Brandon Williams

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1 to lower energy costs for New York's 27th Congressional District. As an expert in energy and a nuclear submarine officer in the Navy, I understand firsthand the importance of reliable energy for American families, businesses, and national security. I stand here in support of H.R. 1 for the men and women of New York's 22nd District. A constituent of mine, Steve Turner, shown right here behind me, is a Marine Corps veteran with cancer who is unable to pay his electric bills. Five days a week of treatment and soaring energy prices have brought this hero to his breaking point. This is unacceptable. I can't cure Steve's cancer, but I will be damned if I let Steve continue to suffer the indignity of soaring energy costs taking food off his table. H.R. 1 takes critical steps to promote American energy independence and will lower costs for people like Steve and the rest of central New York and the Mohawk Valley. Burdensome regulations and radical policies are hurting working and middle-class Americans through no fault of their own--taking their jobs and putting our country last. Let's streamline the process by reinvigorating oil and natural gas production, renewables, and nuclear energy dominance. The Lower Energy Costs Act is a commonsense solution to our Nation's energy challenges. Madam Speaker, Steve and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York. Mr. Chair, regarding amendment No. 20 on H.R. 5, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 159.

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York. Madam Chair, let's lay out the fundamental rights of parents. That is what we are discussing here today. Number one, every parent should be given a choice and a voice on how their child receives an education. Number two, school curriculum should not be used to politically indoctrinate our children. Number three, parents deserve options. They deserve a choice on how their child receives an education. In my family, my wife and I made a personal decision to homeschool our children. Every parent should be free to make that choice, not just the wealthy ones. What is the parents bill of rights? What are the pillars of this bill? Parents deserve the right to know what is being taught in schools and to see the reading material. It is very simple. Parents deserve to be heard. Parents deserve the right to see where the taxpayer dollars are going, how they are spent, and how they are being used. It is a fundamental principle of good governance. Parents have the right to protect their children, to protect their children's privacy. Parents absolutely should be updated and informed in the instances of violence that seem to be increasing in our schools, many of which go unreported. I am very honored to be a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and to support this bill, to support parents, and to support parents' rights, particularly that our children get the best possible education. This is a significant step forward.

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York. Mr. Speaker, this picture accurately captures the administration's definition of a navigable waterway. This child playing with a paper boat in a puddle created by a rainstorm would be subject to the almost comical definition of navigable waterways this bill would amend. This child's family--if they had saved enough money to build their first home on this site with this rain puddle--could find themselves at the mercy of the impersonal, bureaucratic, and deliberately ambiguous rules of the EPA. Very quickly, this child's family would be drowned by the costs, paperwork, and Byzantine rules of a faceless bureaucracy. Stop using EPA bureaucrats as agents against the American people: homeowners, small business owners, farmers, rural communities, and many others. These WOTUS rules are designed to give nearly unlimited power to EPA field agents to further control our delicate economy. Nobel Prize-winner humanitarian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a victim of the cruel Soviet system, warned us with these words: ``Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.'' Protect American families and support this bill.

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York

Mr. WILLIAMS of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer perspective on the purpose and mission of this 118th Congress. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to speak here on the House floor for the first time. I am the first nuclear submarine veteran to serve in the United States House of Representatives in the last 50 years, and only the second in our Nation's history. One particular submarine patrol, we pulled into Pearl Harbor to take World War II veterans out to sea with us for the day. By naval tradition, we stood at attention and saluted the USS Arizona as we passed by. One part of the experience we shared with these veterans was to demonstrate the tremendous pressure of the ocean. In the control room with the periscopes, we would tie a string from one side of the hole to the other, about the width of this rostrum behind me. Our submarine's hole is made of high-strength steel to keep the water out and the crew safe. On the surface, this string would be taut like a guitar string and would sit about a foot off the deck. But as we submerged our boat, the pressure of the sea would compress the hole and that string would begin to droop. By the time we reached many hundreds of feet below the ocean, that string would lay flat on the deck. The incredible pressure of the ocean visible for everyone to see. Now, like that submarine that I served on, America is under tremendous pressure. And like that string sitting on the deck, we can all see it. It is inflation. It is the border. It is the lawlessness of our Federal agencies. It is clear that our Nation is in trouble. The failed policies of the current administration are only taking us deeper and deeper. Now, with a Republican majority led by Speaker McCarthy, we have the leadership for this critical moment in time. In 1963, the nuclear submarine, the USS Thresher, was conducting engineering trials off of Cape Cod when they encountered an engineering problem. The crew was able to bring the boat to within 100 feet of the surface, but they lost their battle as the submarine descended below what is called ``the crush depth,'' all hands were lost. Americans have voted for a Republican majority in this House to reverse the policies of the current administration and to start to relieve the pressure that is all around us. The commitment to America is exactly that plan for exactly that purpose--to unite this Chamber and to lead America back to safer waters. A typical submarine crew would be about a quarter of the number of seats in this Chamber. Imagine for a moment that many people together in a steel tube, hundreds of feet below the ocean for months at a time. I have spent 500 days at sea, and I can tell you that after so many days not everyone on the boat is going to like each other. The thing about submarines is there is no easy way off. No matter what we think of each other at the end of the journey, we arrive in the same place together. Let's talk about where we want to end up. For starters, when something is broken on the submarine you don't scuttle the boat with the crew aboard. You keep fighting to fix what is broken, triaging critical systems, and getting the boat to a safe depth. That is exactly what we witnessed last week as we chose Speaker McCarthy. He has been chosen to restore faith in this Chamber and unite our party. Freedom is a fragile thing. We saw that under Democrats' one party rule. A strong Republican Conference is key to securing a better future for our children, our grandchildren, and for generations to come.