Chip Roy

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Right.

Mr. ROY. Right.

Mr. ROY. Yes.

Mr. ROY. If the gentleman is asking a rhetorical question and the gentleman does not have his--

Mr. ROY. Yes.

Mr. ROY. I will yield back.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert). We have engaged in a colloquy on his time. I am going to start my 30 minutes. He, of course, is welcome to stick around a little bit if he wants. I am going to just jump off from where he started, or I am going to start from where he left off, and that is to talk about what we are debating on the floor right now, which is the reconciliation bills that we are debating in the House and in the Senate as we speak. For the average viewer out there, you don't understand what we are talking about. Let me put it in basic terms. The reconciliation process is a part of the Budget Control Act, which basically gives us the ability to reconcile current policies with what we are dealing with, with respect to our spending, debt, and deficits. We have to make that all add up, and we are supposed to do that in a way that would yield deficit neutrality or deficit reduction. That is the general purpose of why we have reconciliation. Reconciliation, though, because there is a 60-vote threshold in the Senate and that means that certain policies that the majority wants to get in place in the House and the Senate if they control both Chambers, often hit resistance by the minority party in the Senate, that then reconciliation is used to end-run what we call the filibuster--even though it is really just a 60-vote threshold, end-run that in order to get policy even though we are supposedly not doing policy on reconciliation. That is how stupid your Congress is, America. That is how you are developing policy: through a bunch of arcane procedures, some of which are great and designed to have cooling effects, and some of which are really stupid. Yet, what we are doing is trying to find every which way possible to avoid accountability and responsibility, and that is, as I have been putting it around here to reporters and getting reported out, to do basic math because that is, in fact, our obligation, is to do basic math. Unfortunately, a whole bunch of my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle and a whole bunch of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle refuse to do basic math. They want to say that, through magic fairy dust and through money trees, they can just wish away the reality that we are going to have a certain amount of inflows and a certain amount of outflows every year. Do you want to know why we are $37 trillion in debt, or soon to be? That is why. Now, we are having a big debate, America, on what we should do in this so-called reconciliation process. We are going to have tax policy in there that is going to affect our tax revenues to the government but, more importantly, affect the tax bill you receive. Let me stipulate for the record that when I am attacked a lot in the coming weeks for saying, allegedly, I want to have taxes go up, I am emphatically for cutting taxes. I would like to zero out the tax code, eliminate the income tax, and get rid of the IRS. I would like to do all of those things, and I have legislation to do it. I will vote for tax cuts, but I refuse to ignore math. If you are going to do a certain amount of tax cuts, which will create a certain amount of economic growth, yes, you still have to model how much revenue will come into the Treasury versus how much you are spending because my Republican colleagues love to spend. They campaign on tax cuts. They deliver on most of the tax cuts. They campaigned on balancing the budget and cutting spending, and never do it, ever, in the history of ever, with the possible exception of the late 1990s when the Gingrich Republicans, combined with Clinton and, by the way, a dot-com economic explosion, to deliver us a balanced budget. They did it through welfare reform and through some spending constraint. That is the only time in modern history when we have done it. Here is the problem. This chart shows you what we are dealing with. A whole lot of people are saying: Well, Chip, you and all of these fiscal hawks, these fiscal conservatives, you guys want to do all of these massive cuts, and we can't do it. It is crazy what you want to do. Let me be clear what we are talking about. We are currently running close to $2 trillion deficits. If we do all of the crazy stuff we are trying to do, we will be running what? Close to $2 trillion deficits. That is the truth. That is what the models show. That is what we know. Look here. These are the projections of the way things will be if we do nothing. The blue line, we do nothing this year. We let the tax cuts expire, taxes go up--let me repeat, I am against that--taxes go up, revenues are projected to do what they do, and we will have the amount of debt over the next 10 years we see here growing from almost $30-something trillion all the way up to $50 trillion. What do these other lines represent? The orange lines are the House bill. The red lines are the Senate bill. We just did a thing where we combined the House and the Senate bill into one budget. We are now negotiating that, and this is all yet to be determined. Why am I saying all this? No one wants to read all of this. Nobody is going to pay attention to a chart. All of my staff and everybody says, ``Don't use charts on the floor. Just go down and say things that will get clipped and sent around.'' Let me try to say something that will get clipped and sent around. Even if the House Republicans are successful in working with the President and the Senate to achieve the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in spending restraint over the 10-year budget window, which is a mere $150 billion to $200 billion a year, even if we are successful, we are going to massively increase the debt in the United States all the way to pushing well over $50 trillion by the end of this budget window. That is it. If we fail, then debt will go up a little higher. We have an obligation to do better. Everything we are fighting for right now in the House is for crumbs. I haven't decided whether I will vote for it or not vote for it. Why? Because I am one vote. Out of 220 Republicans, I am one vote, and I have to figure out how we build a majority and how the Senate builds a majority and then work with the White House to get a bill signed. I recognize that. There is a limit that I can accept. I just want the whole world to tell me, should I vote for a bill if we are successful at fighting for what we are fighting for on Medicaid reforms, on unwinding the student loans, on cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, on finding savings and fees on illegal aliens here so that we can pay for continued enforcement of the law at the border? If we are successful for all of those things in terms of revenues and expenses, I am still going to burden my kids and grandkids with over $50 trillion in debt. What does that mean? It means more interest. It means likely higher inflation because, at some point, we can't afford this. That is the fundamental question. Now, I have a bunch of my colleagues, to the point of the gentleman from Arizona, running around saying that we can't touch Medicaid. Why can't we? Medicaid was expanded under ObamaCare, which we all opposed, and the Medicaid expansion was a big reason why we opposed it. Why can we now not demand reforms to the broken pieces of ObamaCare that expanded Medicaid such that we are giving 90 percent Federal match to the able-bodied, the people who are not the most vulnerable, compared to the vulnerable population who only get 50 to 60 to 70 percent? Why would we do that? Why would we give more to Medicaid recipients than Medicare recipients, which we often do? Why would we continue to allow States like California and other States to game the system, to get Federal dollars sent back in a money- laundering scheme, as has been reported widely by The Wall Street Journal and others? They are openly and knowingly doing it. Why wouldn't we fix that? Why wouldn't we apply eligibility rules and work requirements, combined with lowering that abusive Federal match rate subsidizing blue States to game the system when they are using Federal borrowed money to prop up their weak State budget? Why wouldn't we fix that? I don't have a single constituent I know who thinks we ought to continue doing that. Even more so, my colleagues are running around giving in to these arguments that we are somehow cutting Medicaid. That is a lie. We could have a debate about whether we should actually reduce Medicaid and give more money in other places or free up the States to provide better service or empower Americans to go get the doctor of their choice and be able to afford healthcare without having an employer- or government-provided, insurance-run bureaucratic system enriching insurance bureaucrats and pharma and hospitals because that is what we have. We don't have free healthcare anywhere in this country. The freest country in the world, and we do not have the freedom to go to the doctor of our choice. We don't. The average family in this country is paying $25,000 a year to go to insurance bureaucrats to tell them what handful of doctors they can go to, what lousy deductible they get, what ridiculous copay they have. I have a constituent who died from cancer last year who couldn't go to MD Anderson because she was covered under ObamaCare. Think about that, covered under ObamaCare, sick with cancer, can't go to the best cancer hospital in the world 2 hours from her house. That is your healthcare system, and we won't touch Medicaid. Our budget contemplates Medicaid going up 25 percent. I am not going to say whether that is good or bad, but can we at least just have the backbone as the Republican Party to not allow our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the media to say that we are cutting Medicaid when we are increasing Medicaid spending? I mean, it is mind- boggling that we allow that narrative to set in on a program that is broken, that has a trillion dollars of improper payments, that is rife with abuse. What are we here for? I mean, that would be my question for my Republican colleagues. Why did you run for office? Because I don't recall Republicans running on a big platform of: The government is the solution to all your problems. I don't remember growing up as a child of the eighties listening to Ronald Reagan or, frankly, listening to President Trump's speeches saying, man, we really love government bureaucracy and all the great things it does for the people. Nobody runs on that. Not a single Republican has run on increasing deficits. Every single Republican has run on balancing the budget. Yet, every year, we vote for more spending. Every year, we vote for more debt. Every year, we increase deficits and add to the debt, every single year. I want to get right to the chase here because, for the last 2 months, some of us have been willing to walk out and say that we will not vote for the tax cut extensions if we don't get spending restrained. I am getting lots of Republicans around town who like to stir the pot and go and say, ``You are going to vote for a tax increase, are you, Chip? Oh, we are going to hit you hard. We will come after you for voting for tax increases,'' but they won't say a thing about voting for the inflation tax increase on every American family while they run to the hills on spending restrained because they won't do it. That is the truth. I didn't come to this town for more of the same. The men and women who walked into a wall of bullets at Normandy didn't do it so we could have $50 trillion of debt and destroy our own country from within. That is what is happening. This country is weaker because the very individuals entrusted to defend her, defend the Constitution, and be responsible stewards of the Treasury have failed them and continue to fail them. Let me be very clear about the budget we are talking about right now. We see what happens to the debt under our budgets. They go way up, but I am not accounting for the other things. What are those other things? This budget, the House budget, assumes that we are able to figure out how to hold what we call discretionary spending flat. I don't know if the Speaker, who is the only other person in the Chamber with me, believes that we will hold discretionary spending flat, but history would say we wouldn't. Our budget assumes that we hold discretionary spending flat. That is Defense, DOJ, DHS, all the spending on all the various programs in Commerce, and go down the list. What else? I read a story yesterday that because of tariff policy--by the way, I support the President using tariff policy to isolate China, restructure our worldwide trade that is being abused by friend and foe, but I just read a story yesterday that they are planning on how to bail out farmers from tariffs. Remember, 7 years ago, we had to spend $25 billion to $30 billion, $35 billion to bail out farmers for tariffs. This last December, we spent, I don't know, $30 billion or something in a supplemental bailing out farmers. What happens when we need more money for California wildfires, or what happens when there is a hurricane that hits Florida or, apparently, North Carolina or Tennessee? Is that $5 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion, $50 billion? You see, Congress doesn't have the ability to say no to spending. Let's bring it all back. Should I vote for a reconciliation package that will almost certainly guarantee $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion of deficit spending because I am getting certain crumbs in cuts in certain committees, and the only reason that I have gotten said crumbs was because we threatened to stop the extension of the tax cuts in order to force the question on spending? Look, I want to absolutely applaud the great work of a whole lot of committee chairs and my Republican colleagues for the work that they have done to identify spending restraint and savings. Education, they found a bunch of savings. I can go through committee by committee. Last night, we added a lot of fees to pay for border security and stuff in the Judiciary Committee. There are other things we could do. The math is still going to have to be math. We are going to spend about another $300 billion in this bill for defense and border security. That is another $300 billion. We are going to find savings of allegedly $1.5 trillion over 10 years, so that is $150 billion a year. What that means is we are already in the hole. By 2035, the United States will be spending more on interest per year than all Federal programs, aside from Social Security. Right now, Federal debt is so large that 40 percent of all personal income taxes go to paying interest on the Federal debt. Think about that. We have over a trillion dollars a year in interest. Spending drives inflation. In 2024, the typical American family needed an extra $17,000 a year to maintain the same standard of living as January 2021. We have increased spending, our budget, our Federal budget, from roughly $3.6 trillion or so in 2015 to almost $7 trillion now. That is an 80 percent increase. Does anybody alive think that we can sustain this? Do any of my colleagues, Republican or Democrat, think that we can sustain this? Does anybody alive right now in the Chamber, if they are in the complex and haven't hopped on a plane to fly home because we had our final vote on a Thursday morning and we are going to come back on a Monday night in our usual way of doing things in the swamp, not doing what we should do, does anybody believe that this is going to save the fiscal health of America? Like I said, I haven't decided if I am going to vote for it or against it. That depends on a lot of variables--the Inflation Reduction Act to actually repeal the ridiculous subsidizing, enriching the Chinese and enriching billion-dollar corporations, and undermining our energy security. Do we have the resources necessary to secure the border and the fees to pay for it? Are we putting in the provisions that we ought to be putting in there to guarantee that we are going to have the President be able to carry out his campaign promises to remove aliens? Are we going to have transformational reform to Medicaid so we eliminate the ridiculous 90-percent subsidy of the able-bodied while we are giving a much lower rate of 50 to 70 percent to the vulnerable population? Are we going to continue to allow the provider taxes and the gaming of the system, the money laundering that is allowing money to go to California to be gamed and to be doled out to illegal aliens and put in their general budget as they openly brag, or are we going to fix that? Are we going to fix the debacle that is the higher education system? Are we going to restrain their ability to abuse Federal grants, student loan subsidies, or are we going to continue to subsidize Harvard, Yale, Cal Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Virginia, both my alma maters? I don't care. I would cut them off and take away their money. Are we going to continue to do as I heard, which is to create additional taxes on cars, or are we going to fix it? Literally, in order to pay for the Coast Guard and air traffic control, I heard that the T&I Committee, they were poised to put a vehicle tax on every vehicle in America. Limited government, constitutional Republicans were going to tax your car. We fought and said that is a bad idea. So they got rid of the tax, the $50 tax or $20 tax, whatever it was, on internal combustion engine cars. By the way, we are subsidizing EVs and hybrids and so forth in order to get the internal combustion engine off the street, but now we are going to tax the EVs that we are subsidizing, unless we repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. These are the tangled webs that we weave in a government in which politicians promise to give away free stuff. As I have said before, we are not the United States House of free stuff. You can't just print money and give it to people and say, oh, we will take care of your problems. Yet, that is what we do. Our best case scenario if we pass this reconciliation package is still $50 trillion in debt in 10 years. That is literally the best case scenario. I think it is much worse, especially if our interest is going up and we refinance our debt at higher rates, which seems likely, but here we are just nibbling around the edges begging for crumbs. Please, oh, please, please give me $150 billion a year in savings on a $7 trillion annual budget, up almost twice in a decade, bloated and expanded under COVID, bloated and expanded under both Democrat and Republican regimes. We have had an extraordinary first 100 days. The President has turned this ship around. We are securing borders. Apprehensions are down 94 percent. We are resetting our position on the world stage, diplomatically, economically. We are rebuilding our military, which was being decimated by the previous administration, unwinding DEI, rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government, firing bureaucrats, identifying all the things that ought to be cut, and that is a good thing. In Congress, my colleagues are doing some good things. We have passed some good bills that are hitting a wall in the Senate: the SAVE Act, the injunctions bill, a bunch of CRAs to undo the damage of the Biden administration. We passed five this week to undo the damage of the EV mandates. We have got to stay on offense, and we can and we are doing a lot of great things, but this reconciliation bill, at a bare minimum, can do no harm, and literally that is what we are begging for, when we are trying to fight for $1.5 trillion in spending reductions, not even cuts. I want to be clear. I will remind everybody about Medicaid. Medicaid, there it is. It is going up 25 percent in our budget, for better or worse. I can make arguments, but it is going up. Can we at least speak the truth that it is going up? We are begging for crumbs to get $1.5 trillion in reductions over 10 years. We are going to spend $86 trillion over the next 10 years. We are just trying to save $1.5 trillion of that massive increase for crumbs to have $50 trillion of debt at the end of that rainbow. I hope we will come together. I hope we will unite to deliver a product that is worthy of support. I have not decided whether I will be able to support it. We will find out whether it has what is needed. Honoring the Life of Diana Denman

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I do want to take one second before I yield to my friend from California to honor a dear friend of mine who passed away a couple weeks ago, Diana Denman. Often called the godmother of the Texas Republican Party, she passed away on April 17 at the age of 91. I don't do a lot of the floor speeches on individuals because I feel like if I do them for one or two and I don't do them for everybody that I represent that gets tough. Obviously, veterans, police officers, there are things that rise to the occasion. Diana was a legendary mentor not just to me but to many of my friends, many of the people that work for me, many of my staff. She played a major role in the political evolution in Texas where Texas went from a historic southern Democrat State to a bastion of conservative Republican politics and a warrior for freedom across the globe. I was proud to have her support, but more importantly, I was proud to have her friendship. She worked closely with some of my dear friends in politics and former bosses like Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Rick Perry, both of whom are dear friends of mine. She led a storied life. She rode her horse into the lobby of The Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. She acted in Hollywood where she would go on to meet future President Reagan when she was in Hollywood in that Golden Age. She held many positions in the Reagan administration in the 1980s, and she stood strong against the Soviet Union and Soviet aggression around the globe. She was truly one of the last cold warriors, and I mean that in all of the right and good ways. As a child of the 1980s, I consider myself a proud cold warrior and believe very much that we need to stand against aggression in the same way President Reagan stood against that aggression and stood for freedom and as a beacon of hope around the world. I think we can learn from that era, as I learned from Diana, about doing things with peace through strength. I will miss Diana, and she will be remembered for her fierce patriotism and her strong convictions. She was feisty. She was committed. She loved her country. I thank her for her steadfast commitment to the conservative movement, to the United States, to defending our country, and in service of the Lord almighty. I will keep to fighting to live free, and I will remember Diana through those actions. I will miss her dearly, as will many of my staff who counted her as a mentor. When I think of the people who have devoted their life to the cause and they come and they go and they pass, I am reminded that we are here for these fleeting moments, what will be our legacy? What will be the legacy of this generation? Are we going to put this country back on a sustainable path? Are we going to actually honor our constitutional commitment to having limited government in which people can live free? Are we going to constrain the appetite for unchecked spending and the racking up of debt and the deficits and the interests that are killing our economy, our country, and, frankly, the futures of our own children, or are we going to choose the harder path? As President Reagan said in 1964, it was a time for choosing. Frankly, we didn't actually heed his call. We chose poorly. We chose the path of a massive, bureaucratic tyrannical State. We have empowered government; we haven't reduced it. We have increased spending; we haven't reduced it. We should actually honor that time for choosing, and in the memory of my good friend who served with President Reagan let's reignite that call for a time for choosing, to choose that path, to choose the path of the Constitution of limited government, of freedom, of responsible spending, and turning over this country to our children better than we inherited. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 354 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation. Last night, the Committee on Rules met and produced a rule providing for consideration of five pieces of legislation. H.J. Res. 60 and H.J. Res. 78 are both considered under a closed rule, each with 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Natural Resources or their respective designees and provides each a motion to recommit. Additionally, H.J. Res. 87, H.J. Res. 88, and H.J. Res. 89 are all considered under a closed rule, each with 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees and provides each a motion to recommit. Finally, the rule tolls the date counts regarding resolution of inquiry until September 30, 2025. Mr. Speaker, before I get into the substance of this, I will start by saying on the Committee on Rules we tend to get to know each other pretty well in significant late-night engagement in debate. The ranking member of the Committee on Rules, Mr. McGovern from Massachusetts, has had an unfortunate loss that words cannot possibly convey as a dad what he and his wife are going through with the loss of his daughter, Molly. I say from this side of the aisle, I know speaking for the entire Committee on Rules irrespective of party affiliation, how much Jim, his wife, and his son are in our prayers after losing their daughter and sister, Molly, to cancer. As a cancer survivor, I have seen firsthand the horrors of the disease. I told my Committee on Rules colleagues last night in committee, in my time in treatment at MD Anderson, going through chemo seemed trivial to me compared to watching the parents at MD Anderson who were watching their children go through treatment. Molly went to Heaven last week while visiting a friend in Italy, and I think I speak for everybody in this body when we offer our deepest condolences to Jim and to his entire family and to our colleagues who were so close with and knew Molly, who, by the way, from memory I believe worked for Jamie Raskin as an intern, and had her own engagements in public service. When I heard of her passing, I did a little googling about her life, her love for sports and Boston sports, her love of her dad, and how proud she was of her dad. While, just on occasion, Jim and I might have disagreed here on the House floor--it has been known to happen--we are all united in offering our condolences and prayers for Jim's family, and God bless Molly and his entire family. Mr. Speaker, on the legislation that is before us, I know that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are, no doubt, about to launch into how we have had an ineffective first 100 days and Congress is not doing anything. Let me put in perspective for the American people what we are focusing on. We are focusing on undoing the damage of the last 4 years of the Biden administration. The President is doing that on a daily basis in the White House today, and then we in Congress are using the powers that we have before us in an obvious narrow majority and in a narrow majority in the Senate, where you have to get things through the Senate with 60 votes. We are using the tools in front of us to try to limit and minimize the damage caused by the previous administration and, frankly, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle today. Notably, we are talking about in this situation what we have done so far. We have passed legislation to secure our elections through H.R. 22, the SAVE Act, to guarantee that only American citizens vote in American elections; to hold rogue judges accountable for issuing nationwide injunctions and trying to change the process. Mr. Speaker, that is not partisan. Justice Elena Kagan talked about the need for injunction relief. The Democratic Solicitor General under the previous administration talked about the need for injunction reform. We offered legislation that would change and reform injunctions. We passed that before Easter so that a single judge won't be legislating and making national policy by granting temporary restraining orders and injunctions. We made changes on border policy with the Laken Riley Act, which is extremely important; and legislation to combat the flow of fentanyl. Importantly, what we have been trying to do is undo the damage on the border. Mr. Speaker, keep in mind what has happened now under the first 100 days. In just 100 days, southwest border apprehensions have decreased by 94 percent year over year. Mr. Speaker, consider that for a second. They decreased by 94 percent. What changed? Have we passed a massive law? Have we enacted the law that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said last year was necessary, this bipartisan bill which, by the way, would have codified all the bad policies under the Biden administration? No. The only thing that changed was a White House willing to enforce the law. That is literally it, and now there is a 94 percent reduction in apprehensions at the border. Keep in mind that we are now at apprehension levels of somewhere around 100 to 200 a day, 3,000 to 6,000 a month. We had 6,000, 8,000, 10,000 apprehensions per day under the Biden administration. The President has restored common sense by ending DEI in the military and working to keep men from competing in women's sports, affirming that there are two genders. These are common sense. I wouldn't think we would have to spend time on the floor of the House of Representatives doing those things or having the President do it by executive order, but here we are. The President has unlocked America's energy potential, or at least taken a giant step to doing so, by reopening 625 million acres for drilling, withdrawing from the disastrous Paris climate agreement, and approving new LNG projects. Mr. Speaker, here before us today, we have what we call CRAs, under the Congressional Review Act. The purpose of these is to undo burdensome Biden regulations. This is our ability and our prerogative to hold the Biden administration accountable, and that doesn't stop just because the Democrats lost an election and we have a Republican in the White House. We have a duty to undo some of that damage. Under these bills, we would repeal California's advanced clean trucks waiver, which currently would allow the State to mandate the sale of zero-emission trucks. It would allow the State to mandate the sale of zero-emission trucks. These bills would repeal the California advanced clean cars waiver allowing the State to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035; put an end to California's implementation of its most recent nitrogen oxide engine emission standards, which create burdensome and unworkable standards for heavy-duty, on-road engines; nullify a rule by the National Park Service that would infringe on the employment of a recreational area, contravening the agency's own mandate when it was created; and, finally, one that would end an Endangered Species Act designation by the Fish and Wildlife Service that would threaten water resources and other conservation efforts. Mr. Speaker, these things matter to the average American. My colleagues are going to say that this is small ball, and it doesn't matter. Every one of these regulations add up to interference with the enjoyment of life by the American people, drive up the price of the goods and services for the average hardworking American family, make vehicles more expensive, make our lives more costly. Then people wonder why they are suffering from inflation and suffering from the inability to afford to live in the modern world. This Congress is taking steps to undo that damage, working with the White House to restore the ability of the average American family to live and afford the basic necessities of life, including vehicles and the right to be able to choose the vehicle of their choice in an open market. Mr. Speaker, I know my colleagues are going to say that we are infringing on California. Let's remember that California gets treated specially and uniquely and that that then has a domino effect through the rest of the country. That is unique to California based on past precedent involving Los Angeles smog and other things where that is causing a direct impact on other States across the country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I miss getting that admonition. It was a pretty regular occurrence in my various floor speeches. With respect to the resolutions of inquiry, let me put out there that it is my strong preference, as I have said multiple times on the floor of the House, that we come up with a system that allows the body to work its will and that we allow individuals to be able to move forward in good faith to get information and ask questions of the executive branch, no matter who is in power. I introduced the ARTICLE ONE Act to try to restrict Presidential power under the Trump administration the first time and had trouble getting it moved during the Biden administration. I am not really even pointing fingers. I am acknowledging the politics. I had some Democratic colleagues and friends of mine that would say: I like that idea, but I don't know if right now is the time. Okay, but let's have the conversation. Let's take ROIs, what we call resolutions of inquiry, a tool in which we can specifically go ask for specific information. We have engaged in that effort. I certainly have. For over 600 days in the 116th and 117th Congresses, ROIs, these resolutions of inquiry, were blocked from coming to the floor by the Democratic majority. That is, of course, the ``you did it, so we will do it'' argument--not particularly satisfying if you want to have an open body. I think the question would be: What do my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to have? What should the rule be? If we want resolutions of inquiry to just be allowed in perpetuity, then maybe we need to come up with a way to try to guarantee that and do that, but that is not what happens. We have turned them off. Both sides have turned them off. I would also add, for example, for the filibuster rule in the Senate, are we going to abide by the 60-vote threshold in the Senate as a Congress? My colleagues on the other side of the aisle tried to change the filibuster rule for judges and succeeded, and now, we have a 51- vote threshold for judges. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle tried to change the rule for legislation, and but for Kyrsten Sinema and but for Joe Manchin, they would have done so. Then, the Senate would have been operating by a 51-vote threshold for legislation. Maybe that is good or bad, but maybe we should decide the rules we want to operate under and then apply them to both sides. Right now, we are operating under a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. I think that is something maybe we ought to put to a vote right here in this body, in the House, and say: Do we believe that the United States Senate should operate under a 60-vote threshold? Because if you go watch the Twitter feed of Kyrsten Sinema, she is pretty explicit about what she is watching and the hypocrisy of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the Senate who now suddenly have newfound love and respect for the 60-vote threshold. My point being, if we are going to change the body institutionally, then let's have a real conversation about changing the body institutionally. Closed rules, I get it. In the majority, we are sitting here, and we have more closed rules. Do we want open rules? Then what will happen when the Democrats are in charge? Do you want resolutions of inquiry? What do we do to bind the hands of a future House on those points if not us agreeing to respect each other's ability to do that? Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Miller), my friend.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, a couple quick points on the resolutions of inquiry. I won't waste a whole lot more time on it. The fact is, one, we have extended this through September 30 only at our request to limit it because we want to be able to get through reconciliation. Two, my colleagues want to blame COVID. Committees were still in full operation. The fact of the matter is my colleagues didn't want to answer questions that we were asking about the border because they were unanswerable. The border was wide open. Americans were getting killed. Americans like Jocelyn Nungaray, Americans like Laken Riley, Americans like Rachel Morin, and Americans like Kayla Hamilton. I can keep going down the list of dead Americans at the hands of the foolish, incompetent, and dangerous policies of the Biden administration that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle did not want to answer. That is the simple truth. When we wanted to get data about the border, they didn't want to answer it. It wasn't because of COVID. Mr. Speaker, I note with respect to California that California's mandates effectively take away America's ability to buy new gas cars. As I mentioned earlier, California gets some special treatment. It is the only State allowed to seek waivers for its own vehicle policies due to a provision in the Clean Air Act crafted to allow California to address Los Angeles area smog, and so they have an outside impact on our ability to get affordable vehicles, including, by the way, hybrid vehicles which would be unnecessarily impacted by where California wants to go and which we want to try to solve. Mr. Speaker, I also note that California, as KTLA reported in a January 30 article, continues to lose more people than come into other States because of the tragic and unfortunate policies of the State of California. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I will note that neither the GAO nor the Senate Parliamentarian get a vote. It is sort of a shocking news revelation I recognize, but they don't get a vote. We do. The Senate does. We can decide what we think ought to apply. Number two, if my colleagues want to talk about the high price of vehicles, how about the extent to which the average EV costs $14,000 more than the average nonluxury vehicle. According to the latest data from Kelley Blue Book, the average transaction price for electric vehicles is $55,273, 3.7 percent higher than last year. For context, the median household income for the gentlewoman's district is $62,000. The fact of the matter is, EVs are expensive. EVs are driving up the price of vehicles. The mandate is taking the power out of the hands of the American people to decide, including, by the way, hybrid vehicles which allow individuals to have more efficient vehicles while being able to travel long distances, as I know the gentlewoman has constituents who need to do so in New Mexico as we need to do in west Texas and throughout the State of Texas. Additionally, the trucks that are required under California's unrealistic mandates cost two to three times more than a new, safer, and more reliable diesel truck. The fact is, we are driving up the price of goods and services. We are making it more expensive for the American people to live. We are making it almost impossible for people to fix their vehicles and be able to afford their vehicles with every new thing we add to it to make it more complex in the name of safety or the environment. The fact is, we can't be blind to those realities. That is exactly what is happening. That is why the American people are suffering from the inability to afford to live in this country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am always amazed when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle ignore the fact that these EVs require power. Somehow they get charged from the magic fairy dust of the magic energy tree? I mean, what are we talking about here? How do you power up an electric vehicle? It is done by burning coal, burning gas, or the nuclear plants that we are not actually permitting or building in the United States, while China builds two coal-fired plants virtually every week. We are building none. Well, good for us. The vast majority of the world is producing power with coal and natural gas, and it is growing exponentially. Meanwhile, we are crushing our grid, the reliability of American power, making it more expensive for the average American and doing really nothing about worldwide CO2 production. That is the truth. China and India are pumping it out. Meanwhile, my colleagues love to ignore the slave labor in China to produce the batteries that they drive around in their EVs while they pat themselves on the back and go to cocktail parties talking about how fantastic it is that they drive their EVs and how enlightened they are. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record three articles: `` `Like slave and master': DRC miners toil for 30p an hour to fuel electric cars'' in the Guardian; ``EV makers' use of Chinese suppliers raises concerns about forced labor''; ``U.S. says Chinese lithium-ion batteries are made with child labour as trade war spills into EVs.''

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to parade around EV mandates like they are somehow going to magically create power out of thin air, ignoring the fact we are empowering China, ignoring the fact we are empowering Chinese child laborers while we destroy the cost of living for the average American family, take away choice, take away the ability of an American citizen to be able to go out into the market and buy a hybrid vehicle or another vehicle that they can use to travel long distances, do their job, whether they are a plumber, an electrician, or carrying goods and services in a truck, and then they wonder why the cost of goods and services go up. Then they want to blame tariffs when we are 90 days in, and we had massive and rampant inflation under the Biden administration as a direct consequence of the regulatory policies and the failed policies of the previous administration. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would note that with respect to wind energy, yes, Texas is one of the leaders in wind energy. I worked for Governor Perry when the Governor was embracing wind power, and the fact of the matter is, as it has become a larger percentage of the grid, the reliability of Texas' grid has suffered, and now the consequences of having embraced wind as a significant portion of the grid are now coming to roost. We are now having to deal with what happens when these need to be shelved. Where do they go? They fill landfills. How much oil and gas goes into the production of said windmills? How do you get the power from the wind farms in west Texas to the various facilities where we are making power? How reliable is it during ice storms or during the heat of the summer? When you have a cloudy, windless day, how are you getting power? Who is making the parts for the solar panels? What happens to the solar panels in the environment when you are finished with the solar farm? All of these questions get brushed aside in a quest to say that we can have magical ``green, clean energy,'' when we have clean-burning natural gas in Texas and throughout this country that is producing a significant amount of economic benefit and power for our country and has done more to drive down CO2 production and for clean air than virtually any other innovation we have had over the last century. Yet, we are impeding the ability to have more reliable power by virtue of mandates. That is the whole point of the problem with the Inflation Reduction Act. That is the whole point of the problem with the rules and the rulemaking done by the Biden administration that we are trying to reverse under these CRAs, so that we can make things more affordable for the American people. That is it. We are trying to help the average Texan, the average New Mexican, the average American be able to afford to live, trying to be able to figure out how to get power, get a vehicle that they can afford to be able to carry out their job. That is it. On the issue of healthcare, the issue was raised, as is often the case by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, to try to scare the American people that somehow raising questions about the inefficiency, the ineffectiveness, the waste, the fraud of a government healthcare solution, that somehow that is taking away benefits. When you have a trillion dollars of improper payments, when you have the State of California openly and publicly stating that they are gaming the Medicaid system and the provider tax and the Federal match rate to provide funds to illegal aliens and for their general budget to game the system at what best can be called money laundering, as was editorialized in The Wall Street Journal last week. When that is what is happening, when you have people on Medicaid who are getting a higher subsidy than people on Medicare, who have paid into it their entire lives, into the tax on Medicare; when you have people who are able- bodied who are getting a higher subsidy than the vulnerable population for whom Medicaid was originally created, then someone explain to me why we don't have a duty to fix that. That is what we are putting forward, to try to deliver healthcare that would actually have a doctor and a patient relationship rather than a corporate overlord or government bureaucrat telling you what your healthcare is. That is the system that has been created. That is the system that we are living with now under expanded ObamaCare. That is what that is, expanded ObamaCare. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't want to talk about that. They want to talk about the expansion of that population into the able-bodied who could be and should be working at a higher rate of return by the Federal Government than is going to the vulnerable population, while California games the system to give money to illegal aliens. That is expressly and openly being acknowledged by California leadership. They don't want to have those conversations. They don't want to talk about how you manage that problem, how you get more people to be able to have affordable care instead of what they currently have, which is a broken system that insurance companies run, forcing individuals onto an exchange so they can get like my constituent who passed away last year from cancer, who wanted to go to M.D. Anderson and could not go because she was on an ObamaCare plan and couldn't go to the best cancer hospital in the world because she was covered under ObamaCare. The failure of our healthcare system cannot be overstated. Both parties need to step to the table to get government out of the way and to allow doctors and patients to be able to go get healthcare from a provider of their choice--not some insurance bureaucrat or government bureaucrat--in order to deliver outcomes that the American people want us to deliver. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, number one, Congress has an important role to play in repealing the Biden-Harris administration's EV mandates and other rules that are damaging the lives of the American people. When the administration transmits an action to the House and the Senate for review under the CRA, then it is Members of Congress, not the GAO and not the Parliamentarian, who decide whether and how we proceed under the CRA. The fact here is California mandates, which is what we are dealing with here in several of these Congressional Review Act actions, effectively take away Americans' ability to buy new gas cars, a hybrid vehicle, or the vehicle of their choice. It raises their vehicle and transportation costs. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the former Speaker of the House, came down and described that somehow we are not factoring in the price of clean air. With the vehicles that we are producing today, the fact is we have the cleanest air we have ever had. There is no problem with having EVs. It is the mandates that are the problem. It is mandating the American people must convert that is the problem. In fact, worldwide, the extent to which coal-fired plants in China, coal-fired plants in India, and other countries around the world are producing CO2 and other particulate matter that is bad for the air is rising. Why would we undermine our own economic well-being to pursue a negligible impact on the overall global emissions, while driving up the price of goods and services for the average American family? They have to live for today. They have to pay their bills today. All the subsidies in the world aren't making those things economically viable for them. Whether you are talking about wind farms or EVs without the mandates, what is clear is the American people aren't buying these things because they are still not able to function and carry out their livelihoods effectively under the mandates. Higher costs and fewer choices for consumers hit low-income and disadvantaged communities the hardest. There is a reason why, when I drive around Austin, Texas, I see it is the rich folk driving around in their Teslas. It is the rich folk who are getting their EV tax credits. I see it. They are not in east Austin. They are out in the rich parts of Austin. Mr. Speaker, do you think that is an accident? Do you think the hardworking plumber I represent in San Marcos, Texas, in New Braunfels, Texas, or any other part of Texas is going to go out and get a battery- powered truck to drive across 10 counties to carry out his job or his livelihood? As I said before, the average EV costs $14,000 more than the average nonluxury vehicle. Mandates disrupt the free market. We have talked about the impact these mandates can have on the reliability of our power grid. Is the Nation's grid even up to the mandates we talk about? No, it is not because then there will be more mandates on what the grid has to look like. Suddenly, we are Spain. Suddenly, we are wondering why the grids are failing. Importantly, California's move empowers China, which dominates the EV market and uses slave labor and coal-powered plants to produce EV batteries. That is just the truth. Mr. Speaker, 77 percent of the world's electric vehicle batteries are manufactured in China. China owns 80 percent of the industrial cobalt mines in the Congo and controls 15 of 19 of the primary cobalt mines in the Congo. These mines are operated by trafficked child slaves. Since when do we not care about that? The idea that California can do this unilaterally is preposterous. They are the only State allowed to seek waivers under a unique policy. They should not be able to determine policy for the State of Texas or any other place. Mr. Speaker, I support this rule, and I urge my colleagues to support this rule. The material previously referred to by Ms. Leger Fernandez is as follows: An Amendmentto H. Res. 354 Offered by Ms. Leger Fernandez of New Mexico At the end of the resolution, add the following: Sec. 6. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the bill (H.R. 2753) to amend the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to provide for a point of order against reconciliation measures that cut benefits for Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and for other purposes. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules or their respective designees; and (2) one motion to recommit. Sec. 7. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 2753.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his strong work and commitment to election integrity and to working with us on this bill, in particular, the SAVE Act. He has done an extraordinary job, and I am proud to work with him and work with the rest of my colleagues on it. I am also proud to work with my friend, Cleta Mitchell, who had a significant hand in what we are doing here. I am quite certain that she is pretty well aware of protecting the right of females to be able to vote, along with my friends Stephanie Bice, Mary Miller, Laurel Lee, Lauren Boebert, and Kat Cammack, all of whom came down to the floor in full support of this legislation because they know the truth. They know the truth that the American people know, which is that, as much as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to bring up the DMV, the American people know that the DMV is very good at giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens because we know it to be true. We know that there are people who have been indicted for voting illegally. We know that there are voter rolls with massive numbers of people who are illegally present in the United States. We know that the previous administration let in millions of people into the United States, wrongfully and illegally under parole and asylum, blatantly abusing the law to put people in the United States that have no basis for being here, many of whom carried out dangerous acts against American people, killed American citizens, but importantly, have been registering to vote. That is what has been happening. What we understand is, the American people have spoken very clearly that they believe only American citizens should vote in American elections. There is nothing controversial about that. There is nothing controversial about saying that you should be able to ensure that only citizens vote. Let's be very clear: Federal law has currently been interpreted to prohibit States from being able to check citizenship. That is the truth. That is why the State of Arizona, for example, has two systems-- one for State and local, one for Federal.

Mr. ROY. The good people of Arizona have two systems in place: They check for citizenship for State and local elections, and they are unable to check for citizenship in Federal elections. The point of this bill is to ensure that we guarantee only citizens vote by allowing those States to be able to check, by having systems, Federal systems be open to the States to be able to check, and to require proof of citizenship when you register. There is nothing complex about that. There is nothing more sacred under the Constitution than ensuring that the people are able to have the voice in the election of the people that represent them in Washington and throughout the country. Mr. Speaker, once that is undermined, then people lose faith in the very institutions upon which this is built. This legislation is designed to restore that faith, to save our elections, and to save election integrity. I am proud to have worked on this bill with my friend, the chairman, and with my colleagues on this side of the aisle. I would note that five of my Democratic colleagues joined us last summer to vote for this bill, hardly a partisan exercise to say that we should protect the elections of the American people. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, to restore confidence and faith in our elections, and to take a step forward in ensuring the people know that citizens will be in control of this Republic as the Founders intended.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding. I appreciate the able job that he has done in ushering through a responsible budget on the House side of the Capitol. Unfortunately, we are here debating an irresponsible budget sent over to us from the Senate. First, before my colleagues on the other side of the aisle applaud me for my opposition to the Senate bill, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to acknowledge any program that they don't think they can just continue to shovel money out from, despite the fact it has terrible outcomes. Medicaid is debilitating the vulnerable, not helping them. We are shoveling money out to the able-bodied on the back of expansion of ObamaCare. We are crippling the very program they say they want to uphold while we allow money laundering to California, which they brag about openly, to give money to those who are here illegally and to destroy the program with an FMAP rate that is higher than the vulnerable, giving out more money than we even give to Medicare. To my friends on this side of the aisle: When are we going to get serious about spending? The House budget actually does a job of trying to get to budget neutrality, balancing tax policy and spending policy. The Senate sent over a joke, and we are going to capitulate to the Senate, knowing full well that the Senate instructions carry the day. We are going to be sitting there in a reconciliation debate where we are going to end up on the short end of the stick. Worse, the American people are going to end up on the short end of the stick because it absolutely increases deficits. No one can deny it. Anyone who wants to get in a room and come debate me with a whiteboard, show me the math. At some point, if you are in Congress, pass a math test because the Senate bill doesn't add up. It will destroy this country with more deficits and the inflation tax that is crippling the average American family. Mr. Speaker, I will not vote for the Senate bill.