Chip Roy

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, who benefits from this rush to so-called green policy? China, one of our greatest geopolitical adversaries. China accounts for 63 percent of the world's rare earth mining, 85 percent of rare earth processing, 92 percent of rare earth magnet production, 67 percent of global lithium supply, 73 percent of cobalt-- by the way, again, they get their cobalt, and they are relying on child labor to do it--70 percent of graphite, 95 percent of manganese. By the way, what is China doing while the United States military is busy reducing ``greenhouse gas emissions'' through crazy policies like this? They are building more coal plants. China is building two coal- fired plants a week. We are building none. China has nuclear power. We have built one nuclear reactor in my lifetime, and I am 51 years old, because we are stupid. Literally, we are so stupid that it can't even be put into words. We are allowing our adversaries to have abundant reliable power, and we are trying to have our guys running around having to go check: Oh, my gosh, let me look at my checklist. I have to have an EV. I have to make sure I have an EV. That will do a lot for climate change, while China is pumping out massive amounts through all of their CO2-producing coal- fired plants all over in China. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Chair, I first will open up by congratulating myself because 20 years ago about an hour from now, my lovely bride said ``yes,'' and she has stuck with me for 20 years. So a hearty congratulations that my wife would put up with me for these 20 years, but I am deeply honored to count her as my lovely bride still to this day, so happy anniversary back in Texas. Mr. Chair, I am offering an amendment here that would prohibit any of the funding in this National Defense Authorization Act from being used to carry out President Biden's executive orders on climate change. Our military should be focused, very simply, on its mission as a military, not social engineering. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to just dismiss this as some sort of political agenda. This is a foolish thing for us to come down and say. Our military ought to be focused very specifically on ensuring they have got the tools necessary to carry out their job, not advancing a radical agenda that is actually undermining our national security and undermining the readiness of our men and women in uniform because that is what is happening. That is the truth. In 2021, the Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby refused to say that China was a bigger national security threat to the United States than climate change. He called them ``equally important.'' Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said that climate change is an existential threat to our Nation's security. Five senior officials at the Department of Defense proudly explained in an op-ed that they attended the United Nations Climate Conference, COP28, citing the Biden administration's 2022 national security strategy as justification. Just this point: Biden's executive orders have served as a catalyst for reforms at the Department of Defense that compromise national security in order to advance the climate fetish of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, while China, again, as I said in a previous amendment, is literally building two coal-fired plants a week and we are doing nothing. I mentioned that point, and one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, well, you are so committed to fossil fuels. Well, how about we produce more nuclear power? We have done one, one in my lifetime. I am 51 years old. The United States of America, the greatest country in the history of the Earth, has only produced one nuclear power plant in 51 years. If you are so committed to producing energy without producing CO2, why not build more nuclear power? The fact is, it is not about that. It is not about that. It is about chasing the unicorn theory of energy whereby you litter the landscape with windmills and solar panels. Never mind how those solar panels are created, never mind all the child labor being exploited, never mind the empowerment of China, and never mind the massive pits that you have to take and stick the windmill parts in that are all created by mountains of fossil fuels. Ignore all of that common sense. Ignore all of that. Just sit around and pat yourself on the back because you drive an EV and you put a little sticker with your little equal sign and you put a little sticker on there saying, ``save the planet,'' and suddenly everything is all hunky-dory. Meanwhile, our defense isn't doing its job. Meanwhile, the entire world is looking at the United States and laughing. Meanwhile, the entire world that is producing more CO2 than we are is looking at us while we undermine the very development of the power that made this world a better place. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I do rise on behalf of Mr. Reschenthaler for an important amendment that prohibits funds to require travel or transportation under the Joint Travel Regulations for Uniformed Services to be in a zero-emission vehicle. Now, the issue here is that the Joint Travel Regulations implement policies and laws to establish travel and transportation allowances for uniformed servicemembers, Department of Defense civilian employees, and others traveling at the DOD's expense. Joint Travel Regulations have been trying to promote EVs and other more sustainable choices for servicemembers to be more green. Now, this amendment, like others that I am going to offer in my own name, is about restoring the Department of Defense's focus on its actual mission, which is to carry out war, engage in battle, to kill people, and to blow stuff up. It is why they exist. The Biden administration has inserted climate politics as well as all manner of woke social engineering politics into all aspects of the Department of Defense, weakening its mission, weakening its focus, and weakening morale. However, importantly, in this context, it is piling up more pressure for EVs that are piling up on lots. Hell, Madam Chair, you have got one-half of the rental car companies trying to sell off their fleets of EVs because the entire world recognizes the truth, which is that they are ineffective for most Americans to be able to carry out their daily lives. So we are trying to say: Hell, get an EV in Austin, Texas, and drive to Midland, except I can't do that. I have to stop. More importantly, they are expensive. In fact, a lot of the rental car companies are getting rid of these vehicles because their costs to repair in a collision are greater. The extent to which they are more difficult to maintain is greater. All of these things are making it difficult for people to engage in commerce and for people to be able to afford their daily lives. Now we are using the Department of Defense to promote more of this kind of agenda. People say: Chip, it is an $800 billion whatever authorization, you have got this massive Department of Defense, why focus on such an issue where you have got these requirements in travel policies that they go use certain vehicles? It is because our men and women in uniform are tired of being used to advance social engineering experiments. Hell, they can barely afford to live on this planet as it is, and then they want to try to carry out their lives and go travel, and they have to look at some checklist of crazy and radical social engineering policies that are undermining our economy, making their lives more difficult, and making our Department of Defense less able to carry out their jobs. By the way, Madam Chair, you are actually making it so China gets empowered all while making sure that we continue to have child labor being exploited in the cobalt mines in Africa so that rich, White liberals can pat themselves on the back saying: Look at me, I drive around in a Tesla. Aren't I important? Aren't I really just a good- natured liberal that I am happily running around in Unicornville destroying the average American's ability to afford their way of life and undermining our military in the process? So, Madam Chair, I gladly stand up in defense and support of Mr. Reschenthaler's amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Peterson Health in their seventy-fifth year of serving the Texas Hill Country. The community is forever grateful to Hal and Charlie Peterson, two brothers who envisioned a full-service hospital in Kerrville, Texas. The Petersons' efforts began in 1944 by establishing the Hal and Charlie Peterson Foundation with an initial donation of one hundred dollars. Three years later, the Foundation board green-lit construction of a hospital for ``the benefit of the people of the Hill Country in general.'' The brothers started building on their land at Sidney Baker and Water Streets in Kerrville. Named for their father, the Sid Peterson Memorial Hospital opened its doors on July 3, 1949. I include in the Record an excerpt from the Petersons' opening ceremony speech that day: ``And so here it is; it's yours to use. If it will ease a little the sufferings of the sick and injured; if it will help a little to mend their broken bodies; if it will provide a place where the next generation--and the next--can enter this world with the best of care and attention, and if it can do these things at a minimum of expense to those who must be patients, then our purpose in building it and giving it to the Hill Country community has been well-served.'' It was a world-class facility, the first in America to have a central air conditioning system. Another groundbreaking feature was the intercom system that connected each patient's bed to the nurse's station. In 1969, the hospital underwent extensive upgrades and increased bed capacity to eighty-six. A six-million-dollar expansion plan was completed in 1985, including a new Surgical Annex. The hospital became independent from the Hal and Charlie Peterson Foundation five years later. At the turn of the millennium, medical air transport services were added to San Antonio and Austin. In 2008, the hospital changed locations to the new Peterson Health campus, complete with a brand-new hospital building. It was the only hospital in Texas to be named a Top 20 Rural Community Hospital by the National Rural Health Association. A groundbreaking ceremony was held in 2022 for the Amanda and J. David Williams Surgery Center which will expand surgical capacity by 25% and procedure rooms by 50%. Congratulations to CEO Cory Edmondson and the entire staff on seventy-five years of service to the Hill Country. I applaud Peterson's stated mission of ``maintaining their status as an independent, private, nonprofit health system.''

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. And I am glad the gentleman brings this issue up because I would note that, today, while I was sitting in the House Judiciary Committee with the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley)--who just came in to join us, who is going to take the microphone, I am sure, in a little bit--we had the Attorney General before us. We were questioning the Attorney General in the House Judiciary Committee. In that exchange, I was asking the Attorney General about the extent to which he believes that it is wrong for Texas to have passed what we call SB4 in Texas to empower Texans to do the job of stopping people from being released into the United States, contrary to law, and endangering the people of Texas that has led directly to the death of Texans, does he believe, as the Attorney General of the United States, that it is wrong for Texas to do that? The reason I asked him that question is because, as the Attorney General of the United States, he is, of course, leading litigation to stop us. He is suing Texas, taking us to court to try to prevent us from doing it because of the Supremacy Clause. The Federal Government is supposed to do this, and you don't have a say. Well, hold on a second. If the Federal Government is supposed to secure the border of the United States and manage this inflow of people and it is violating the laws and dumping people into the United States, are we saying that the people of Texas can't, under the invasion clause or otherwise, say: It is our duty as the people of Texas to protect our citizens and our people? The Attorney General, of course, said no. He has got to take us to court and go sue us. The fact is he is, therefore, ignoring--

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

Mr. ROY. In all seriousness, we were able to push this out. We were able to do clips. It is important that we continue to have this conversation. The gentleman is correct, in very broad terms and very specific terms, about the extent to which we have a fiscal crisis looming. It is incumbent upon this body to do something about it. We have structural reforms we could put in place that the gentleman is talking about. I think we just covered that quite nicely, but we also need to be aware of what we need to do with our discretionary spending and using the power of the purse, both to constrain the bureaucracy that is still a third of that annual spending and constrain that spending also for the purpose of limiting tyranny over the American people. This is one of those things that frustrates me among my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican. The gentleman from Arizona is not in that group, by the way, because the gentleman from Arizona, I think, largely would agree with what I am getting at here. I have colleagues who will always slip into saying: It doesn't matter. Stop worrying about discretionary. Stop having a fight about $100 billion or $30 billion or whatever your debate is about constraining discretionary spending. When I say that to the average listener, what I mean is what we spend every year on the stuff you see in the bureaucracy, such as the Department of Justice, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense, all of those things that make up the alphabet soup of government that, frankly, are the things impacting your life every day, or undermining, frankly, your freedoms every day. The thing that drives me crazy in this town is you will hear Members of Congress who come down here and they say: Chip, we have a razor-thin majority. Don't you understand? Chip, it is all mandatory spending. You don't have to focus on this $100 billion. We are talking about $35 trillion in debt. That happens all the time. I assume the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry) would agree with me. I assume, in his career, since he has been here a few years longer than I have, that we hear that as an excuse for ignoring our job to constrain the bureaucracy, using the power of the purse, almost every single day that we come down here to the floor, when we are in committee or in our conference meetings. I assume the gentleman agrees with me on that point.

Mr. ROY. I think he would say it is not.

Mr. ROY. Correct.

Mr. ROY. I assume the gentleman would agree with me--and I am going to switch topics, but it is a transition that makes it more meaningful--that when the boys walked into the wall of bullets that they walked into at Normandy in 1944 that they weren't doing it to toss aside the rule of law and the Constitution, all that this country stands for. I have chosen not to go to Normandy and to make the trip. I didn't wear the uniform. I want to leave it to those who did. Some who wore the uniform aren't going. I want the gentleman to comment on this as he has served for almost three decades or something along those lines in the United States Armed Forces--just so everybody knows, today is June 4. In 2 days, it will be 80 years since those men got in those boats, jumped out into the stormy seas, ran on to the sand, ran into a wall of bullets, went up the cliffs, and then went all the way to Bastogne, to Germany, went through all of what they went through, this is the message from General Eisenhower on the order of June 6, 1944: ``Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! ``You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. ``Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. ``But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! ``I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! ``Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.'' Those words speak for themselves. We honor and tribute those who lost their lives, those who fought, those who came home, those few World War II veterans who remain with us. I will turn over the remaining 1\1/2\ minutes to my friend who wore the uniform that I did not wear.

Mr. ROY. I think he would say if you have got a literal army of people coming across the river, I suppose. I think they would probably fight us on that.

Mr. ROY. I am not sure that they have stipulated the former, but they certainly want to try to stop us from identifying and recognizing the latter. The reality is that the people of Texas are fed up and they are asking their leaders to do the job the Federal Government won't do. I will compliment Republicans. I am not afraid to criticize both Republicans or Democrats. I will compliment Republicans for having done a year ago what we have never done, which is set aside the absurdity of saying you have got to do amnesty and setting aside the absurdity of saying you have got to open the floodgates to more people coming into the country, even though we allow about a million people a year to come in.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), my colleague and friend, for his steadfast dedication to ensuring the American people are informed, at least the 72 people that were watching C-SPAN while you were extemporaneously educating them.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. We will go through committees, figure out the work. It is tough work. We will do it. Would the gentleman agree the primary obstacle to that is, and I am going to use this term broadly, the buildup--the gentleman referenced K Street and the army of lobbyists--the sort of corporatization of all things that we do, meaning healthcare is driven predominantly by the massive corporations--pharmaceutical, hospitals, pharma. My life got saved by great innovation in pharmaceuticals when I had cancer. I am for it. But the corporatization, the corporate cronyism, the extent you have these massive entities, including, by the way, those that are driving our food supply, all the regulations prohibiting small farms and small meatpacking plants to ship the stuff to have local produce and local foods so that you can eat healthy. It is the massive corporate interests that come here lobbying for benefits and tax breaks that, by the way, are going to be front and center among Republicans when everyone says that we must go back and put in place all the tax benefits, which some are good, as I was talking about earlier. Does the gentleman agree that some of these are part of the problem?

Mr. ROY. Would the gentleman agree that the fundamental obstacle to achieving what the gentleman just outlined is that it has a lot of complexities in it?

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, my main point for the average user is that the revenues we bring in from general taxes, corporate taxes, FICA taxes, the chart that the gentleman was just showing, does not cover even all of what the gentleman just put forward, much less the remainder of the government, the remainder of the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI.

Mr. ROY. Do our revenues for this year, FY24, cover what is on that chart?

Mr. ROY. I don't want to take up the gentleman's time, although I have time on the back end, and we are happy to bleed them together, but I would just add to the gentleman's point. We have to address the drivers that the gentleman comes down and talks about every week for the most part and comes down with regularity that get to the heart of those numbers. We look at it like some monolithic amount that we can't address when, in fact, if you drive the price of healthcare down through the innovations the gentleman talks about, through cures, competition, and the things that we know we could do, you could massively reduce that Medicare burden, reduce interest, and deal with a lot of the expenses. Then, as we grow our economy, we get ourselves into a good place. Does the gentleman agree?

Mr. ROY. Correct.

Mr. ROY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROY. You don't want to default. Now, you put defense over here as discretionary, although there are some issues in there in terms of some social spending. Call that discretionary. You have got Medicare, which is effectively mandatory. What you don't have on that chart is that obviously Medicare is growing and exploding, correct?

Mr. ROY. Right, and it is going up in perpetuity.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, for everybody watching at home, Social Security is predominantly on autopilot, mandatory accounts.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas, the chairman, for yielding, and I thank the ranking member and his staff and the entire staff of the Foreign Affairs Committee for their diligent work on this, for working all last week, for working through the weekend, and for the conversations. On this one, it is important to note that I do believe that there is significant bipartisan agreement that we need to take action and stand with one voice in this country, the United States of America, to send a strong signal to not just the International Criminal Court but to the international community generally. We cannot stand by and allow the court to do what it is doing. Let's remember why we are here. We are here because the International Criminal Court is seeking to issue warrants on the Prime Minister of Israel. It merits letting that just sit out there and marinate for a second that that is what we are dealing with. The Prime Minister of Israel is engaged in defending his country after the horrific October 7 attacks, which we have talked about in great detail on this floor--the assaults, the rapes, the beheadings of babies, the killing of innocent civilians. Israel is responding to what occurred and what happened to our Jewish brothers and sisters and others in Israel on October 7, and it is taking the attack to Hamas. We recognize the difficulty of Hamas being fully intertwined with the civilians in Gaza. Israel is taking steps to send text messages, drop 15 million or more leaflets, leave voice messages, give 2 weeks' advance notice, do what they can to try to make sure that there are protections for civilians, keeping the overall civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio below historic norms by most accounts, including third- party observation. Looking at Rafah, the international community is saying you can't go into Rafah. You go into Rafah and find 50-plus tunnels--now, I think it is 75 or more tunnels--that we know were being used to carry out attacks on Israel. Israel is under assault right now, with missiles being fired with regularity by Hamas into Israel. This is Israel. This is not some random entity. This is Israel, our close ally, and you have a body, to which we have no sovereignty, for this country, that is being given to the International Criminal Court because we are not a party to it. We are not undermining our sovereignty. We are not going to do that as America. That is what this stands for. That is what this says. This says that we should not be allowing the International Criminal Court to not just go after the Israeli Prime Minister but the door that that opens to go after our own servicemembers, to go after our own generals, to go after America's interests. What happens here is going to be coming at us and our country. That is why it is important to speak with one voice, with authority, with force. We have been working in good faith, and again, I want to compliment the ranking member and Democratic staff. Again, we were working through the weekend. I do believe there were amendments that we could have agreed to. There were changes that we could have agreed to that would have had bipartisan support here. I understand that the White House did not agree to that, and I think that is a shame. I think the White House made the wrong call, plain and simple. I think the White House got this wrong, and I just hope that we will be here today united as a body, putting aside partisan differences, and that we will move this bill forward and send it to the Senate, where the Senate can work its will. If the Senate wants to modify it and send it back to the House and try to address any of the concerns that have been raised by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle or this side of the aisle, great, the Senate can do that. They can send it back to us, and we can send a product to the President. We need to address this, and we need to address it quickly. If we allow this to fester, then we undermine our own national security, and importantly, at this moment in time, we give credence and power to an international body to which we are not a party, to which Israel is not a party, and that is being used to flex political muscle by targeting the Prime Minister for defending his own country. That we cannot stand for. Mr. Speaker, I hope that my colleagues support H.R. 8282.