The attacks on federal workers are causing VA facilities to lose good people, trained professionals who are responsible for taking care of tens of thousands of veterans just in my region.
Every day, my office is getting calls from docs and nurses and health care providers saying that the firings and cuts and threatening emails to federal employees are making it harder for veterans to receive their hard-earned health care.
And now with this budget resolution, Republicans are going to take away health care from millions more Americans with drastic cuts to Medicaid.
I mean, it is one of the ultimate forms of corporate welfare that so many working families are dependent upon Medicaid and SNAP because they don't get paid enough in their jobs to make ends meet.
Children, seniors, folks with disabilities rely on Medicaid to get the care they need, and Republicans want to take that away so they can give that money to their rich donors.
And this isn't an exaggeration.
Under this plan, everyone in the top 1% of income is going to get an extra $32,000 back in their taxes next year.
And those who are lucky enough to be in the top 110th of 1%, those people are going to get an extra $314,000.
But if you work for a living, if you're a low-income or middle-class family, they're going to take away your health care so Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk can buy another yacht or maybe another country.
This budget is a scam.
It's taking from the bottom to give to the top, the 1%, the 0.1%.
These people have more money than they know what to do with, and yet somehow that's still not enough.
Americans all over the country are struggling with the high cost of living, and they need real solutions like affordable housing, affordable health care, lower food costs.
And we hear promises from Trump and Republicans that they're going to do something about this, but they're not.
And this budget resolution is proof of that.
Our budgets reflect our values, and what we're seeing here is Republicans are going to take away health care.
They're going to give money to millionaires.
They're going to let Elon Musk give himself federal contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
And they're stopping regulators from investigating the companies of Republican donors.
Because if you're not rich, apparently Republicans don't work for you.
Representative Ranking Member Boyle.
The budget resolution calls for over $300 billion in cuts to education.
What do these cuts mean for students with disabilities, for school meals programs, for federal student aid programs?
Well, we're hearing a lot of, I think it used to be called voodoo economics here, and you've already answered several questions about the really unrealistic assumptions about growth in this budget proposal.
But even with those pie-in-the-sky assumptions about growth, isn't it true that this budget would still add trillions to our national debt?
And, you know, as Yogi Berra, the famous philosopher, once said, it's deja vu all over again.
Because really, the greatest scam of the last half century is Republican trickle-down economics.
First heard, actually, at the time George Herbert Walker Bush used the term voodoo economics, it was to describe the beginning of trickle-down economics.
The idea that you're going to have massive tax cuts, mostly for the rich, and there would be so much magical growth that they would magically pay for themselves.
By the end of that eight years, more money was added to the national debt on a percentage basis than any other presidency.
Fast forward 20 years, George W. Bush's president, Republican Congress, more big tax cuts that were promised to unleash remarkable growth.
Actually, it was a slow growth decade for the United States, and trillions more were added to the national debt.
No, the tax cuts did not pay for themselves.
Eight years ago, the same trickle-down economic promises, big tax cuts, which according to the Congressional Budget Office, 83 percent of which went to the richest 1 percent of Americans, but we were told they would magically pay for themselves.
Well, four years and $8 trillion later, no presidency added more to the national debt in the total aggregate amount than Donald Trump with $8 trillion.
And here we are, 2025, and the same rhetoric that we're hearing, that this proposal would unleash magically this tremendous growth and that tax cuts will pay for themselves.
Excuse me if I don't believe it after 48 years of life on the planet Earth.
Yeah, I think we've seen growing recognition from reputable economists that a half century of trickle-down economics is more than enough to show that it doesn't work.
And quite frankly, my constituents are tired of being trickled down upon.
But we are hearing the same extremely tired playbook that we've heard from the left from years here today, this regurgitation and the scare tactics that are being laid on seniors in this country, on everyone that the policies put forward and that they voted for on Election Day by a president that won the popular vote are somehow going to end the world as we know it.
Just like you saw in the last several weeks people having demonstrations outside all these three-letter agencies and carrying on with their bullhorns and declaring that there's everything this side of martial law going on because we've actually demanded some accountability from the government that we pay for.
My colleagues here are trying to just show so many falsehoods against the existing tax code that we are looking to extend and hopefully make permanent so that businesses and people can make plans with their lives so that we can have a stable economy going into the next decade and beyond is ridiculous.
And I don't know about you all, but my constituents, the tax cuts expiring means $1,500 out of their pocket every single year.
Now, that might not mean a lot to you, but that's a mortgage payment for my constituents.
That's real money.
Those same little people that you talk about that are going to suffer so much, those little people are watching our money evaporating into thin air into agencies they didn't know exist that have been uncovered since this administration took office.
They're sick and tired of being trampled on.
They're sick and tired of having Washington tell them how they need to pay higher taxes and have more regulations and more nanny state government living into their lives.
Enough is enough.
We have to have a moment in this country where we actually tackle the big picture problems that face this nation.
So let me, no, no, I'm going to go to what I prepared because I do think that, you know, in Representative Langworthy's district,
if we actually passed this resolution and did the things that the Rays and Means Committee, that the Budget Committee have asked for, there are 133,971 people on Medicaid in his district,
including 50,582 children, 44,000 people on SNAP, and 9,000 people get the Affordable Care Act premiums that the Democrats passed to help people afford their health care.
And it would go up by about $1,900 a year.
And this budget resolution would cut taxes for the ultra-rich and pay for it.
Pay for it by cutting benefits for Americans and Chair Errington for cutting benefits in your district, in my district, and across rural America.
Because you can't say it's not going to happen.
It says in the resolution, it directs that there will be $880 billion cut from the Energy and Commerce Committee.
And for folks listening out there, you might say, what the heck does that mean?
Well, energy and commerce is where we have Medicaid coming out of and paying for and authorized.
It's where we have these health insurance premiums.
And your resolution directs or asks or encourages that there be $880 billion.
And then the other thing is the Republicans, this is their wish list.
The Republicans' wish list sets out a whopping, whopping $2.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid.
That's a lot of cuts.
These are lots of pages of cuts and cuts and cuts.
The things people rely on.
You know, Chair Errington, you and I share a border.
I am often really close to you.
When I'm out in my district, I'm like just a few miles away from yours.
So do you know how hard it is in our districts to find a doctor, our rural districts, hospitals, rural health clinics, and they are struggling.
And Medicaid for many of these rural clinics and hospitals is essential.
Do you know how much money Texas hospitals receive in Medicaid payments?
Okay, it's $8.3 billion in Medicaid payments in 2023.
And these payments are key, and especially in rural hospitals.
I visit my rural hospitals a lot.
I'm really pleased that the ranking member of Energy and Commerce, Frank Pallone, he has visited with my rural hospitals because they describe how tight their budget is.
They describe how they are very worried about where we have to improve Medicaid, not cut it.
And they tell me, like your Rolling Plains Memorial Hospital and your rural health clinics associated with that, that they need these Medicaid funding.
And we also know that Medicaid really has very little compared to other health systems and proper payment rate.
It's about the same as the private sector, about 5 percent.
And then those are usually somebody just inputted something wrong and it gets fixed.
So that's the problem: people rely on this.
So let me ask this: do you know how much Medicaid funding they get?
Let me turn to my dear colleague here in the beautiful state of Pennsylvania.
So in Pennsylvania, you probably don't have it at your fingertips, but these are things I care a lot about, Chair Errington.
So I pay attention to what is happening in other states that have rural districts like mine, right?
Because my hospitals and my rural areas, which are actually, I need to tell you, predominantly Republican.
They're coming to me and asking me.
So I know that my colleagues across the aisle have the same issues in their districts.
In Pennsylvania, they get about $2 billion.
And you know, somebody actually, because I have friends in Pennsylvania, checked in with the Commonwealth Health System in Geisinger, two major health systems that you are aware of, Ms. Scanlon.
You know, these are in Representative Bresnahan's district.
One of them gets, CHS gets 15.7 percent of its revenue for Medicaid.
In Geisinger, it's 18 percent.
You can't have a system that gets this much money for Medicaid and start cutting it without putting it at risk.
And am I right, Representative Scanlon, that you lost some of your rural hospitals because they current handle the needs?
And when we let these rural hospitals go under, when we cut the funding that they rely on, you are not just cutting the funding for Medicaid patients, you are killing that hospital.
And when you kill that hospital, you kill the ability of farmers, ranchers, people on private insurance to be able to get access to health care.
You know, in small towns and areas like yours, Mr. Chairman, you know, more of our communities in those small towns rely on Medicaid than maybe in urban areas, and I know you have both.
So I want to just point out and ask to put into the record a report from Georgetown University that pointed out that non-elderly adults and children in small towns and rural areas are more likely than those living in metro areas to rely on Medicaid CHIP for their health insurance, Madam Chair.
It's 239 percent, 14.3 percent of your rural kids rely on Medicaid.
In Representative de la Cruz's district, 178,000 people rely on Medicaid.
135,000 Pennsylvanians rely on Medicaid in Representative McKenzie's district.
159,000 Pennsylvanians in Representative Bresnahan's district rely on Medicaid.
And I think it's important to remember who they are.
In my district and across all these rural areas, it's farmers, it's ranchers, because they often don't earn enough or have access to private care, nursing home residents, kids with disabilities, moms who just had babies.
My dear Lord, these are caregivers, veterans, and sometimes people working two jobs.
They're your voters.
Madam Chair, I'd like to enter into the record a tweet by Elon Musk that says that America's love Doge because watching Trump slash federal programs knowing it doesn't affect you because you're not a member of the parasite class.
I don't believe you mean that seriously because you as my neighbor living in the broader region of West Texas and eastern New Mexico know better than to think I would ever refer to a fellow American as a parasite.
And that's why we cannot stand when the person who is behind some of these cuts believes that those who rely on federal programs are parasites.
A woman who has breast cancer is not a parasite.
People who rely on Medicaid and SNAP and nutrition benefits are not parasites.
As you know, Mr. Chairman, they are our neighbors.
Although when you were last here, Chair, in rules last year, I asked you to explain how the Republican cuts to 22 percent of rural programs, how we could describe that, because in my community, those rural programs provide water, nutrition, health care.
They provide electricity.
They help keep kids healthy and alive.
And you told me that I should, I'm going to quote you, tell them we have to prioritize.
When I read this budget resolution, I see it as prioritizing tax cuts and handouts for the people like Elon Musk and the rich over health care for working class Americans.
The people in the communities that you and I love, Mr. Chairman, don't get anywhere near this amount.
Now, Ranking Member Boyle, I'm the, well, I'm not.
We might be joined by yet another, but we've had some questioning on some issues, and I'd like to give you an opportunity to respond, because I'm kind of the last Democrat.
They've got nine, we've got four, and to respond to some of the issues that may have been raised here today.
Well, I'll just say one, and that is I'm sometimes at the kitchen table with my daughter helping with her math, and her math teacher is big on showing your work, got to show your work, not just arriving at the correct number at the end.
So I thought that I would show my work on one important aspect, because we have heard competing claims today where we have pointed out accurately there are $880 billion worth of cuts that have to come from Medicaid or Affordable Care Act premiums or some combination of the two.
The other side has said, oh, no, there's nothing in there that even mentions the word Medicaid.
Here's the reality.
This budget resolution directs energy and commerce to reduce the deficit by a floor of $880 billion.
Now, if Energy and Commerce decided that they didn't want to touch Medicaid, that they were going to honor Donald Trump's words when he said he would, quote, love and cherish Medicaid, what that means is ENC, Energy and Commerce, even if they cut 100 percent else of everything they have control over, that would only get them about halfway to the $880 billion figure.
In other words, by definition, in this budget resolution, you have to cut Medicaid by at least hundreds of billions of dollars at least.
So I want folks who are watching at home, when they are hearing these competing claims and they hear intelligent, well-educated people on both sides throwing around these numbers, it's important for folks to understand what they really mean.
Make no mistake about it.
This budget resolution cuts Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, education programs, and many others to at least partially pay for $4.5 trillion of tax cuts that mostly benefit the top 1 percent.
And I think it's really important to also go through and point out that we are not just making this up about what this will do.
Very precisely, they want to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
And it is very clear that those tax cuts did a couple of things.
That one, they increased the deficit, as you correctly pointed out.
Madam Chair, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the chart.
Tax cuts, Great Recession, COVID-19 are responsible for the growth in the U.S. debt ratio, which actually makes clear if you care about I'm sorry, I don't let you say yes.
And Madam Chair, I would like to also enter into the record the 2017 Trump tax law was skewed to the rich expenses and failed to deliver on its promises.
And what this does is actually show that the trickle-down economics that were promised didn't occur.
And the idea that we were going to see and working families were going to see this tax increase, while it was touted as something that was going to happen, study after study showed it did not benefit working families, that $5,000 did not magically occur, and that, indeed, that it benefited, as we have been saying, mostly the wealthy.
I mean, what I would say is rather than my own numbers or my own words, I just refer to the Congressional Budget Office that found that 83 percent of the tax cut, 83 percent of the money went to the richest 1 percent of Americans, and approximately half of the money or half of the tax cut went to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans.
First of all, if you are watching this, I want people to be a little diligent.
If you are watching this, you probably have the ability to look up Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, FMAP, as we call it.
Medicaid is jointly funded between the State and the Federal Governments.
Now, that is one of the key facts that the Democrats aren't telling you.
And Just factually speaking, it is jointly funded between the State and the Federal governments.
And there won't be anybody pushed off of the Medicaid rolls unless the States decide to push them off the Medicaid rolls.
They are just making stuff up to scare you.
Now, as far as the deficit under President Trump goes, I look this up.
One of the votes you talk about had six no votes in the House and passed by voice in the Senate.
There are two Chip Roy and Andy Harris are the only two no votes on that piece of legislation that are still here, not just in, you know, it was $2 plus trillion in spending.
But I don't understand the Democrats' criticism of a piece of legislation that they voted for.
I mean, it's just pure hypocrisy.
It is the definition of hypocrisy.
Now, I will tell you, I think we spent too much money under COVID, and I think hindsight is 2020.
But just factually speaking, under Donald Trump, every one of the deals that he did under COVID was done in a very broad, bipartisan manner.
And if I am not mistaken, they all passed under suspension in the House of Representatives.
And the America Rescue Plan, to contrast the bipartisan nature of those COVID-related, COVID-relief-related bills, the American Rescue Plan, which was the first use of the reconciliation process when the Democrats had total control, had zero Republican support for it and a trillion dollars still unspent from the previous COVID relief.
Record revenue from corporations after we reduced their rate to a number that was not even in the top 25 percent for other developed countries we compete with around the globe.
So, something there is no doubt something has to be done.
We can either control the fall or the fall will control us, right?
And what we want to do is to avoid any steep decline in the economy, because if we just want to talk about the facts, Federal tax revenues over the course of a period of time, three, five, ten years, are going to average 17 percent of the GDP of the country.
I mean, so the key to getting us out of this problem that we are in with this deficit, and it is a problem for everybody, rich, poor, you know, and everywhere in between, is that you grow the GDP of the country so that tax revenues will continue to increase and you slow the growth of the spending.
And that is pretty much what this resolution says we are going to do, correct?
Well, all I know, the tax revenue is going to be a percentage of the GDP.
If you turn around and let the current tax law expire, the tax law that has led to higher tax revenues than we have ever had in the history of the country, the giant sucking sound coming from the IRS, taking money out of the pockets of the American citizens and the business owners, is going to lead to a recession.
Madam Chair, I think I learned just the economic facts back in high school and maybe expanded on them a little bit in college, but I don't understand what the confusion here is.
We have higher tax revenues than we have ever had in the history of the country.
We still have an almost $2 trillion deficit.
If we continue down this path, it is going to be a train wreck that is going to bankrupt virtually every American.
And undermine the sustainability of every government program, whether you are for it, whether you supported it, every government program from farm bills to infrastructure to Medicaid, every program is in jeopardy of being undermined by a sovereign debt crisis.
I think well-run states have a surplus, and I think that those state legislatures who have to balance their budget, just like we should, will in a bipartisan manner make sure that their people are taken care of, even if there is a small increase, a slight increase in the FMAP percentage that they would pay.
And I found it interesting because I have been a student of politics for a long time, and the ranking member indicated, I think he said indicated he was 48 years old.
So when he was about five, the campaign against one of my predecessors in the United States Congress who was a Republican was, he's going to end Social Security.
That's 43, 44 years ago.
How many times do the Democrats have to play loosey to the American people's Charlie Brown when they keep saying bad things are going to happen, Republicans are going to push grandma off the cliff, Republicans are going to end Social Security, Republicans are going to do these horrible things, and yet Republicans never do those things.
How many more times will the American people buy that, Mr. Chairman?
I think they are absolutely committed to reining in this reckless spending that's driving us off a fiscal cliff.
I think they want to keep more of their money.
I think they saw a bunch of that money in their budget burned up from the 21 percent inflation tax.
And I think they are offended.
They are offended that there aren't more American representatives and leaders for this great country that would take care to steward their dollars so that we could actually have sustainable programs for the most vulnerable and instead having money siphoned off for people who are in this country illegally.
That was a unilateral action by President Biden.
And I heard my colleague and friend, Mr. McGovern, talk about how many people are working in SNAP, and he was rightfully proud of the fact that some people in SNAP are, in fact, working.
And yet, there's no requirement for able-bodied, healthy adults to enjoy the blessing and dignity of work in Medicaid.
But not one Democrat has mentioned that.
I would tell you to my colleague from eastern New Mexico, we share a border and we share culture and values.
And the values of our God-fearing, freedom-loving, hardworking farmers and ranchers expect in their generosity in return for able-bodied adults to be working.
They know what it does for the human soul, not just the budget and not just our balance sheet.
And so they're insulted.
They're insulted by some of the waste and fraud that's where my colleagues are more offended and indignant by a first-generation immigrant who's done well in this country and wants to give back.
And Elon Musk, they're more indignant to the things that he's doing than the actual defrauding of the taxpayers in the federal government.
No, sir, I think the American people are not going to be afraid into not supporting the right-sizing of a very bloated bureaucracy.
They're not going to be intimidated and tricked into thinking that this is an exercise, as the ranking member said, in cutting Social Security benefits.
He obviously knows that in reconciliation, Social Security is off the table.
It would violate the Byrd rule from the outset.
And yet my colleagues continue to perpetuate these false claims and use these scare tactics.
No, sir.
The American people are afraid of the $8 plus billion dollars a day that we were borrowing under Joe Biden and unilateral control of the Democrat Party.
And they are afraid that if we have a sovereign debt crisis, we will not only wreck this economy, we'll destroy our national security and our ability to defend this country and our values.
And they know that we would bankrupt their children's future.
And I think that the American people delivered House Republicans more votes than any other time in history because they wanted to see action quickly.
And I think that's exactly what we are seeing.
Our colleagues on the other side, they, as many of the colleagues on our side have noted, push fear-mongering scare tactics.
I think one of the things that I take particular issue with is the suggestion that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was not helpful to the economy.
To me, it was the cornerstone of President Trump's first term, his legislative agenda during that first term.
And I think it's one of the reasons why so many Americans elected him, because they trusted him and they trusted House Republicans to lead on the economy.
It's one of the things that we continually see in polling across the board.
Americans trust Republicans when it comes to the economy.
So, one thing I just want to take a little bit of time today, speaking of, is what I find to be an issue that should be bipartisan, but I don't find it yet from the other side, and that is the overwhelming fraud within the payment system that we see from so many of these government programs.
We held a hearing last week in oversight and government reform in which we discussed $675 billion misspent and mishandled by the Biden administration, particularly with government programs.
So, Mr. Chairman, if I could yield to you for a moment just to ask, would you mind illuminating for the record and for anybody watching some of the improper payments that we have to deal with and how this budget resolution could provide instructions to help us cure the scourge of improper payments?
It is riddled with fraud to the tune of about $240 billion a year.
This is according to the Government Accountability Office.
That is just improper payments.
The fraud, they say, and that is just 70 programs, that is not TANF, that's not some of the larger programs at HUD and across the Federal Government.
They believe that the upward bound of fraud is closer to $5 trillion over the 10-year budget window.
So it's currently just that improper payment number for the 70 programs, that little slice of the Federal Government is more than we spend on the entire United States Army.
If you look at the $2.7 trillion in improper payments over the 10-year window, it's larger than Russia's entire economy.
So I think that too many Republicans, quite frankly, have been intimidated by the scare tactics we are hearing today.
They are the same old and they are tired.
And I think Elon Musk has done a tremendous job of turning the rocks over and doing what Congress has failed to do in their oversight responsibility, and that is to shine a light in the dark places and show just how horribly defrauded the taxpayers are.
I mean, these are just examples, and they're outrageous and absurd.
At USAID, these DEI orchestras, the transgender comic books, the list of the absurd is endless.
And the American people are wondering why not every member of Congress, regardless of party, are not up in arms.
They realize that there is tremendous waste and fraud.
And one of the abuses of the taxpayer dollars is to spend tax dollars on people who are in this country illegally.
We talked about the $2 trillion deficits that will double over the next 10 years.
Medicare is within the 10-year window of insolvency.
And who knows if we have a sovereign debt crisis how we are able to fund and sustain any of these programs.
And yet, according to Numbers USA, we are spending $9,000 per illegal immigrant on social services.
that rightfully belong to the most vulnerable American citizen.
And by the way, that $9,000 is more than we spend, more than we spend for the most vulnerable among us on Medicaid.
Just to repeat that, we spend $9,000 per illegal immigrant for social services, which is more than we spend on American citizens who need and make use of the health care safety net of Medicaid.
And collectively, of the $150 billion a year that we spend for social services on illegal immigrants is more than we spend on our military's retirement benefits.
So the fraud, the waste, and the abuse is systemic, it's endless, and we, I guess, have been afraid and have been sort of scared into inaction, but I think President Trump represents the bold leadership that is required to save this country.
And if I can just add, in closing, not just was that mandate delivered in November, but yet still sustained with public polling.
We saw a poll just a few days ago, 53 percent approval rating for how the president has conducted his administration thus far, amplified by, of course, your actions and everyone else's actions to put forth an America first budget and to put forth an agenda that unleashes the American economic potential we all know we deserve and our most vulnerable communities deserve.
You know, I've heard these same arguments that's been bellowed out here tonight about really Granny going off the cliff, even though Social Security is not cut at all, we're not considered in that.
I believe it was from dismissing and enforcing any eligibility for receiving Medicaid benefits.
And so those were people that were not eligible.
Some were illegal.
Some were in this country.
But the fact is, people not eligible that would put a strain on the finite resources of Medicaid for the most vulnerable happened as a result of the Biden administration unilaterally dismissing eligibility, and that has put tremendous strain in it.
It has put a 60 percent increase in the cost of that program.
By the way, the 10 million people that were added during COVID are still on that program today.
That number still exists today, even though we are not in that COVID response anymore.
Getting back to the percentage that we are asking the committees to come up with, would anybody watching this or any family or any of the 34,000 businesses, if you asked them to find a readjustment of expenditures, leaving intact 98 percent, cutting 1.5 percent,
would they laugh you out of the They would laugh until they realized it was true that there were some colleagues of ours who couldn't even commit to that with some admission that this government of the people is wholly inefficient, very much fraught with fraud and waste, and then they would lose hope.
They would lose hope that we would be able to pull up and out of what is a debt-to-interest spiral and what could be economic death and America's leadership in the world as we know it, without a single shot being fired from an existential adversarial threat.
The debt we were accumulating is the main driver of a downgrading of our American bonds, downgrading of the bodies willing to buy them, and so that was at risk.
That really was underpinning of our entire country.
And I keep hearing Elon Musk, billionaire here and other rich people.
And Chip, I'd like to insert an article in the record from the Economic Policy and Innovation Center that outlines the extent to which the spending went up significantly under the Biden-Harris regime.
It increased by federal deficit by $2.5 trillion, more than what the CBO projected.
Spending surged by $4.7 trillion.
The national debt rose to $35.5 trillion.
In the administration, Americans faced the highest rates of inflation in four decades.
And this is the important part, reducing the average workers' purchasing power by about $2,230.
And I would just suggest credit to the chairman about trying to take on the inflation tax, which is the biggest tax on our average American family that needs to be cut.
And the only way to deal with that is to constrain federal spending.
And I would also note that if you confiscated every dollar of Mr. Musk's wealth, every single dollar, you do what?
Pay for about a third of our interest, just our interest, this year, and then you leave it with zero.
People are sick and tired of what the rhetoric that you have heard from the right.
And really, it's about to come to a head with the actual numbers that are coming out of waste, fraud, and abuse that their side will not touch because they think it's their money.
I previously introduced a letter from the House Republican Hispanic Caucus where they noted how many cuts were being made to Medicaid.
This is an article about Republican members of the Senate cheering Ted Cruz at a luncheon last week when he said we'll insert the record without your saying, I guess, what's in it?
The Rules Committee for the opportunity to test a final rule published by the Department of Energy on December 26, 2024 to implement overreaching cost-prohibited energy efficiency standards for gas-fired instantaneous water heaters.
Unfortunately, this is not let me under the water heater rule.
DOE essentially banned non-condensing tankless water heaters by inappropriately reclassifying these appliance, forcing Americans to purchase more expensive condensing tankless water heaters.
This is another blatant threat to consumer choice while yielding little to no savings for American consumers.
DOE itself estimates the rule will cost $231 per model, and some industry stakeholders put the cost at $450 to $650.
This price increase will obviously hurt Americans and their households.
I'm also here to discuss HJRES 35, introduced by Representative Fluger.
And this resolution would overturn the rule implementing EPA's waste emissions charge, also known as the natural gas tax, which was published last November as part of the methane emissions reduction program established by the Democrats in the Inflation Reduction Act.
The WEC begins at $900 per metric ton for last year's reported methane emissions, which will increase to $1,200 per metric ton for 2025, and then again for 15 increase to $1,500 per metric ton for 2026.
The U.S. is the world leader in energy production and in emissions reductions.
According to the Energy Information Administration, EPA, since 2005, total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have dropped 18%.
Energy-related greenhouse gas emissions have dropped 20%.
Energy-produced in the United States has some of the lowest methane emissions intensity in the world.
U.S. upstream oil and gas producers have reduced their total methane emissions intensity by 42 percent since 2015.
We have our entrepreneurial spirit to thank for this success, not policies like the WEC, which are unworkable for American producers.
This is especially problematic for our small-size and mid-sized independent producers, which on average employ about a dozen people each.
American jobs and production will be lost if we continue to pursue this punitive tax.
The damage that WEC will inflict won't stop with us.
Our allies will have to rely on gas with higher emissions from adversarial nations like Venezuela.
So I'm here today to support our constituents and to guarantee that unelected bureaucrats do not make life more expensive and burdensome for Americans.
I thank you.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting HJRES 20 and HJRES 35.
On HJ Res 20 and HJ Res 35, I strongly oppose these resolutions, which are extreme measures that will lock Americans into paying higher energy costs.
President Trump and Congressional Republicans promise the American people lower energy costs.
But how exactly do these two resolutions help achieve that goal?
The truth is they will do nothing to help hardworking Americans save money, but they will certainly help line the pockets of the oil and gas industry.
First, AJ Res 20 attempts to deprive American consumers of real cost savings.
This bill would repeal the Department of Energy's recently finalized standards for gas instantaneous or tankless water heaters.
These standards are expected to save Americans $3.1 billion over 30 years and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 million metric tons.
Energy efficiency standards are a win-win.
They help reduce energy costs for American families while also combating the worsening climate crisis.
Today, more than 90 percent of the gas water heaters sold meet the updated standards, and they are broadly supported by consumer groups, efficiency advocates, and manufacturers, including the three largest American water heater manufacturers.
So, who gains from the passage of this bill?
Removing these standards protects less efficient products and increases consumer costs, all to benefit the oil and gas industry, which makes more money when water heaters use more gas.
There is no other reason to end a standard that protects consumers by keeping poorly performing, inefficient products off the market.
On a similar note, HJ Res 35 would repeal the Environmental Protection Agency's final rule to implement the waste emissions charge, also known as the methane polluter fee, that ensures American consumers no longer pay for wasted energy or the harm it causes.
This legislation will let corporate polluters off the hook.
The methane polluter fee, targeted by this resolution, is the heart of the methane emissions reduction program, a critical climate program enacted by the Inflation Reduction Act that drives down excess methane pollution from the oil and gas industry.
Methane is a highly potent climate-disrupting greenhouse gas that is responsible for about one-third of the warming we are facing today.
Each year, oil and gas operators emit the equivalent of approximately $2 billion worth of wasted natural gas through venting, flaring, and leaks.
That is because it is cheaper to waste methane rather than install or upgrade equipment to control that pollution.
The methane polluter fee corrects this market failure.
And to be clear, companies can avoid the fee altogether by simply not wasting methane.
It is a common sense fee that holds individual companies responsible for their own leaks and wasted methane.
Traditionally, there has been bipartisan support for American innovation, and the methane mitigation industry is truly an American innovation story.
New technologies are being developed to turn waste into economic value, all while protecting our environment and bolstering public health.
And the methane polluter fee is part of that story, incentivizing companies to perform leak detections and repairs that provide high-quality, good-paying jobs that employ thousands of Americans across the country.
In fact, between 2021 and 2024, the number of methane mitigation firms in the United States increased by 24 percent.
Wasted methane is bad for consumers, bad for business, bad for workers, and bad for the climate.
Strong Federal policies like the Methane Emissions Reduction Program are imperative to help reduce wasted methane and capture lost revenue, strengthening businesses and local economies.
Yet HJ Res 35 would allow oil and gas companies to continue to waste methane without consequence, leaving American consumers stuck with that bill.
These two resolutions will drive up energy costs for American families and exacerbate our worsening climate crisis, and that is why I oppose them.
With that, Madam Chair and Ranking Member and committee members, thank you, and I yield back.
No, I don't believe it's economically justifiable.
In fact, the gas water heater rule harms those who have the least.
They cannot afford the more expensive water heaters required by the rule.
DOE itself found that the rule would increase prices by $250 and by almost $250, and the industry stakeholders contend that the higher prices are closer to between $450 and $665 per unit.
The statute requires that DOE energy conservation standards must be economically justifiable, but the Biden-Harris administration consistently failed to comply with that requirement.
This gas water heater rule is another example of that failure, and that's why I'm urging my colleagues to support on both sides of the aisle to support the CRA.
Innovation and not regulation is the reason U.S. oil and gas producers have been able to lead the world in reducing both methane emissions as well as the intensity of the methane emissions.
This has been done in a variety of ways.
For example, according to the Environmental Partnership, a voluntary effort made up of 70 percent of domestic industry through the implementation of robust leak detection and repair programs, the companies have reduced their leak occurrence rate from a reported 0.16 percent in 2018 to a reported 0.06 percent in 2023, less than one component leaking in 1,000.
These technologies include infrared point and open path gas sensors, catalytic bead point gas sensors, acoustic gas sensors, and optical gas imaging cameras.
I don't believe an added tax on American energy production will lower prices for American consumers.
Rather, taxing companies for their methane emissions will only raise those costs.
In fact, in 2022, the CBO analyzed the effects of charging oil and gas industry for methane emissions and found that much of the cost for abatement is expected to be passed through to the end users as a price increased.
That was a quote.
Indeed, the cost of requiring companies to implement additional expensive control measures will simply be passed through to consumers.
It will also decrease the domestic industry's ability to produce energy, and because consumers will be forced to rely on more limited supply of energy, it will also increase the price of natural gas.
It's hard to believe that this is what we're talking about right now.
And perhaps it's because my Republican friends may be having trouble getting votes for their budget.
So we're going to need a couple of things to do just in case.
I want to just say for the record that a former member of this committee, Thomas Massey, just tweeted, if the Republican budget passes, the deficit gets worse, not better.
And I'll note that Mr. Massey is no longer on the Rules Committee.
Maybe he said the truth out loud too many times, but I don't always agree with him, but I admire him for his principles because he says what he means and votes based on principle.
And on the legislation we are talking about right now, I certainly want to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Tonko, but it is just really stunning to me that this is what we are doing, at the same time, trying to pass a budget that would really stick it to middle-class families in this country.
I love all the praise for Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, by the way, who gets billions and billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer-funded subsidies from the U.S. government and is now going in deciding which agencies can keep staff or which agencies can and which agencies should be eliminated.
I talk about a conflict of interest, but it means nothing, means nothing to my Republican friends at all.
And I just I'm having a tough time trying to understand how people could be here with a straight face while this is going on.
But in any event, it looks like we'll be dealing with these bills on the floor.