is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people that he is somehow following the laws. That he is somehow following asylum laws and parole laws when he is using parole--which is supposed on a case-by-case basis--to literally dump hundreds of thousands of people into the United States. Americans are dying. Kids are dying from fentanyl poisoning. The very migrants that my colleagues say this is supposed to be helpful for are dying in the Rio Grande or dying on south Texas ranches or getting sold into the sex trafficking trade, or dying, or getting abused in stash houses. This is a blatant disregard of his duty. He should be removed from office. We sure as hell shouldn't be funding his salary. The Holman rule exists for us to exercise our Article I authority over an abusive Article II executive. It is time for Congress to reassert its authority, to reclaim control, to use the power of the purse to stop the abusive authority by this Secretary to endanger the American people, to endanger migrants, and to undermine our Homeland Security.

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

Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I appreciate my friend from Texas, and I will certainly review the amendment. I am not going to withdraw it. I want to review the amendment and see if the reference is somehow incorrect, but the intent of the amendment--and it is now, I am being told, a leg counsel drafting error on the number, so it is probably the number that my friend is referring to. The purpose of it is very clear, which is to turn away the executive orders of the President of the United States that have been undermining our security. The gentleman, I think, properly referenced the number. I think on that one, given that there is a drafting error, and I have three other amendments that accomplish the same thing, I am actually going to withdraw the amendment. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time and withdraw the amendment.

Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I appreciate the brevity of my colleague, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, the amendment that we have in front of us prohibits funding from the act to be used to terminate the Migrant Protection Protocols. This is one of the most important things that we need to address. H.R. 2, which this body, led by Republicans, passed in the spring, addresses the need to return to use of Migrant Protection Protocols to put in place the return to Mexico and remain in Mexico policies of the previous administration, which, when combined with the use of title 42 authority, were effective in eliminating the flow coming across our border. When the current administration completely abandoned on day one the use of Migrant Protection Protocols, the reality is we have seen the resulting chaos at our border. It is hard for anybody who is objectively looking at the state of our border to find any defense for the current policies of the administration allowing the abject failure to occur. This amendment would assert our Article I authority to say to the President that the President must not use funds to terminate the Migrant Protection Protocols--that is, we should not be funding the failure of this administration to do its job. Very simply put, as we put forward in H.R. 2, the choices before us should be to detain, to put in expedited removal, or to put in a migrant protection protocol-type system, remaining in Mexico. Otherwise, you have what we have, which is an utter disregard for the border using parole authority wrongly--instead of on a case-by-case basis, mass releases under parole. We have the use of asylum, not for persecution but rather as a blanket release into the United States, to the point of 2 million releases over the last 2\1/2\ years under this administration. This is a very simple policy that we can adopt as a Congress to restrain the abuse of this administration. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I note that recently China's military sent 103 warplanes toward Taiwan in a 24-hour period in what the island's Defense Ministry called a recent new high. Forty of these planes crossed the symbolic median line between mainland China and Taiwan. There is a lot going on in the world. We are going to have debates about Ukraine. I am hopeful we will have a debate about Ukraine rather than just tacking on a continuing resolution and jamming it through to the American people, but that is a debate for another day. The question here is whether or not we are going to have, in the gentlewoman's words, a strong military, a resilient military, and a strong economy on the back of that or wrapped around that when, in fact, what we are doing through the Inflation Reduction Act is spending almost a trillion dollars, according to The Wall Street Journal, in massive subsidies, 90 percent to billion-dollar corporations, heavily to the most elite, rich, frankly, usually White liberals in this country, driving around their EV-powered cars. We are subsidizing the crud out of that while we are decimating the natural gas strength of this country, which puts us in a much stronger position from a national security perspective vis-a-vis Russia, vis-a-vis China, rather than empowering China by saying, sure, let us please buy all of your solar panels and all of your batteries so that we can transfer our military to something that isn't even remotely ready to be transferred to. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, the amendment before us would prohibit any of the funds in the Defense appropriations bill from being used to carry out President Biden's executive orders on climate change. Our military should be, as I have stated in these other amendments, focused on deterring and, if necessary, defeating our adversaries. President Biden wants to continue to sacrifice the strength of our defense in deference to the climate cult. In 2021, Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby refused to say China was a bigger national security threat to the United States than climate change. He called them ``equally important'' and said it doesn't do anybody good to make a relative assessment of national security issues. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said ``climate change is an existential threat to our Nation's security.'' Secretary of State John Kerry literally travels to China to discuss climate change, not China's increased aggression against Taiwan, not its expansion in the Pacific, not the oppression of its people. Biden's executive orders have served as the catalyst for massive reforms in the Department of Defense that compromise and undermine national security to advance a climate fetish. The Department of Defense's Climate Adaptation Plan includes radical proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the expense of our warfighting capabilities. According to the plan, the Department of Defense has identified climate change as a critical national security issue. It contains mandates on ``environmental justice'' because why miss an opportunity to push such an ideology. The Department of Defense says it will transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity, meaning America's war machine will literally depend on the wind and the Sun unless they are going to be moving, I guess, nuclear power, which my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not been all too quick to help us move. Meanwhile, China has 1100 coal-fired plants and is building close to 2 a week. We have been building zero. We have been constraining the development of natural gas-fired electricity, and we have only recently finally had one nuclear plant get launched I think for the first time since the mid-1970s. The DOD has mandated that all nontactical vehicles be EVs by 2035. It is fair to say the tactical vehicles we need to win wars are not far behind. That means our defense will become wholly dependent on Chinese batteries and other critical minerals. I always wonder why my colleagues are not too bothered by the fact that 80 percent of these batteries are using cobalt, and they are being mined heavily by slave labor, often child labor. There doesn't seem to be any concern about what that means by continuing to perpetuate a mandate to send us down that road when it won't dent CO2 production. It is living in a fantasy land. If you eliminated the internal combustion engine in the United States tomorrow you might dent all of worldwide CO2 production by about 1 percent, 1\1/2\ percent. Meanwhile, China and India are pumping it out in mass volumes. Yet we are going to inject this directly into the veins of our national security. That is why I offered this amendment and believe that it is critically important, so that we can again have our military focused on a core mission of defending this country. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, the amendment that is being put forward here would say that none of the funds made available by this Act may be used to carry out the observance of Pride Month authorized by the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness for the Cultural Observances and Awareness Events list. First of all, that whole title should give you a little bit of pause. At the end of the day, in line with the amendment that I just offered, the goal here should be to ensure that our military is focused on the mission and building cohesion to accomplish the mission. Now we have got the Department of Defense focusing on, for example, the Air Force releasing a memo entitled Department of the Air Force Observance of LGBTQ Pride Month which empowered installation commanders to plan and conduct appropriate activities in honor of Pride Month, which they then did. That then resulted in, for example, the Department of the Navy issuing a memo declaring June's month theme, ``Peace, Love, Revolution.'' There was a flyer advertising Robins Air Force Base 2023 Pride Month events, which included information for servicemembers and their families to attend the Pride Night game night and unity and diversity color run. Because some of the colleagues voiced opposition, Nellis Air Force Base approved and then canceled a scheduled drag show to celebrate Pride Month. What on Earth are we doing? I represent Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. I represent countless veterans attached to or who have served at Joint Base San Antonio or otherwise in central Texas. My constituents come to me, and they just shake their heads, and say: What are we doing? What happened? We need to beat China. We need to be able to be in a position to carry out multiple-front wars around the globe, if necessary. We need to have the finest fighting force in the world with the best technology and the best training. Again, it is one thing to respect someone's private life and differences, but to carry out your objective in the office without having the Department of Defense promoting events dividing us up by our various characteristics. That is the reality. On social media, the marines tweeted a Pride Month image with rainbow-tipped bullets on a marine helmet featuring the words: Proud to serve. I am sure the Chinese military is quaking in its boots with the rainbow-tipped bullets being tweeted around the world. The Air Force tweeted an image with the silhouette of an airman saluting in front of a Pride flag. The Navy changed their logo on social media to ships and aircraft in front of a rainbow flag. Again, that is the flag right there: Red, white, and blue. That is the flag--no other flag--when we are talking about what the United States military should be standing in front of and should be projecting. I have very few constituents who disagree with this sentiment that we should be focused on having a military that is designed to, when called upon, blow stuff up and kill people in defense of this country, as needed, and to be the best fighting force to accomplish that objective in the world. They need to be trained and to have a clear mission. And, oh by the way, side note, while I am sitting here on the floor talking about the Department of Defense appropriations, the military should not be engaged in endless conflict without congressional engagement in terms of authorization of the use of military force, which, by the way, we were supposed to be addressing by the end of this month. I will save that for a different speech. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I will be brief in the interest of moving things along. The only thing I would note is, with respect to the difference, for example, of talking about Christmas trees and celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and putting up a Pride flag, I would say those things are different. I would also note that there have been problems at the Department of Defense with people expressing their faith. In fact, there are Christians who are being limited in their ability to have Christian displays in their offices, and we had to have groups like First Liberty go litigate it in court in order to defend their right to be able to display said Christian symbols and statements in their office cubicle. This is what is going on at the Department of Defense, and people don't understand it. I think this is a commonsense effort to refocus our military on the mission to which it should be focused. Acknowledging that we are a diverse community is great, but the Department of Defense can acknowledge that diversity and bring people together to carry out the mission without perpetuating essentially social engineering at the Department of Defense. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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