Rep. Gregory Meeks challenges the administration’s Caribbean military strikes as illegal regime-change efforts, citing pardoned traffickers like Juan Orlando Hernandez (45 years for 800K lbs of cocaine) and Venezuela’s non-fentanyl role, while warning of unchecked executive war powers. Countering, Rep. Carlos Gimenez ties Maduro to 400K+ U.S. overdose deaths since 2021, framing strikes as defensive counterterrorism, but critics like Pramila Jayapal (pediatrician) and Rep. Mark Takano call them unconstitutional war crimes. Meanwhile, H.R. 3616 passes despite warnings of blackouts and affordability risks, while Greene’s Protect Children’s Innocence Act—banning gender-affirming care—faces medical opposition amid claims of federal overreach. A discharge petition for healthcare reforms may force a January vote, risking premium spikes, as PBM transparency debates persist. Congress’s war powers and healthcare battles expose deep partisan divides over national security and bodily autonomy. [Automatically generated summary]
You don't run a serious counter-narcotic strategy by carrying out the death penalty for those who are on the bottom of the drug trade while freeing those who are very at the top in ordering them to come.
And at the same time, the administration asked us to believe that deploying fighter jets, an aircraft carrier, and more than 15,000 troops to the Caribbean is merely a counter-drug mission.
This is the largest U.S. military buildup in the region since the Cuban missile crisis.
If this was really about drugs, why are the United States forces seizing oil tankers?
The stated mission, the scale of the buildup, and the actions taken simply do not align.
The administration can't keep its story straight, and it is no longer trying to hide its real motivations.
Senior officials, including the president himself, have made it clear that the real objective is provoking a conflict with Villains Wheeler to ounce Maduto.
Trump's chief of staff said to Vanity Fair, quote, he wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduto cries, uncle.
I now yield three minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Hines.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Ranking Member.
I came down here to debate something that this chamber has been debating for generations, which is the push and pull between the Congress and the executive on the use of our military.
I was profoundly disturbed to hear the chairman denigrate the ranking member, to suggest that he doesn't care about the losses in his district, to suggest that we want the president to do nothing about narcotics.
He knows that that is not true.
I will tell the chairman that I have opposed every presidential attempt to use the American Armed Forces without Congressional approval since I have been here.
But this is about one thing, and it's not about the comedy of this institution or the dignity that the majority should show in such a debate.
The administration has created a war that is not a war, a non-international armed conflict.
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It is a war inasmuch as we have an aircraft carrier and massive amounts of military hardware in the region, and we've killed upwards of 100 people in 23-24 strikes.
But it's not a war that needs to be informed even to the Congress.
So the only question that matters, and you can show all the pictures of decapitations and of horror and of overdoses, and we'll stand with you 100% about how horrible that is.
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But you know what else is horrible?
That the majority is comfortable with the removal of the representatives of the people on this most consequential of issues.
Let's agree that there will be a Democratic president someday who does something that the majority doesn't agree with.
But every word they say here today will unbind the hands of that Democratic president to do whatever he or she wants.
Let's stand up with the dignity and the decency that this topic deserves and debate how we are going to address this huge problem while preserving our privileges and prerogatives as representatives of all of the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution.
This is neither the time nor the right legislation to deal with this issue.
This resolution suspends all military actions against any organization the president deems a designated terrorist organization unless Congress acts.
This is a dangerous limitation on the president's constitutional authority to defend the United States.
Our world is changing and changing fast.
The president must have the flexibility to change with the threats.
These drug cartels, especially Trendaragua, are behind much of the drug trafficking, human smuggling, and violent crimes that are tearing communities apart and fueling the opioid crisis in America.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than 72,000 fentanyl-related overdose deaths in 2023, the last year available.
This number represents a tragic national public health crisis.
The intention of this resolution may be to stop the attacks on the drug boats, but by refusing military action against presidentially designated terrorist organizations, you shut the door for action against other dangerous groups, including Mexican cartels or Islamic terrorist groups who might want to establish themselves or attack elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
Instead of considering this resolution, which carries little or no consequences for hostilities that don't exist, this chamber should focus on supporting the President's efforts to deter the growing national security threat from Venezuela.
Hundreds of Americans die each day due to illegal drugs like fentanyl.
Rather than Democrats making it their life's mission to destroy Donald Trump, America would be better served if members of this chamber would help him prevent the flow of illicit drugs.
As a 25-year active duty member who deployed multiple times, including that invasion of Grenada that Ms. Salazar mentioned in the Caribbean without congressional action, I caution the ranking member on accusing the President of the United States with war crimes.
That is beyond the pale.
I recommend he walk those comments back.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution, and I yield back.
I'm still waiting for the chairman to tell me why the President of the United States decided to let convicted drug pushers convicted in the United States courts in jail.
Why they were pardoned if this is about drugs.
I'm waiting for an answer.
I haven't heard that yet.
At this time, I yield one and a half minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi, the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee and original co-sponsor of this bill, the Honorable Benny Thompson.
I'm proud to be an original co-sponsor of the resolution, and I thank my colleague from New York for having the moral courage to offer it.
We are a nation of laws.
The Trump administration's boat bombings are illegal under U.S. and international laws.
Simply put, these are war crimes.
Further, the administration has failed to provide Congress with basic information, even as Trump directs a massive buildup of U.S. forces and threatens war.
And I might add, Mr. Speaker, those of us who've been in so-called classified briefings still have not received any additional information beyond what's already in the eyes of the public and on TV.
It's our duty as a Congress to reign in the lawless administration and prevent an illegal war.
This is a moment for members on both sides to choose order over chaos, morality over expedience, and country over party.
We must rise to the occasion and vote yes on this resolution.
Because people started thinking about, am I going to push off the dock in this boat full of drugs and then take a hellfire through the hull of my vessel sitting out here in the middle of the Gulf because I'm transporting drugs to the United States of America, dropped down to seven, dropped down to four, and it's going to continue to drop off because finally, those that are shipping drugs to the United States of America are recognizing there are real consequences.
I am proud to yield two minutes to the gentleman, Mr. McCormick from Georgia.
I'm an ER doctor who served many years just before coming to Congress, which was not that long ago, where I saw multiple overdoses every single night during a time where we had over 100,000 deaths per year in the United States.
Far more civilian casualties than any war we've ever experienced in the history of the United States.
That is an average of well over 250 deaths per day.
Imagine the worst mass shooting we've ever had, multiply that times five times a day for every day during the year for three years running.
That's what we're dealing with.
That's the emergency we have.
That is an emergency.
This opioid crisis is fundamentally different from any past drug epidemic.
These substances are engineered to be highly lethal.
The amount that you could fit on a pinhead could kill a person.
Unknown exposure just from somebody coming to assist somebody could kill somebody.
These are weapons of mass destruction, and it's different from anything we've ever experienced in the history of the United States or the world for that matter.
If a foreign actor released a chemical agent that killed tens of thousands of Americans, the response would be immediate, unified, and decisive.
We can and must act immediately to save American lives.
This is not unprecedented.
Every president in my lifetime, in my adult lifetime, has used the military to this end to protect the United States people, which is the president's first and most important charge as president.
And therefore, I continue to have strong opposition to this resolution, and with that, I yield.
I'm still waiting to hear why major drug dealers, two major drug dealers were pardoned by the President of the United States.
I'll wait.
Nothing.
I'll yield one and a half minutes to the gentlewoman from California, the ranking member on the subcommittee on South and Central Asia, Representative Sidney Kamlaga-Doff.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution to stop the administration's illegal and ridiculous boat strikes.
It is hard to overstate how pointless and performative these strikes really are.
The administration is trying to sell their military kill campaign by saying they're targeting drug traffickers who are selling fentanyl and hurting Americans.
Fact.
Fentanyl and fentanyl precursors do not come to the United States through Caribbean sea routes.
Fact.
The drug boats that the administration are blowing up are mostly carrying cocaine to Europe.
Fact, President Trump just pardoned known Honduran cocaine kingpin.
Fact, most smugglers that bring drugs into the country are U.S. citizens.
Fact, the real national security threat is selling our AI chips to China, not blowing up fishermen.
American taxpayers are spending millions of dollars to stop the Europeans from partying.
So what isn't it for us?
Normalization of extrajudicial killings, a total lack of due process, evidence, or congressional authorization.
We need to stop this madness.
I authorize, urge, tell, just telling my colleagues to support this resolution, and I yield back.
Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from Florida, the chairman of the National Security Department of State and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, Mr. Mario Diaz-Belar.
The gentleman from Florida is recognized for two minutes.
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Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I strongly oppose this resolution, which limits the United States' ability to fight narco-terrorist traffickers in our own hemisphere, where we are most directly impacted.
I just heard from the distinguished woman that these are fishermen.
These are fishermen, these boats, really.
I guess we're supposed to not believe our own eyes when we see these boats loaded with narcotics coming to the United States and going to other countries.
These are narco-terrorists that have been killing Americans by the thousands every single year through their poison.
It's about time that we have a president who is taking the murdering and the poisoning of our youth seriously.
So literally, Mr. Speaker, every time one of these narco boats is removed from the water, it literally is saving thousands of American lives.
So let me refresh everybody's memory who we're dealing with and who the President and the United States is going after.
They're going after narco-terrorist organizations such as Trendaragua, El Cartel de los Soles, Clan del Golfo, and MS-13, just to mention some of these dangerous cartels that kidnap and they maim, and they poison our youth.
And let's put it in perspective, Mr. Speaker.
More Americans have died because of these narco-cartels that are poisoning our youth than Americans we lost in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and Korea.
They're staggering numbers.
These cartels are responsible for the loss of lives of more Americans than ISIS and al-Qaeda combined.
These are terrorist organizations that are responsible for the death of our people.
And I just also heard, oh, upset about pressuring Maluro.
President Maluro.
Maluro is not a president.
He's the head of a narco-cartel that has taken over by force and by terror a great country, the country of Venezuela.
This is a man who's under indictment.
Let's vote this down and let's protect the American people and let's not defend the narco-cartel drugs that are poisoning our people.
Maybe the gentleman who's from the national security can tell me, since the chairman can't, can tell me why the president of the United States pardoned a narco-terrorist and the former president of Honduras.
Maybe you can tell me why.
I'm trying to get an answer.
Nothing?
Walking out?
You got an answer for me?
Why would the President of the United States pardon a convicted drug dealer, over 400 million tons, killing Americans?
And now Guilla, one and a half minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington, the esteemed member of the Hawk's Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Pramila Jayapor.
I rise in strong support of this measure to rein in President Trump's unlawful boat strikes.
These strikes and Trump's naval blockade represent appalling violations of international law and Congress's constitutional authority to authorize the use of military force.
Drug trafficking is a serious offense.
Communities across the United States have seen the devastating impacts of addiction, but that does not give Donald Trump the right to go to war, to deploy military forces without congressional authority to kill anyone against the laws of war.
Drug trafficking cases should be handled in a courtroom.
And listen, the majority's entire argument that this was so serious it required action without congressional approval is completely destroyed when the president himself just pardoned the former Honduran president who has been convicted by an American jury for moving about a drug trafficking scheme that moved about 4.5 billion doses of cocaine into the United States.
Give me a break.
It doesn't pass the laugh test.
And by the way, if Donald Trump were serious about addressing the opioid epidemic, he would not have cut Medicaid funding.
He would not have frozen $8 billion in funding for drug abuse and addiction.
We have seen the disastrous impacts of attempted regime change in Latin America.
The American people do not want another forever war.
And I would let Ms. Jayapaul know that in her district they've lost 237 people in the last year from overdose and had a number of people killed by MS-13 and Trende Aragua, the president who's working to protect their people.
And I am now proud to yield three minutes to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Rogers of Alabama.
For decades, violent drug cartels have ravaged American communities.
They've flooded our streets with deadly narcotics and they've destabilized our hemisphere, creating openings for malign influence from China, Russia, and Iran.
And year after year, they've killed thousands of Americans.
We decided long ago that we would not tolerate threats to the American people from terrorists like al-Qaeda and ISIS.
We shouldn't tolerate it from narco-terrorists either.
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives received a detailed briefing from the administration on Operation Southern Spear.
We heard directly from Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hagseth, and General Kane.
Their message was clear.
Narco-terrorists are the single greatest threat in the Western Hemisphere.
President Trump is acting decisively, lawfully, and within his authority as Commander-in-Chief.
Our military is targeting known drug-smuggling boats loaded with drugs and moving along well-established trafficking routes.
Every strike is based on rigorous intelligence linking those boats to well-known narco-terrorists.
Every strike undergoes a comprehensive legal review and complies with defined rules of engagement to ensure innocent civilians are not involved.
The Armed Services Committee is notified of every strike and has been briefed on this operation several times.
These strikes are lawful under U.S. law and international laws, and all actions are in compliance with the law of armed conflict.
But most importantly, these strikes have dramatically reduced drug smuggling operations.
Bottom line, Americans are safer today because of President Trump's actions.
Let's not return to the old failed playbook of treating our counterterrorist mission solely as a law enforcement matter.
We tried that for decades, and it didn't work.
It cost tens of, it cost hundreds of thousands of American lives.
I urge my colleagues to join me in protecting Americans by opposing this resolution, and I yield back.
And again, I could offer the chairman, Mr. Rogers, the opportunity to tell me why the president pardoned these drug dealers.
And I would also ask the chairman, you know, I'm proud of this institution and who we are, a member of the House of Representatives, former chairman of the committee.
You know, why don't we do hearings?
Why can't we bring in the administration into the Foreign Affairs Committee and have them answer questions of members of Congress on what they're doing and why they're doing it?
That's our job.
That's our responsibility.
Have we had one hearing on Venezuela on drugs coming in?
So I would hope that the chairman would have some hearings that we can discuss this as members of Congress.
And with that, I yield one and a half minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota, an original co-sponsor of this important resolution, Representative Ilhan Omar.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to Ranking Member Meeks.
May I answer that question for you, Mr. Meeks?
The answer is that this is not about drugs.
This is about regime change.
And we also have the White House Chief of Staff on record saying that this is about regime change.
It has nothing to do with drugs.
I rise today in strong support of this resolution.
I am proud to co-lead Ranking Member Meeks' effort and urge all of my colleagues to join us today in reasserting this body's constitutional authority on matters of war and peace.
Because let's be perfectly clear, only Congress has the power to declare war.
The Trump administration, its military escalation in the Caribbean, is not only reckless, it is blatantly illegal.
We cannot allow this kind of dangerous overreach to go unchecked.
Trump, a president who touts himself as a global peacemaker, has appointed himself as judge, jury, and executioner in the Western Hemisphere.
This brutal military campaign, which has killed more than 90 people, further threatens a region that has already been destabilized by decades of U.S. intervention.
And it risks driving us into further war in Venezuela.
The American people across the political spectrum have been clear that they do not want to fight and fund another war.
With this vote, every member of Congress has the chance to show the American people where they stand.
Will they enable Trump's illegal lawmaking or will they stand on the side of the Constitution?
Stand on the side of the Constitution and put an end to this unauthorized use of military force.
I urge all of my colleagues to uphold the separation of powers and pass this resolution.
And I would let Representative Omar know that in her district, she lost 205 people in the last year from overdose and have had people killed by MS-13, teenagers killed by MS-13.
The President is working to stop that from happening.
And I would also remind the Ranking Member that just yesterday, he should know this, he was standing on stage with me, we had a classified briefing with the Secretary of War and the Secretary of State.
His comments afterwards did not reflect the truth of what was said, but he was there.
I am now pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Jimenez.
I rise today in strong opposition to Resolution No. 61.
unidentified
This resolution would prohibit the President of the United States from using all the tools at his disposal in the fight against designated terrorist organizations in the Western Hemisphere.
These are the same narco-terrorists who are waging and have been waging a war on the American people through the use of deadly drugs and poison that are flooding into our country.
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Let's talk about reality, not about rhetoric.
First of all, the number one job of any government is to protect its people.
Since September 11, 2001, roughly 4,000 Americans have been killed inside the United States, either by al-Qaeda, ISIS, and similarly ideologically linked terrorist groups.
Meanwhile, since 2021, and I'm not talking back to 2001, nearly 400,000 Americans have died from overdose poisoning, deaths fueled by foreign terrorist organizations, including the Venezuelan regime, and violent cartels operating in our own backyard.
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That 400,000 is about the size of my native city, Miami.
It continued chaos and the loss of more American lives, more American lives.
It tells terrorists and cartels the United States Congress is willing to tie the hands of our commander-in-chief while they ship poison into our communities and profit from American deaths.
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As someone who fled communism, I know this lesson well.
Weakness invites aggression.
When America steps back, evil steps forward.
We must reject this resolution and make clear to the world that the United States has the will them additional 30 seconds.
That the United States has the will to confront narco-terrorism head-on and that we will never surrender to the very people that are killing our children.
Too many Americans have already died because we turned a blind eye to this threat.
For the sake of our national security, our communities, and the men and women in uniform who stand the line every single day, I urge a no vote on this resolution.
You could use my time if you can answer why the President of the United States pardoned major drug dealers who were convicted and doing time.
They weren't the little guys.
I'll wait.
I'll wait if you want to answer that question if you're going to answer that question.
Oh, yeah, okay.
Then you use your own time, not mine, unless you're going to answer the question, which I've been waiting for.
I also would like to know: you know, if this is about drugs, where the facts are, the drugs come from China.
Fentanyl.
Fentanyl mainstay is from China.
I haven't heard China in this debate at all.
In fact, the President runs a round and says some of those, you know, fact selling chips or whatever he wants to do to China is a danger to our national security.
Killing our people?
The number one drug that's killing Americans is fentanyl.
There's no ships there.
My main focus is, as I said earlier, even if you disagree with me, why don't we do our work as members of Congress?
Why aren't we having hearings?
Open public hearings with members of the administration to come to testify before us and the American people so that they can hear for themselves.
Prior Congresses, when I was the chair, even when Mr. McCall was the chair, there was a Democrat in the office, they were bringing in the Secretary of State on a consistent basis, subpoenaing him, having them come in to address certain things, and they came in.
I make judgments now to go to hearings when I see somebody from the administration is going to be there.
And boy, is that very rare.
Generally, it's just somebody on the other side who has, you know, from the private sector or something of that nature on foreign affairs.
The diplomats and representatives from the State Department and people directly from the administration, they don't come before our committee.
So no matter what your position is, this is about the United States House of Representatives doing its duty and responsibility.
Let me tell you, when it comes to drugs, I had a career in fighting drugs as a prosecutor.
No one to this day fights hard and wants to make sure that we lock up and bring to justice those who bring in and those who sell narcotics in our communities.
But we still have laws.
Because when we did, we didn't execute them.
We tried them in a court of law.
That's who we are.
That's not who Vladimir Putin is and some of these other authoritarian governments.
That's what they do.
That's not what we do here.
We have values.
And we have a job to do as members of the United States House of Representatives for the people.
And so I'm saying to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, let's do our jobs.
Let's bring in the administration and members of the administration.
Let them testify and talk to us where we can question them and the American people.
Because ultimately, this is about them.
The American people should be able to see what took place on those waters when those two individuals was hanging on the boat.
There's no problem showing all of the others.
What are we hiding from the American people?
We, as members of Congress, should be demanding that the administration is accountable to the American people.
And how the best way to do that is for them to come to Congress.
So ultimately, I'm saying we should do our jobs as members of Congress and not give away our power to someone who would like to just be an authoritarian.
We don't have that kind of government.
That's why the United States of America was created in the first place to make sure that one man or woman could make unilateral decisions around the United States Congress.
The ranking member made the claim that nobody fights harder against drugs.
Big speech.
Nobody fights harder against drugs than the President of the United States of America.
He is the one sinking the boats.
Democrats are the ones saying any terrorist organization, no matter how many people they kill, they behead, they abduct, no how many how much drugs they traffic, the president shall not have the authority to go out there and combat them.
If there is a boat coming across with anthrax in it, president can't hit it.
If there's a boat coming across that had something brought over from Iran, president can't deal with it.
Anything that comes across in the Western Hemisphere, that's literally what his legislation says, that the President cannot go out there and defend the United States of America from imminent threats.
How imminent is this threat of drugs?
365 days a year, seven days a week prior to President Trump starting to sink their boats that they were bringing to the United States of America.
That is as imminent as it gets.
It is as imminent as the sun rising.
That's how prevalent that threat has been.
The president is finally bringing it to an end.
Nobody fights harder than the president of the United States of America.
Nobody is fighting harder to allow drugs into this country than Democrats with this reckless and ridiculous piece of legislation.
And, Mr. Speaker, I have no more speakers.
I will reserve until the gentleman yields back his time.
Mr. Speaker, this war powers resolution would immediately end President Trump's extrajudicial boat strikes in the Western Hemisphere, which have never been approved by Congress and far exceed the President's authority.
We are a country of laws.
Individuals in the streets have to abide by our laws.
The President of the United States should be abiding by our laws.
And our laws.
You convict somebody in court.
You can't just go out and kill them.
What we had to do, what I had to do, was build a case in public and try that case and convince a jury to unanimously convict someone so that they would go to jail.
That was my job.
And I think that's the President of the United States cannot summarily determine that he's going to go and kill someone without coming and getting authorization from this Congress.
The worst of criminals have had to go to court.
Fact of the matter is, we know of two such people.
There's another individual who sold drugs over the internet, killing Americans.
Tried, not executed, tried and convicted in a court unanimously.
He's back on the streets as a prosecutor I would have been, and the family members of victims of those two in particular, and others like them, for them to be convicted and then released by the president of the United States Of America.
Is that justice?
Is that protecting us?
Is that what kind of message is that sending?
To just go after the little guy in a boat who was instructed by others?
But how many of the big kingping, how many of them, have been brought to justice?
Who's going after and building a case to prosecute them and hit them?
Locked up in jail?
This administration wants to say these strikes are about stopping drugs from entering the country, putting aside the fact that drug smuggling is not a crime punishable by death, or that these boats could have, per the law, been intercepted by the Coast Guard and suspected traffickers questioned and prosecuted in a U.s court.
This is not a counter narcotics operation.
The administration's actions, whether the largest military deployment to the region since the Cuban missile crisis, the seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker, ordering a blockade of Venezuela, on the many public statements issued by U.s officials, including president Trump, the gentleman's time has expired.
And let me just say I see him putting up a picture.
This resolution, plain and simple, is about telling the president he has no authority to combat terrorists in the Western Hemisphere.
That's the words of this resolution.
It's not a secret.
Anybody can read it.
It.
President doesn't have the authority to combat MS-13, Trende Aragua, Sinaloa cartel.
Take your pick.
If the president says they're terrorists and they're in the Western Hemisphere, President can't touch them.
That's what they're trying to do.
Tie his hands, not let him defend the United States of America.
We're not talking about street gangs.
They are militarized threats.
They've taken over entire apartment complexes and neighborhoods in the United States.
Now, my colleagues say this resolution is just about putting Congress on record, so let's put Congress on record.
If you stand with protecting the United States of America against narco-terrorists, then oppose this resolution.
Plain and simple.
If you stand shoulder to shoulder with MS-13 and Trende Aragua and Sinaloa cartels and the dictators who work hand in hand with them, like Nicholas Maduro in this photo, then this resolution is for you.
Vote for it.
We know exactly where some of my colleagues stand.
You can look to see where they stand in this photo.
Let's talk a little bit about that in a moment.
I want to touch on something else first.
Since President Trump took office, we've seen our Democrat colleagues fight to unmask agents, dox border patrol officers.
We've seen them issue warnings ahead of immigration raids.
They spent taxpayer dollars to keep illegal immigrants in the United States.
Now they're going even further with this resolution to say that Democrats are saying the president can't protect our country.
I'm going to show you this photo.
I actually thought a lot about this photo as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee because I take photos with foreign heads of state and diplomats and other people from other countries on a daily basis.
I shake hands and greet somebody.
Whether I like them or not, I shake hands.
It's something that I do.
But I can tell you what I don't do.
I do not let other people wrap their arms around me unless they're my kids, my friends, my family.
That's Nicholas Maduro's hand right there.
Put a little arrow there for you.
That's Ranking Member Meeks, who's been arguing with me for the last little while here.
That's his arm around the ranking member.
I don't let people put my arms around me, especially not people like that.
This photo of Nicholas Maduro probably also recognized John Kerry.
It's sad to see that.
I think it says a lot about the origination of this bill, the heart of this bill.
This is not a handshake, it's an embrace of somebody with a relationship.
That's what happens.
If somebody puts their arm around me, that means they have a relationship with me.
To me, this says a lot about who this bill stands shoulder to shoulder with.
Do you stand shoulder to shoulder with Nicolas Maduro with his arms wrapped around you?
Or do you stand shoulder to shoulder to protect the United States of America and our people from the people that are murdering us and sending their drugs over?
Pursuant to the order of the House of December 16, 2025, I call up House Concurrent Resolution 64 and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
House Concurrent Resolution 64, concurrent resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.
Pursuant to the order of the House of December 16, 2025, the concurrent resolution is considered as read.
The concurrent resolution shall be debated for one hour, equally divided among the representative among and controlled by Representative Mass of Florida and Representative Meeks of New York and Representative McGovern of Massachusetts or their respective designees.
The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mass, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Meeks, and the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. McGovern, will each control 20 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.
It's about tying, just like the last resolution, tying the President's hands, specifically in Venezuela.
It's about telling President Trump he does not have the authority to defend the United States of America.
This resolution is preemptive surrender.
As written, it limits the President's ability to respond to future threats posed by Venezuela.
Russia delivers nukes there.
President cannot respond.
Iran delivers a dirty bomb there.
The president can't respond.
China delivers anthrax or some other biological weapon, like they did with COVID-19, but far more deadly.
President can't respond.
No matter what the threat, the president cannot respond.
Additionally, this resolution, to me, it doesn't make much sense because we are not in hostilities inside Venezuela.
The authorized use of military force process exists in Congress.
But Democrats are not writing a scope of action for the President to defend the United States of America.
This resolution is a blanket statement to say to the President, you cannot defend the United States of America.
No matter what the threat emanating from Venezuela, he cannot defend you, cannot defend me, cannot defend our country against it.
This resolution is not stopping war.
It's not stopping invasion, not stopping drug running, not stopping terrorism.
It's not stopping the president.
It's just stopping the president from acting decisively before Americans die.
That's what it stops.
Let's be clear about who we're dealing with.
Venezuela is the largest and best-funded cartel in the world.
Nicolas Maduro, who we just saw the ranking member, Maduro had his hand around him, is not a legitimate head of state.
He is a designated narco-terrorist who is poisoning Americans.
All the stuff that we were just talking about in the last debate, that's Maduro.
He is the head of a cartel that will abduct somebody, behead somebody, torture someone to support his political ends.
Both Republican and Democrat administrations agree Maduro is an illegitimate dictator who rules through repression, fraud, and violence.
He literally uses the Venezuelan military to move cocaine into the United States.
That's not theory.
This is a state-run criminal enterprise.
Venezuela is not a gang.
It is a cartel state.
It rakes in billions, moving more than 250 metric tons of Colombian cocaine through their country every year.
The United States already has bipartisan sanctions on Venezuelan oil.
President Trump supported them.
President Biden kept them.
Maduro is violating those sanctions.
We just caught him doing it again.
A ghost ship was intercepted smuggling Venezuelan oil, and Maduro admitted the oil was his.
So here is the simple question: How do you enforce sanctions if you're not allowed to stop the shipments?
The answer is that you cannot.
Interdicting Venezuelan oil shipments, those oil shipments, that's not war.
It's sanctions enforcement.
It's law and order.
Given that it's the Venezuelan government that is the cartel, the trafficker, the one moving these ships, that's why it requires the military to do so.
This resolution reads as if Maduro wrote it himself.
It gives a narco-terrorist dictator a free pass to keep trafficking drugs, funding criminal networks, killing Americans, because it appears Democrats hate President Trump more than they can love America.
President Trump has the authority and the obligation to take limited, targeted action to protect the United States of America wherever those threats emanate from.
Diplomatic, trying to help the people of Venezuela.
Fact, you can see how long ago that was.
Also, I had all black hair at the time.
I think I looked good.
You know, got grew gray.
But I had all black hair because I was back in 2002, a new member of Congress trying to work together diplomacy from the very beginning.
And I didn't come here with prop photos because I'm here to debate substance.
I'm here to find out why the President of the United States, which I could not get an answer to yet, pardoned convicted drug dealers.
I could have come if you're talking about pictures.
I could have come with pictures of President Trump putting his arm around Kim Jong-un.
I could have come with pictures with President Trump offering the red carpet to Vladimir Putin.
I could have come with a whole lot of pictures of President Trump with Epstein.
But I didn't come to play games.
You're playing a game on the House floor.
I came because we have serious business here.
This is not a game.
This is about our responsibilities as members of Congress and addressing issues that should be before this body.
It's about us having debate in committee and holding the administration accountable as we do any president.
It's about us being the representatives of the people that elect us.
It's not a game.
Diplomacy is not a game.
War is not a game.
There's rules in war.
When people violate rules in war, they have to be held accountable.
When people violate rules in our cities, they have to be held accountable.
And the people who are in positions, law enforcement officers, police officers, presidents of the United States, have to be held responsible.
You close your eyes on one.
And our country is not the country that we have said and have been.
I said earlier on the floor this during this debate, my war powers resolution to end this administration's extrajudicial strikes on boats in the Western Hemisphere, those bombs are not about drugs.
If the administration did want to stop drugs, Trump would not have pardoned that former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez or Ross Albrick, who operated the Silk Road drug marketplace.
He wouldn't be seizing an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela or threatening CIA operations, blockades, and strikes of Venezuela.
This is no joke.
This is serious.
This is not about drugs.
It's about regime change.
It's about being honest with the people of America.
That's what the chief of staff of the president just did.
You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad I'm not on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
You know, I thought the Rules Committee was tough, but listening to this debate, boy, I go out of my mind.
I couldn't follow the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
I want to correct something.
I mean, this is not a Democratic resolution.
It's a bipartisan resolution.
Maybe that's something the Chairman is not familiar with, but this is a bipartisan resolution.
Democrats and Republicans have sponsored it.
And, you know, in this chamber, I guess we've all become accustomed to debating trivial issues passionately and important ones not at all.
We spend a lot of time renaming post offices and passing bills that do nothing for anybody.
And so maybe the distinguished chairman is not used to doing big things.
But I'll tell you what, the issue of war is a big deal.
It's a big deal.
It should be a big deal to Democrats.
It should be a big deal to Republicans.
It is our constitutional responsibility.
And so I am here because I'm deeply troubled that the President of the United States, in my view, is slowly but surely marching us toward open hostility with Venezuela.
I don't say that as a Democrat.
I say it as an American who is worried about this country getting dragged into another potentially endless war.
So let me be crystal clear.
I mean, you know, that is what we are talking about.
That is what we are talking about.
This is not some hypothetical abstract debate.
Donald Trump has already engaged in acts that are considered hostile under U.S. law.
He's threatened to close Venezuelan airspace.
He says he plans a naval blockade against the country soon.
He is warned that military strikes on Venezuela will start, quote, very soon, end quote.
Our Constitution provides this body, the United States Congress, with the solitary authority to declare war.
And the President, despite already engaging in hostile actions towards Venezuela, has neither requested nor received the authorization for the use of military force as required by the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
Mr. Speaker, American troops take an oath to protect and defend this country.
It is our duty in Congress to debate and vote before they are put into harm's way.
And right now, by placing U.S. military assets off the coast of Venezuela, this administration has them in harm's way right now.
And that's why, in a bipartisan way, we have introduced this resolution.
It provides the House of Representatives with a simple up or down vote.
It's a simple yes or no.
Do you want an unauthorized war in Venezuela or not?
Now, you may want a war in Venezuela.
You ought to vote for it if you want it.
But I do not want any war in Venezuela.
And I'm joined on this resolution again by members of Congress across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans who, like me, are deeply troubled by the idea of Endless wars, of America spending more of its treasure on wars that are not clearly defined, that we have no idea how they will end up at a time when we can't even provide people health care in this country, where we have homeless veterans.
I was here in 2002, Mr. Speaker.
I voted against the war in Iraq.
And Americans do not want another Iraq.
If we intensify hostilities against Venezuela, we have no idea what we're walking into.
I mean, the oversight in this Congress has been almost non-existent, given what's going on.
Congress has been lied to repeatedly, repeatedly, by administrations from both parties who want to use our military in ill-defined and often unwinnable conflicts.
And I remember the Bush administration telling us that the war in Iraq would be a cinch.
It was clearly not.
We spent over a decade at war.
We lost American lives, civilian lives, and added trillions of dollars to our debt at the expense of the basic needs of the American people.
At least George Bush had the decency to come to Congress for approval in 2002.
And don't the American people deserve that respect today?
This is about whether we want to use taxpayer dollars and risk American lives on regime change, endless wars, and costly quagmires, or whether we want to invest here in our own country and solving our own problems.
For God's sake, we live in a country where we, again, have homeless veterans, where we have hungry school kids, where seniors can't afford their medication and families to struggle to get by.
So I think it's immoral, not just a strategic failure, but a moral failure, that we have a president beating the drums of war with so much as a vote in the House of Representatives.
This is not America first.
And Mr. Speaker, I know that some of my colleagues may say that war is justified, and I can't, for the life of me, figure out that logic.
But I went to the classified briefing the administration organized yesterday.
I've been to other classified briefings.
I heard no justification that there was some imminent military threat from Venezuela, nothing that would justify the hostilities that the president is engaged in right now in building up troops.
Those who want to go to war and say that this is about drugs and cartels, let me just say that this administration's own drug enforcement administration reports fentanyl is overwhelmingly produced in other countries using chemicals that come from elsewhere in the world.
Venezuela isn't listed as a fentanyl source or transit country in any edition of the National Drug Threat Assessment.
More fentanyl comes from China and Mexico than Venezuela.
Maybe the chairman wants to go to war with China and Mexico.
And by the way, as was pointed out, Donald Trump pardoned the ex-Honduran president of Honduras who was found guilty of drug trafficking.
The chairman said nothing about that.
You know, over 3,667 people in Florida died from fentanyl.
And the President of the United States pardoned one of the people who's primarily responsible for getting fentanyl.
He also pardoned the dark web guy who helped smuggle fentanyl in from China.
Not a word, no oversight.
Who cares?
Because they don't want to say anything about, you know, Donald.
He's the pardoner-in-chief.
If you want to stop drugs from coming in, start by not pardoning drug dealers.
Those who want to go to war also point out that Nicolas Maduro is a tyrant.
I agree he's a tyrant.
He violates the human rights of his own people.
He has unlawfully detained Americans and Venezuelans as political prisoners.
He is a violent, vicious, brutal dictator.
And guess what, Mr. Speaker?
Sadly, the globe is full of violent, vicious tyrants in China, Russia, and North Korea.
You want to go to war with all of them?
For God's sakes, we sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, countries that have awful human rights violations.
I hate Maduro, and I condemn him all the time.
And while we should have a discussion about how to help the people of Venezuela, the answer is not going to war.
And Congress, Congress should have the guts. to at least debate this issue and vote on it, and not just cede all this power to the administration.
It's not just about pictures, but pictures tell a thousand words.
You came here to prevent the president from defending the United States of America.
Plain and simple.
There have been deaths in Florida.
There have been deaths in Representative McGovern's district, 262 overdoses in the last year.
People beaten by MS-13, strangled by MS-13, stabbed 32 times by MS-13.
The list goes on.
That's what the President is trying to defend from happening in the United States of America.
That is as serious as it gets.
And it absolutely matters that Nicholas Maduro has his arm around the authors of this legislation preventing the president from defending against that country, their cartels, their terrorists, the drugs coming through that country.
What the President is doing in the Gulf is protecting the homeland of the United States of America, protecting the homeland.
I would give this last comment to the gentleman, Mr. McGovern.
I never saw the things that I did as big or small.
Risking my life for my country, I simply saw as my duty.
I am now proud to yield two minutes to the chair of the Europe Subcommittee, Mr. Self from Texas.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this resolution, which is not necessary, as it removes our armed forces from hostilities against a country where there have been no hostilities.
The War Powers Act has no legal bearing on actions that could happen in the future.
Yet that's exactly what this concurrent resolution attempts to do.
To date, there are no confirmed U.S. service members engaged in combat with Venezuela.
While I could end it there, since Democrats are turning a blind eye to the killing of Americans by illicit drugs from Venezuela, I'd also like to highlight that Venezuela has become a strategic outpost for China, Russia, and Iran, not to mention criminal and terrorist organizations.
Just yesterday in a Europe subcommittee hearing, I made the point that China and Russia are engaged in hybrid war against the United States today.
Not only has Maduro's regime purchased Iranian armed drones, they have also allowed Iran to establish production facilities for its military drones within their borders.
Terrorist organizations like Hezbollah use Caracas as a base to operate their criminal terror organizations in South America, generating revenue through narco-trafficking.
Russia, a longtime ally of the regime, still provides Venezuela with military aid while also facing the challenges of waging war in Ukraine.
In fact, Venezuela opened a factory last summer to manufacture Russian Kalashnikov rifle munitions.
China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba use the country as a platform for intelligence operations in asymmetric warfare.
Instead of considering this resolution, which carries little or no consequences for hostilities that do not exist, this chamber should focus on supporting the president's efforts to deter the growing national security threat from Venezuela.
Hundreds of Americans die each day due to illegal drugs.
Rather than Democrats making it their life's mission to destroy Donald Trump, America would be better served by members of this chamber if we helped him prevent the flow of illicit drugs that are killing our citizens.
And I'm asking everybody, all of my Republican colleagues, anybody that speaks, anybody just answer the question.
We're on C-SPAN, the American people.
Here's an opportunity for you to tell the American people why the President of the United States, a man who you say this is about drugs, will let go.
Two major convicted convicted drug dealers.
Not the small guy.
Major.
I just don't know why kingpins can get away with doing and peddling drugs in the United States.
And a peon in the operation must die.
Even if you survived a strike and you're holding on for dear life, you have no weapons, no phones, no anything, but you're still in imminent danger, so they say, to the United States.
And we have pictures that will show whether or not they were a threat to the United States while holding on to that boat.
But the administration has decided they can show all of the others, but the American people cannot see that.
I've been waiting for an answer.
The American people want an answer.
I'll wait.
I now yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from New York, the ranking member of the Small Business Committee, Representative Nydia Velasquez.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the gentleman for yielding.
I rise today in support of this power war powers resolution.
23 years ago, I stood on this same floor as Congress debated an authorization for the use of military force in Iraq.
The Bush administration relied on bad intelligence and outright lies to march America into a disastrous foreign intervention that cost trillions of dollars, took thousands of American lives, and helped destabilize the region for a generation.
Today, I fear we are watching history repeat itself.
Once again, a far-right administration is using the same platebook.
The justification this administration has provided to Congress and the American people is a joke.
If this was about drugs, why seize an oil tanker and threaten an illegal naval blockade?
If this was about drugs, why would the president pardon a drug-trafficking former president of Honduras?
This is not about drugs.
This is about regime chain and control of Venezuela's resources.
Nicolas Maduro is a dictator, and you don't have to defend him to recognize a simple truth.
Venezuela does not pose an imminent threat, and a war will do nothing to make America safer.
We are sleepwalking into another disastrous foreign war, and Congress must wake up and stop this before it's too late.
I request unanimous consent to insert in the record an article from the Washington Post entitled, Trump Pardons Major Drug Traffickers Despite His Anti-Drug Rhetoric.
And I don't want to be lectured by the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, because as I mentioned, in Florida, 3,667 people have died of fentanyl from fentanyl.
And this president has pardoned drug dealer after drug dealer after drug dealer, and not a peep from my friends on the other side of the aisle who are now talking about the issue of drugs in the United States.
Not a peep.
I mean, I don't know how you explain that to the families of those who lost their lives.
Number one.
Number two, he made a big deal about pictures, that if you're in a picture with somebody and you touch them, that somehow you were affiliated with them.
Well, here's a picture of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin with a nice handshake.
What does that say that Trump is somehow Vladimir Putin's friend?
Here's Trump with Kim Jong-un, you know, giving him a nice hug, another dictator that Trump seems to be enamored with.
I mean, I don't even know what the hell that proves, but the chairman of the committee seems to think that photos are a big deal.
I just also want to say something else before I yield.
Our resolution, let me read it to you.
It says, Pursuant to section 5C of the War Powers Resolution, Congress hereby directs the President to remove the use of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization for the use of military force.
That is it.
I can't even believe this is controversial.
I can't even believe that my friends on the other side of the aisle have a problem with this.
I mean, this is the most basic stuff.
I now yield three minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massey.
Mr. Speaker, James Madison warned us that in no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature and not the executive.
Madison called it the crown jewel of Congress.
The framers understood a simple truth.
To the extent that war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves.
If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case, and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America.
Let's be honest about likely outcomes.
Do we truly believe that Nicolas Maduro will be replaced by a modern-day George Washington?
How did that work out?
In Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria?
Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, that did not exist.
Now it's the same playbook, except we're told that drugs are the WMDs.
If it were about drugs, we'd bomb Mexico or China or Colombia.
And the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez.
This is about oil and regime change.
And when it comes to regime change, we've already been down this road with Venezuela with nothing to show for it.
In 2019, we recognized Juan Guaido.
We seized their embassy here in D.C.
We were told that regime change was imminent.
Years later, Maduro remains in power.
Today, we're told to place our hopes in other exiled figures: Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Carina Machado.
I wish them well, I do.
But Congress should not express moral sympathy in the form of a blank check for military escalation and American lives.
And let's take a moment to acknowledge the contradiction at the heart of this policy.
This administration tells us that the Maduro regime is made up of narco-terrorists, and by escalating toward war, we would predictably create countless refugees.
At the same time, this administration has moved to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and deports them back to the very regime it condemns.
So which is it?
Are we prepared to receive swarms of the 25 million Venezuelans who will likely become refugees and billions in American treasure that will be used to destroy and inevitably rebuild that nation?
Do we want a miniature Afghanistan in the Western Hemisphere?
If that cost is acceptable to this Congress, then we should vote on it as a voice of the people and in accordance with our Constitution.
And yet today, here we aren't even voting on whether to declare war or authorize the use of military force.
All we're voting on is a war powers resolution that strengthens the fabric of our republic by reasserting the plain and simple language in the Constitution that Congress must decide questions of war.
I urge support for this resolution, and I yield back.
I thank the Chairman, and I thank him for his leadership on this initiative.
I'm glad somebody is showing some leadership here today.
I arise in opposition to the removal of the use of United States forces for hostilities within or against Venezuela or the Support for Drug Dictators Act.
The United States is using a proportional force to apply pressure on narco-terrorists who are colluding with the illegitimate leader of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.
They've already acknowledged that.
The use of military pressure, which matches pressure that the U.S. has used in the global fight on terrorism, is a proper extension of the use of force in the Western Hemisphere, where narco-terrorists operating through and with Venezuela are creating instability and poisoning Americans in droves.
The use of measured military power is the logical step to attempt to stop narcotics terrorists from supporting Maduro.
The United States has imposed individual, financial, and sectoral sanctions on the Venezuelan government, as well as sanctions on the Maduro government and its supporters.
This proposed resolution would disable the very effective tool that has been used to keep pressure on terrorist forces who have a Venezuelan nexus and are planning, plotting, and carrying out attacks against the U.S. in our interests.
The strikes on narco-terrorist cartel assets have been precise and limited.
Military action of this nature does not require congressional authorization.
Under Article 2 of the Constitution, the President has the authority, and I would say the responsibility, to protect the United States and American citizens from attack.
Moreover, U.S. troops have not been put into harm's way.
Admittedly, it shocks me that we need to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle what we're fighting for here.
The most recent CDC data shockingly reports that more than 82,000 drug overdose deaths have occurred during the 12-month period ending in January 2025.
If ISIS or al-Qaeda had contributed to the killing of that many Americans in a single year, our leaders would be rightfully assailed for failing to respond.
Now that President Trump is taking the fight to the terrorists who have actually contributed to our nation's drug overdose epidemic, he's met with criticism rather than the praise he and his administration deserve.
I guarantee you, family and friends don't distinguish between the branch of terrorism that led to the death of their loved ones.
They just want them defeated.
For too long, these cartels have poisoned the American people, destabilized and corrupted our neighbors, and tortured and killed thousands of innocents throughout our hemisphere.
I've traveled extensively across the Western Hemisphere and met with many of our neighbors' leaders and their forces who are always engaged in the fight against these cartels, and these terrorist organizations are some of the most vile and evil in the world.
To bar the President from using military force consistent with other counterterrorism activities simply due to a Venezuelan nexus is not supportable and is antithetical to his duty to protect our nation from foreign terrorism threats.
This resolution would prevent the application of the use of force against the very narcotics terrorists cooperating with Venezuela.
How in the world is that consistent with the primary duty of the government to protect our nation and its citizens?
I strongly recommend that my colleagues vote against this misguided resolution and I yield the balance of my time.
Let me just say this real quick because the chairman keeps going on this, you know, about these pictures, and I'm not going to keep belavering.
But I do remember something.
If you want to talk about now, I think that we know that Kim Jong-un, who he is, et cetera.
I got a quote.
If you really want to talk about relationships, Mr. Chairman, that you can get directly from the President of the United States when he was talking about Kim Jong-un.
Here's what he said.
And I quote, we fell in love, okay?
No, really?
He wrote me beautiful letters.
They were great letters.
We were in love.
That's Kim Jong-un.
You could also talk about him and she, but fentanyl is coming into the United States.
Those are real relationships.
Now, and anytime you're ready to answer the question about why somebody, the President of the United States, would pardon kingpins in the drug trade, I'll get an answer.
I've been waiting, I'm asking everybody.
I don't need the chairman, any Republican that wants to make a statement, if they could just explain to the American people.
Don't have to explain it to me.
Explain it to the American people.
Just give me some explanation of why the President of the United States would pardon convicted drug traffickers.
I yield two minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Representative Jamie Raskin.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Why did the framers vest the power to declare war in Congress alone?
It was because the kings were constantly plunging their entire nations into wars of vanity, of conceit, of caprice, of mere whimsy.
They didn't trust one man to be able to take the entire country to war.
They wanted that question reposed in the representatives of the people because it's our sons and daughters who will go fight, and it's the whole country's treasure that will be put at risk.
So now Donald Trump, buffeted by dozens of election losses all across the country from Virginia to New York to New Jersey to California to Mississippi and Georgia, sinking in the polls like a stone because of his catastrophic unconstitutional tariffs and his complete destruction of the health care system of the country, now wants to turn the metaphorical war on drugs into an actual physical war on drugs.
Well, Donald Trump's real interests in supporting dictators and big-time drug dealers were made clear with a series of presidential pardons of major drug dealers, including the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez.
The guy was sentenced to 45 years in prison for bringing 40 tons, I'm sorry, 400 tons of cocaine into our country.
800,000 pounds of cocaine.
He brought into our country, and that President Hernandez says, I'm going to stuff the cocaine up the noses of the gringos.
And President Trump pardoned him without any explanation.
And we eagerly await an explanation for someone on that side because they've blown up 26 vessels on the high seas, which have at most, if each one has two tons of cocaine in it, 52 tons.
And he pardoned this guy who brought in 800,000 pounds of cocaine to stuff up the noses of the Gringos.
I would urgently commend to our colleagues across the aisle the speech that President Lincoln, the founder of your party, made about the Mexican-American war.
And he stood in this chamber and said, on something as important and as grave as going to war, we want to know exactly what the rationale is, exactly why we're doing it.
And he got the nickname Spotty because he said he wanted to know the exact spot where American blood was shed.
Well, there's a real accounting to be done in terms of what is the factual predicate for this war that Donald Trump wants to plunge us into.
Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee has said some strange things today about how you interpret photographs and that people are shaking hands or whatever.
But somehow, if your armor is around somebody, that means that you're dear friends.
And I'm just looking at this photo of Donald Trump with his arm around Jeffrey Epstein.
By your standards, they must be in love.
But this debate is not about the gentleman's personal weird code on touching.
This is about war.
And that's what we're here to talk about.
And quite frankly, it deserves a more serious treatment from the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Now I would like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from Texas, one of the co-sponsors of this resolution, Mr. Castro.
unidentified
Gentlemen from Texas is recognized for three minutes.
Mr. Speaker, we are at war with Venezuela.
Last night, the President declared a naval blockade of Venezuela.
This is an act of war.
The president has said strikes on land are imminent.
He's dragging us into a war that the American people do not want and that the Congress did not authorize.
Mr. Speaker, Americans are asking why.
Is it about the drugs?
It can't be about the drugs because he just pardoned one of the largest drug traffickers in U.S. history.
Is it about fentanyl?
Venezuela doesn't traffic fentanyl.
One can't say that it's because Nicolas Malduro is a dictator.
He certainly is a dictator.
And the Venezuelan people deserve better.
But so is Mohamed bin Salman, a leader the president praises all the time.
You can't say that it's about communism because China is one of our largest trading partners.
So what is this war about?
Regime change, power, graft, oil, land.
Yesterday, the president told us he wants to seize the oil and the land.
The president has no plans to address rising grocery prices, health care prices, child care prices, rent that's going up.
Instead of attacking Venezuela, he should be attacking those high prices.
These are issues that Americans want us to focus on, but instead, he's sending American service members into an illegal war.
We've been down this path before.
The vote to authorize the Iraq war came to define the legacy of every member of the 107th Congress.
That vote came to haunt many.
Your vote today will be part of your legacy.
It will be part of how your service in the House of Representatives will be defined.
I urge you to vote yes on this bipartisan resolution.
And I yield back.
Members are reminded to direct their comments to the chair.
For every one of my colleagues on the other side, it is about drugs.
It is about the drugs being prevented from going into their community, like Representative Castro, who had 101 people die last year from overdose, and somebody murdered by Trende Aragua on June 16, 2024.
It is absolutely about preventing those things.
It's about preventing those things.
And they're going to allow it in.
I am now pleased to yield one minute to the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. McCormick.
Mr. Speaker, I am in strong opposition to this resolution because the issue before us is not one of presidential authority.
It is whether Congress should undermine the President's ability to deter threats and protect the United States interests in our own hemisphere.
History shows that time after time that if you signal weakness, it emboldens your adversaries.
A resolution that publicly constrains the Commander-in-Chief does not promote peace.
What it does is telegraph weakness to a hostile regime like Venezuela and encourages them to test U.S. resolve.
This is not a distant theater.
This is our hemisphere.
Supporting the President's authority is not a blank check for war.
It is recognition that timely, flexible military posturing is what prevents war, and in this case, protects Americans against the most lethal attack ever on the American people and the population, where we lose over 250 people per day for the last three years.
This is not the time to act in opposition to the Commander-in-Chief, to oppose him from the most important obligation he has, to protect the American public.
Mr. Speaker, no president, Democrat or Republican can declare war without Congress.
Congress is the branch of government vested with this solemn responsibility.
President Trump has not requested or received any authorization for the use of military force against Venezuela, yet he continues to escalate the situation by striking speedboats and seasoned oil tankers and establishing blockades, which are an act of war, which is an act of war.
Congress must be consulted.
The president is either trying to distract Americans from the fact that millions of people are going to lose their health care, or he believes that he is a king, unbound by our laws, unbound by international law, unbound by our Constitution.
Mr. Speaker, from the start of the Trump administration, this Republican Congress has willingly given up our powers and our authority.
Our power of the purse, our oversight authority, our legislative authority, and now our war powers.
Members of this body have surrendered their ability to check the executive and have failed to stand up for our democracy and the American people.
And I say enough is enough.
Congress must start acting as a co-equal branch of government.
Trump and his administration, while waging a war in our cities, are committing war crimes in the Caribbean.
While Trump lies to us about how they're going after narco-traffickers, he's pardoning convicted narco-traffickers, probably responsible for many of the overdoses we have seen around the country.
The administration is lying, consolidating power, and committing war crimes in order to control, to dominate, and seize Venezuelan oil and pursue regime change for their imperialistic agenda in the Western Hemisphere.
All so they can extract resources, they can expand their wealth, and they can make sure that one day, one day, should they lose their hold on power, which they will, that they can be pardoned for their corruption.
It seems like Republicans love Trump and protecting pedophiles more than they love America and children.
It is shameful, it is pitiful, it is filthy, and we have to put an end to it.
I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this resolution.
Let's take back the power and authority that rightfully belongs to Congress and put an end to the lawlessness that makes us all less safe.
With that, I yield back.
unidentified
Members are reminded once again to refrain from engaging in personalities towards the president.
Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield one and a half minutes to the gentlelady from South Carolina, Ms. Biggs.
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Gentlelady is recognized.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the resolution which seeks to limit the constitutional authority of the President under Article II and micromanage the Commander-in-Chief during a national security crisis.
While our nation's first priority must always be the pursuit of peace over conflict, we cannot remain idle when an indicted drug trafficker weaponizes narco-terrorists to assault our sovereignty.
Peace is maintained through strength, and it would be both unconstitutional and irresponsible to tie the hands of the president who is protecting the American people from drug cartels and terrorist tactics.
Decades of executive branch president affirmed by both parties established that restricted engagements involving no ground troops and limited operations do not require congressional authorization.
The president's targeted strikes on narco-terrorist vessels have been precise and targeted and have not put U.S. troops in harm's way.
Passage of this resolution would set catastrophic precedent.
It would define any defensive use of force as an act of war, effectively stripping the commander-in-chief of his constitutional mandate to respond to foreign threats and to secure our borders against a criminal regime.
Mr. Speaker, the war powers resolution was never intended to be a tool for the legislative branch to conduct tactical oversight of military operations.
We have one commander Reason.
Which side are we on, keeping Americans safe or protecting narco-terrorists?
I urge my colleagues to vote no, and I yield back.
Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Jimenez.
unidentified
Camera is recognized.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this resolution.
This resolution would prohibit the use of United States Armed Forces off the coast of Venezuela without regard for the real and growing threats posed by the foreign terrorist Maduro regime.
Let's be clear-eyed about the danger that we face.
The Maduro regime is a designated foreign terrorist organization, a narco-terrorist state that collaborates with other foreign terrorist organizations and violent cartels to flood our hemisphere and our communities with deadly poison.
The Venezuelan people are held hostage by a foreign terrorist regime that uses their land as an operating base for international drug trafficking, fueling a crisis that has cost nearly 400,000 Americans their lives since 2021.
This resolution would have us pull back from the fight against designated terrorist regimes and cartels in our own hemisphere, our own hemisphere, just miles from our shores.
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It tells foreign terrorist regime in Venezuela and its criminal allies that Congress is willing to look the other way as hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to die every single year.
We must reject this resolution and send a clear message.
The United States will confront narco-terrorist regimes in our hemisphere, stand with the Venezuelan people, the Venezuelan people, and never surrender to terrorist regimes that threaten our security.
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Too many Americans have already paid with their lives because this threat was ignored.
For the sake of our national security, our communities, and the men and women in uniform who stand the line every day, I urge a no vote on this resolution.
I thank my colleague for yielding the time, and I yield back.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely right that the Constitution is crystal clear that only Congress can start a war.
But in their deliberations on this subject, the founders also made clear that they were leaving the president certain limited inherent power to react to an attack.
For example, he can order defensive measures or hot pursuit of an enemy or retaliatory strikes.
That's the distinction they debated when they substituted declare war instead of make war among Congress's enumerated powers.
So the supporters of this resolution are correct.
Congress has to initiate hostilities, but neither of these resolutions are applicable to current events.
HCON Res 64 orders the president to remove forces from Venezuela that are not in Venezuela.
And until unless they are, this is at best an empty partisan exercise.
Worse, it could be construed to constrain his inherent powers in the event of an attack by Venezuela that requires an immediate response.
H.Con Res 61 orders him to cease attacks on terrorist groups, presumably the drug runners.
But these are unflagged vessels carrying contraband in international waters.
An attack on them is not an attack on a foreign power and therefore not an act of war.
It's akin to firing on Somali pirates menacing international shipping.
If the president launched an unprovoked attack on Venezuela or Venezuela-flagged vessels without congressional declaration, we should have this debate.
Until then, I think the Democrats would do well not to cry wolf on such an important matter.
Mr. Speaker, I'd ask Mr. McGovern: is the contention that this is a present condition that there are U.S. forces in violation of the War Powers Resolution, or is it about a hypothetical future?
Mr. Speaker, I really can't believe this debate from some of my friends on the other side of the aisle.
They're talking about things that have nothing to do with the underlying legislation.
I mean, they're talking about fentanyl.
Well, fentanyl is coming from China.
That's the problem.
You want to bomb China?
Then make the case to bomb China.
But that's where fentanyl is coming from.
You know, they're talking about nuclear war.
I don't even know what the hell that has to do with what we're debating here today.
But I think what's clear is my Republican friends, you know, are basically covering up for the president who is sleepwalking us right into a war in Venezuela.
And that's the issue here.
The president, by his own words, has said that he wants to block the airspace in Venezuela.
He's talked about troops in Venezuela.
He's stationing American forces around Venezuela.
Those are, under U.S. law, those are acts of hostility.
And, you know, and I've seen this movie before where my Republican friends get up and they talk tough, you know, let's go to war, let's go to war, and then we go to war and it becomes a catastrophe, and then they say, well, I never voted for a war.
Oh, I didn't do that.
That's not me.
Well, you know, under the Constitution, we have a responsibility to declare war.
We have a responsibility to debate war.
And quite frankly, this Congress, given what's going on in Venezuela, ought to be doing more oversight and ought to be debating this issue.
And that it's somehow controversial or it undercuts, you know, our attempts to stop drugs from coming into this country is ridiculous.
It is ludicrous.
Now, I've been around for a while.
The one thing I can tell you with certainty, it's easy to get into a war.
It's hard as hell to get out of war.
And I've been around long enough to hear presidents of both parties talk about war as something simple.
You can get into it, we get out of it easy, no big deal.
That's never happened.
That's never happened.
Even the Pentagon says it will be very, very complicated to topple Maduro, that what might result might be more violence, might be more chaos.
Yeah, it could be a quagmire.
So, I mean, all we're saying here, you know, is let's do our job.
If you don't want to do the job, I don't know why the hell you're here.
Seriously, I mean, the Foreign Affairs Committee ought to be taking the lead on this.
This shouldn't be controversial.
My resolution is a bipartisan resolution.
It deserves bipartisan support.
This is the least we can do.
This is the least we could do.
When we go to war, our troops have no choice but to follow the orders that are given to them, right?
But the bottom line is we have a responsibility to make sure they don't get sent into a mess, that we know what the hell we're doing, that there's a clearly defined mission, that this is the right thing to do.
And it is the wrong thing to do, in my opinion.
You know, we have homeless veterans.
We can't provide people in this country health care.
People don't have adequate housing.
People are hungry.
You know, and you want to spend billions and trillions of dollars on another war.
I'm not going to talk to my colleagues because they're not going to answer the question of why not an indicted person, but a convicted two people were pardoned by the United States.
I want to address the American people that are looking.
My fellow Americans, Congress would need to pass an authorization for the use of military force if President Trump wanted to put boots on the ground or conduct military strikes in Venezuela.
If you're going to abide by the law.
And for that, Republicans in Congress would need to cast their vote on whether to commit U.S. armed forces to an open-ended conflict their constituents, the American people, certainly do not want.
Trump ran on ending forever wars, but now he's forgotten what they are.
What his own Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegset, characterized as, I quote, interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, and ficklest nationbuilding.
Yet with Venezuela, Trump is provoking a new war right in our backyard and threatening to destabilize the entire region.
And let's be clear, claiming a war with Venezuela will be quick and easy is a fantasy.
Maduro is by no means a good guy.
He lost the last election and has violently repressed the Venezuelan people to stay in power against their democratic will.
But to think that if the U.S. military just chases him out, then Venezuela's military and armed groups around the country will welcome democracy with open arms is naive at best.
This administration has no plan for the day after.
It has no strategy.
And if members do not vote for Mr. McGovern's war powers resolution, they are assigning their name to everything that comes after.
A forever war in our own hemisphere.
A quagmire, the likes of Vietnam, in a country twice the size of a rat for a length of time that is completely unknown.
How many billions of dollars of taxpayers' money would be spent so Pete Hagsteth can coach a wartime or play as a wartime general?
How many U.S. service members would make the ultimate sacrifice so Donald Trump could do in Latin America what Vladimir Putin does in Europe?
The power over matters of war and peace belongs to the United States Congress.
It is our most solemn duty given in the Constitution of the United States.
And votes like this are our most consequential, literally about life and about death.
And if history has taught us anything, wars are easy to start, but they are incredibly difficult to end.
The choice you make on this vote will carry a long, a very long, a very, very long part in this history.
I will just end with this.
Let me just tell you, the camera of history is rolling.
What will the downstream effects of destabilizing the country, an entire region?
Anyone who tells you they know, they're lying.
What do we know is that the American people, the American people, this is what we do know, don't want this.
That is unequivocal.
Even President Trump's supporters do not understand why he would do this.
Mr. Speaker, defense of America is what's on the table here.
The questions are simple: Does the President have the authority to defend the United States of America against these cartels, against their drugs, their beheadings, their murders?
Does he or does he not?
My Democrat friends are arguing that he does not have the authority to defend our country, to protect the people of the United States of America, to protect the people in their communities.
That is their argument.
The fact of the matter is that the President has the authority to defend our country, and he has the duty to defend our country.
Union calendar number 265, H.R. 3492, a bill to amend Section 116 of Title 18, United States Code, with respect to genital and bodily mutilation and chemical castration of minors.
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Pursuant to House Resolution 953, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on the Judiciary printed on the bill is adopted and the bill as amended is considered red.
The bill as amended shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on the judiciary or their respective designees.
After one hour of debate, it shall be in order to consider the further amendment printed in House Report 119-411, if offered by the member designated in the report, which shall be considered red, shall be separately debatable for the time specified in the report, equally divided, and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, and shall not be subject to demand for a division of the question.
The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Moore, and the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, each control 30 minutes.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Moore.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous materials on H.R. 3492.
Without objection.
I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
The gentleman is recognized.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
We as a nation are facing one of the greatest crises of our time.
Child abuse disguised as medical intervention.
Children are being coerced by adults in positions of authority into life-altering and medically questionable gender transition procedures without a full understanding of the meaning or that impact.
Democrats have embraced an extreme position on this so-called gender-affirming care.
They are more interested in promoting the radical left policies than protecting our children from harm.
Despite the American public's widespread rejection of the practice in 2024, the radical left continues to distort the debate surrounding so-called gender-affirming care.
Instead of accurately describing the procedures as harmful and life-altering, the left deceptively frames the procedures as being necessary to improve the health and the well-being of our children.
Through gender-affirming care, Democrats are indoctrinating children and causing them to make life-altering decisions about their body involving hormones and surgery and jeopardizing their health.
So-called gender-affirming care is a genital mutilation and chemical castoration of children.
It is not life-saving care.
It is child abuse.
All evidence points to the fact that gender transition procedures, including the puberty blockers, the hormones, and the surgeries, are a form of genital mutilation.
More and more detransitioners, such as our brave Chloe Cole, are coming forward to share their horrific experiences of being used as experiments of the medical establishment.
The majority of these brave transitioners are girls and women.
The first rule of medicine is do no harm.
Yet those in the medical community performing these grotesque procedures on children are committing some serious harm.
In fact, these procedures are so grotesque that during the markup of this legislation, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle had a hard time hearing these specific procedures described.
This begs the question, if they cannot bear to hear, why are they forcing it on our children?
Doctors across the U.S. and in other countries are beginning to take a stand against those in the medical community who insist on these being life-saving procedures, and they should be questioned.
Even our neighbors to the north have acted responsibly.
In Canada, all genital surgeries are only available to children who are years of age of 18 or older.
This policy aligns with the World Professional Association of Transgender Health Standards.
According to these standards, a person must be of the age of a majority to undergo reassignment surgery.
Likewise, in Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, the minimum age requirement to undergo any sex reassignment surgery is 18.
We should not fall behind these countries when it comes to protecting our children.
The Protect Children's Innocent Act will hold those accountable who perform or attempt to perform genital mutilation and chemical castoration on our children.
This bill expands the covered offenses to include the body mutilation and chemical castoration of minors.
Victims are protected by ensuring that they cannot be arrested or prosecuted if one of these or other prohibited procedures are performed on them.
This legislation continued President Trump's important priority to protect children.
Earlier this year, President Trump issued an executive order titled Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.
This order defunds chemical and surgical mutilation of children and halts the use of federal funds supporting gender-affirming medical care for youth under the age of 19.
H.R. 3492 works to codify President Trump's executive order and amend Section 116 of the United States Code to explicitly include bodily mutilation and chemical castration.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have lamented, leave our children alone.
That is exactly what this bill does.
This issue is simple.
Do not force children into making the decisions that they will not be able to reverse.
Do not make these children lifelong patients and dependent on the medical system.
Most importantly, do not abuse our nation's children.
I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and I reserve the balance of my time.
Gentleman in Reserves, the gentleman from Maryland, Ms. Saraskin, is recognized.
The bill would subject doctors, nurses, other medical providers, and even parents to up to 10 years' incarceration in federal prison and up to $250,000 in criminal fines for providing gender-affirming health care like hormone therapy to minors.
They want to criminalize more than a dozen different evidence-based medical treatments and procedures that are presently being recommended and used for gender dysphoria, including the prescription of puberty blockers, which are commonly used by families for young people who are not trans but who face all the medical and social problems associated with early onset puberty.
The gentlelady's bill would engineer a massive invasion of the privacy rights of families engaged in medical decision-making in America.
And I thought that was something that united liberals and conservatives, a belief that families should be able to make their own decisions for their own children.
These are hard and often agonizing decisions that loving American families in our country face, but our colleagues now want to invite the federal government to come barging into the family dining room and the doctor's exam room like a raging bull in a china shop.
Does anyone believe that the Freedom Caucus and President Trump love America's children more than their own parents do, or that they can make better decisions for tens of thousands of American children than their own parents?
I can't understand the logic of it.
At a time of skyrocketing health care costs, which our colleagues will do nothing about, except perhaps a handful of them who have crossed over to join us today in a discharge petition, but at a time of skyrocketing health care costs, grocery prices, and housing, not to mention the recent news of escalating unemployment higher than last four years.
Does anybody really think that what the American people need right now and are looking for is a federal law authorizing FBI agents and government prosecutors to investigate doctors, nurses, hospitals, and parents for providing AMA-recommended medical care to children?
The politicians that have brought America to a point of crisis in health care coverage for millions of Americans and can't seem to do anything about it cannot be trusted to make the most intimate and fundamental decisions for the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of America's children.
Let us leave it to people's parents.
Let's leave it to the families.
And we will reserve at this point.
unidentified
Gentlemen from Reserves, the gentleman from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to mention that Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law recently not to notify parents.
Administrators and school teachers don't notify parents if the kids are considering a transition.
So we do trust parents in many cases, but a lot of cases in some of these blue states, they're not notified.
And with that, I'll yield five minutes to my friend from Georgia, Ms. Green.
The gentlelady from Georgia is recognized for five minutes.
One of the most serious responsibilities we have as adults, and particularly those of us who are elected and hold power when it comes to legislating and making laws, is to protect children.
Today the House is delivering on what the American people voted for, the opportunity to vote to end the genital mutilation of children via transgender treatments for children.
This important bill that I've introduced years ago and finally is getting a vote today will let the House set to vote on this this afternoon will criminalize gender affirming care on minors, not adults, on minors who have not yet grown up to make adult decisions.
It will end genital mutilation and chemical castration of children and imprison offenders for up to 10 years.
This is a direct legislative reflection of President Trump's executive order and every single Republican's campaign promise in 2024.
It was also one of the top issues across the country.
Most Americans agree that kids just need to grow up before they do anything radical like a mastectomy on a 15-year-old girl, castrate themselves through surgery, or even take dangerous drugs that have lifelong effects.
American children are being systematically indoctrinated with perverse gender ideology by teachers, doctors, mental health counselors, and on social media platforms.
Autistic children are particularly vulnerable and are three to four times more likely to have gender dysphoria.
Joe Biden's former Assistant Secretary of Health, Richard Levine, who identifies himself as Rachel Levine, called for the federal government to empower kids to go on puberty blockers and obtain sex reassignment surgeries.
We truly don't know the lifelong effects of puberty blockers, but we do see the lifelong effects of sex reassignment surgeries.
For far too long, children have been sexually exploited under the malicious falsehood of so-called gender-affirming care.
Mutilating children's bodies and giving them sterilizing drugs is anything but affirming and anything but care.
These types of surgeries and hormone treatments are destroying children's lives all across the country, while this perverted multi-billion dollar industry rakes in profits.
Pharmaceutical company Pfizer led the way in hormone production drugs with revenues of $74 million from those products in 2022 alone.
Total revenues for transgender drugs and surgeries in 2023 were estimated to surpass $4.4 billion.
And by 2030, the market is expected to grow to nearly $8 billion.
There are for-profit pediatric gender clinics as well as hospitals that receive federal funding that are engaged in this type of child abuse.
One of the nation's top children's hospitals in the country, Boston Childs Hospital, even released videos that explained its surgeries promoting sterilization, castration, and mutilation of children to kids and their parents.
The hospital had been discovered to have performed gender-affirming chest surgeries on 15-year-old girls, girls that are not even old enough to get a tattoo by nicotine, buy alcohol, and even vote.
Jamie Reed, who worked at a gender clinic and directly assisted transitioning 1,500 patients, she says aged 3 to 25 years old over five years, publicly came out to discuss the atrocities happening to children at these gender clinics.
When a female takes testosterone, the profound and permanent effects of the hormones can be seen in a matter of months.
The voice drops, beards sprout, body fat is redistributed, sexual interest explodes, aggression increases, and moods can be unpredictable.
One of the side effects includes sterility.
Can you imagine this happening to a young woman before she's ever even of legal age to be considered an adult?
Jamie Reid has full-blown come out as a whistleblower on how fraudulent the entire industry is.
The clinicians didn't care about the symptoms of the child.
If the child believed they were trans, the clinicians took their word for it.
If a child believes they're a unicorn, do adults take their word for it as well?
We have laws that prevent children from being sexually exploited already on the books.
And as a matter of fact, in 2020, this body passed a law to stop the female genital mutilation of young women all across America.
My bill has the exact same commerce clause that is in the law preventing FGM.
We also have federal laws that have stopped sexual exploitation of children.
We already have federal laws that stop the sexual exploitation of children related to porn and sex crimes against children.
And these federal laws are so important because they protect children all across America.
There's historical data that shows that 60 to 90 percent of pre-buberty children with gender dysphoria stop identifying as trans once they grow up.
And in 2022, there's a statistic that says only 12 percent of boys with gender dysphoria continue it into adulthood.
This is a matter of common sense.
This is a vote of good versus evil.
And it's our duty as a governing body filled with responsible adults to protect children from making the worst mistake of their lives before they're ever grown up and have the ability to enter into adulthood.
I urge the House to vote yes on the Protect Children's Innocence Act and do the right thing for America's children.
I yield back.
unidentified
Gentleman Reserves, the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Askin, is recognized.
There are not words strong enough to express my disgust.
I just want to respond to the gentlelady from Georgia.
Surgery, gender-affirming surgery is never performed on young children.
This is extremely rare for older transgender adolescents.
This bill would have little impact on surgeries for transgender young people because surgery is already extremely rare for transgender adolescents.
Republicans keep bringing up surgeries to shift attention away from how extreme this bill is.
This bill hypocritically bans safe and effective medications for an entire group of people just because of who they are, while still allowing them for everyone else.
This bill will not lower the cost of your health care.
It will not protect children.
It will not ease the strain on doctors and other health care providers.
What it will do is interfere with parental choice and open private medical data up to federal investigation.
It threatens to jail doctors who follow evidence-based practice supported by every medical association in the United States.
It deprives children of proven life-saving medical care.
My Republican colleagues should be ashamed.
I'm ashamed of what they're doing.
I'm ashamed that trans children out there may see this debate in the people's house and watch elected officials lie about them.
I'm ashamed that the world sees this democracy spending its time wielding the law as a weapon to attack a few rather than shield, rather than use the law as a shield to protect the vulnerable.
And I am furious that while millions of families struggle to afford groceries, health care, rent, and basic necessities, this is the vindictive petty garbage Republicans are using the People's House to put to a vote.
Banning health care for trans people cannot be justified by science.
Using the federal government to strip parents of their right to make decisions for their children is a massive violation.
And jailing doctors, and in some cases parents, for following best practices, best medical practices.
And for too long, Democrats have tried to mainstream satanic, irreversible procedures which destroy the bodies of young children and often lead to kids being sterilized for life.
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It leads to disease, leads to cancer, leads to suicide.
So at a time when our colleagues are perfectly content to see millions of Americans lose their health insurance, when they do nothing to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits that millions of Americans are depending on, at a time when they're happy to throw millions of people off of Medicaid coverage, they decide to change the subject in order to vilify and demonize a small minority.
You know, that's a time-honored tactic in the authoritarian playbook to pick a small minority of citizens.
Here we're talking about around 2 million people who are transgender America and scapegoat them, dehumanize them, demonize them, satanize them, take away their basic freedoms, and even deny their very existence.
It's happening to gay people right now in Putin's Russia and in Orban's Hungary.
It's happening to Uyghurs and Tibetans in China.
It's happening to Christians and free thinkers in Pakistan.
It's happening to Muslims in India.
And now it's happening to trans people in America when they're happy to attack them, vilify them, try to destroy their community.
And if they purport to be acting in the name of the trans community, why is it that the trans community opposes their legislation so strongly?
I yield one minute to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois, Representative Krishna Murthy.
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The gentleman from Illinois is recognized for one minute.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3492.
This measure would allow politicians, not doctors, not families, in deciding medically necessary care for family members.
It criminalizes medically necessary, evidence-based, life-saving care, and it threatens parents and physicians with prison time for providing care for their kids.
As millions of Americans face losing their health insurance, Republicans are not working to protect coverage or lower costs.
Instead, they're focused on throwing the parents and doctors of trans youth into jail.
We should be strengthening care, not dismantling it.
We should trust doctors and families, not replace medicine with ideology.
No parent should have to fear prosecution for trying to get their child the care they need.
And now I'm delighted to recognize for one minute the representative from Oregon, Representative Bonamici.
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The gentleman from Oregon is recognized for one minute.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I join many of our colleagues in opposing this hateful and harmful legislation.
This is a devastating moment for transgender youth, their parents, and their health care providers across the country.
The so-called Protect Children's Innocence Act is a blatant attack on the rights of parents.
It allows the government to interfere with very personal health care decisions.
My Republican colleagues have spent years touting parental rights, yet now they want to put moms and dads and doctors in prison for deciding how to best support their own children.
It's dangerous and it's wrong.
These decisions belong to parents, their children, and their health care providers, not politicians.
Every parent wants what's best for their children.
And as a parent, I cannot imagine how I would feel if a doctor told me that Republicans in Congress banned life-saving, evidence-based care that would help my child.
Medical care for transgender youth is safe and effective and supported by major medical associations.
Access to transgender-related health care is critical, medically necessary, and often lifesaving.
The president and my Republican colleagues have spent the year scapegoating a very small group of very vulnerable children because they have no solution to strengthen the economy, reduce health care costs, or make our communities safer.
And this legislation is the King Lady's time.
And as I yield back, Madam Chair, Madam Speaker, if I find it disturbing that my gentleman's time has expired.
I find it disturbing and disappointing that my colleagues seem to be more obsessed with what genitals are in people's pants than whether they can afford their health care or their housing bills.
So we know that the proponents of this legislation are certainly not speaking for the families that have to deal with this problem because all of them are lobbying against this.
They're saying the last thing we want at this point is to send the FBI in and federal prosecutors to deal with the problem.
Let them deal with it.
Well, perhaps they're speaking for medical authority.
No, not at all.
Look at the letter that was just sent to members of Congress.
We, the undersigned medical professional organizations, write in strong opposition to H.R. 3492.
These bills, this is also 498, would criminalize and dismantle health care for transgender young people, and as such, represent a direct threat to our patients' welfare.
We urge you to reject these extreme proposals.
Look who signed this.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, the American Psychiatric Association, and so on.
These are the people, the leading medical authorities in the country, are saying, hey, we can work this out at the state level.
Gentlemen, referred to California.
There are states that are regulating in the field as they regulate lots of different kinds of medical treatments and procedures.
Suddenly, we're going to turn the United States Congress into a super medical licensing board for the entire country.
And this is why our colleague from the other side of the aisle, Mr. Roy, raised the question of whether this is even constitutional.
Where is the federal jurisdictional nexus for us to be overriding the state medical boards in order to bulldoze into people's living rooms and their kitchen tables to usurp the family decision-making process of Americans across the country?
We reserve.
Oh, I'm sorry.
If I could, I see Representative Salinas has arrived.
We'll yield one minute to the distinguished gentlelady from Oregon.
unidentified
Gentlelady from Oregon is recognized for one minute.
Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this disgusting bill that does nothing to protect children's innocence.
It endangers parents, health care providers, and children.
It allows health care providers and parents to be fined and possibly jailed if they help a minor access life-saving care.
And it permits federal law enforcement to act as the national gender police, allowing them to invade children's private medical records.
This bill puts even more children in harm's way and exacerbates the mental health crisis that our young people are facing because it stops them from actually receiving the care that they need right now.
Madam Speaker, why is our focus on this when what I'm hearing from constituents is that Republicans are falling short in addressing the cost of groceries, health care, and housing.
To my Republican colleagues, why not focus on the issues that will impact millions of families who are just one paycheck away from homelessness or losing their health care instead of waging a war on children's genitals?
Gentleman Reserves, the gentleman from Alabama is recognized.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
In February 2024, the American College Pediatrician or PDF pediatricians released a position statement detailing how social transition puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones have no demonstrable long-term benefits on psychological well-being of adolescents and gender dysphoria.
And I'm kind of reminded of a quote that Vanderbilt University doctor said in 2022.
He said, this affirming procedures are huge moneymakers.
And so we're here to protect the children.
And with that, I'll yield two minutes to my friend, Mr. Moore from West Virginia.
Gentleman from West Virginia is recognized for two minutes.
And I want to thank Congresswoman Green for bringing this bill up for debate here on the floor.
I'm a proud original co-sponsor of this legislation.
And we've heard a couple people say, we are made in the image of likeness in God.
And for all of our clever scientific methods and self-rationalization out there, that is an absolute truth.
And what this legislation is trying to do and what it's going to do, God willing, it's signed into law, is prevent child abuse, because that is what's going on in this country by allowing this.
It's going to make it a felony for anybody to continue this abusive genital mutilation in this country to minors, to children.
It's abhorrent what is being allowed right now in this country.
And a felony, a felony, I think, is what's going to be able to stop this.
And it should have been a felony a long time ago.
I thank God that we have legislation that's going to make this criminal because it is a criminal act that's being done on the most vulnerable people in our society.
And I will point to a longitudinal study that was done by a Dr. Zucker years and years ago in Canada, longitudinal study.
And they took minors who were looking at transition and actually gave them mental health counseling.
And by the end of that, at the age of 18, they had the option to transition or not.
90% or more did not transition.
We have a mental health crisis in this country.
And instead of addressing it, we're cutting people's body parts off.
I rise today to say as clearly as I possibly can, politicians have no role in the medical exam rooms.
As a physician who spent 20 years caring for patients, I know responsible care requires building trust and understanding between a patient, their parent, and their physician.
I never consulted a politician, and no doctor ever should.
At a time when our country is facing a critical physician shortage, Republicans are threatening them with going to prison simply for providing evidence-based care.
This legislation fundamentally breaks a critical trust between patients, their parents, and their physicians, pulling them into a dangerous political crusade that targets our vulnerable transgender youth.
I offered two amendments.
One, ensure no doctor can be imprisoned for providing evidence-based care, and two, providing parents with protection when supporting their children's health.
Republicans refused a vote on both.
We should be empowering doctors to take care of their patients, not locking them up.
I will be relentless in the fight to keep politicians out of the exam room.
Republicans' whole health care plan is to restrict our ability to access health care.
They're raising premiums, kicking millions off of Medicaid, and now forcing children to go without life-saving care.
Under this bill, doctors and parents will spend 10 years in prison for saving kids' lives.
If trans kids need care, they should have the freedom to get it, and their parents and doctors should not be jailed for it.
And it amazes me that Republican politicians can't think of any better use for the power of the federal government than to bully transgender kids in bathrooms and schools, and now they want to be inside of their doctors' offices.
But what amazes me even more is that they dare to call this bill the Protect Children's Innocence Act.
Do you want to know what actually robs a child of their innocence when they have to hide in a closet, in a bathroom, or in a locker as someone shoots and murders their classmates right in front of them?
If you want to protect the innocence of a child, why don't you ban assault weapons instead of banning health care?
After all, the leading cause of death for a child in this country is bullets.
unidentified
I yield back.
Gentleman Reserves.
Gentleman from Alabama is recognized.
Gentleman Reserves, gentleman from Maryland is recognized.
Madam Speaker, every major medical and mental health association in the United States of America representing 1.3 million doctors, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, all reject this legislation that is being advanced here.
They all support gender-affirming care according to the most up-to-date science and medicine.
And so if they're not speaking for the transgender community, which certainly they're not, if they're not speaking for all of the families and parents who are involved, which certainly they're not, if they're not speaking for the medical community and the scientific community, who indeed are they speaking for?
They describe the position that these medical associations have as satanic.
I mean, are they looking for an exorcism to deal with the reality of lives for millions of people in the country?
I'm going to yield one minute now to the distinguished gentlelady from Oregon, Representative Hoyle.
unidentified
Gentlelady is recognized for one minute.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Today, we're not voting to reduce the cost of health care or to make groceries or housing more affordable or to take back the power of Congress from the executive branch in determining tariffs or deciding whether or not we should invade a sovereign nation.
We're voting today on inserting government into private medical decisions.
And to listen to my Republican colleagues, you would think there's an epidemic of children being forced into unnecessary gender-affirming care.
There is not.
Epidemics killing our children are drug addiction, overdoses, gun violence, and preventable diseases like measles.
Let's work on that.
But banning doctors from providing health care to transgender young people has serious unintended consequences.
Politicians are getting in the way of doctors who have years of training and experience and are practicing according to professional standards of care.
This poster displayed here is the results of females having their skin and flesh stripped from their arms and their legs in order for a surgeon to create a fake penis and have it sewn on their body.
And these are the horrific scars and damage that these women are left with for the rest of their lives undergoing these barbaric surgeries.
This is not something any child, any minor under the age of 18 years old, should ever undergo.
This is not health care.
This is not a parent's choice for a child.
This right here is child abuse.
This is child abuse.
And no one under the age of 18 should ever make that decision.
And no doctor should ever perform a surgery like this on a child simply because they are suffering gender dysphoria and are confused about their feelings of how they identify and how they see themselves.
You can go ahead and put it down.
This condition that so many young people are suffering with, and it has been on the rise in the past 10 years.
This was something that it was a very small percentage.
But young people today have been indoctrinated on social media.
They have been indoctrinated by school counselors, teachers, and many adults, even their own parents.
They are being indoctrinated to believe and take that confusion they're having just as a child, whether it's pre-puberty or while they're going through puberty, to believe they want to change their gender.
And here's the real truth.
God only creates two sexes and two genders, male and female, and God does not make mistakes.
And no child is a mistake.
No feeling they have inside of themselves can change that.
And no barbaric surgery, no chemical castrating drugs that are giving to sex predators can change that.
No amount of hormones can change that.
The reality is that parents and adults across the country can use the responsibility, our God-given responsibility, to protect children while they're growing up.
And we have laws that do that.
We have laws that say they can't register to vote until they're 18 because they're not adults yet to make those kinds of adult decisions.
We have laws that say they can't get ink tattooed on their skin until they are of legal age.
Most states are 17 or 18 years old.
We have laws that say they can't buy nicotine or even see an R-rated movie until they're 17 years old.
So this isn't an argument between Democrat and Republican.
This is simply common sense, and most Americans agree.
The best thing that we can do for our children across this country is to say, you're not ready to make these decisions.
Your feelings are very likely going to change, and it's proven through the statistics.
The statistics show one study from a doctor in Finland who happens to be the leading expert, Dr. Kaltillia, says four out of five gender-questioning kids grow up, four out of five stop questioning their gender.
They stop those feelings.
12% of boys with gender dysphoria continue it into adulthood.
Only 12%.
These are major changes.
And we already have federal laws, and that's incredibly important to recognize.
The legislation that made it a federal law against female genital mutilation, which has the same commerce clause in the Protect Children's Innocence Act, the bill that we will be considering that I've introduced, that bill passed by voice in 2020.
That meant that no member of this body raised up and said we needed a recorded vote because they wanted to vote no.
It simply passed by voice.
We also have so many other laws to protect children from sexual exploitation.
This is something that doesn't affect people's sexual identity.
It's in no way, shape, or form insulting to anyone that identifies as gay or lesbian or bisexual.
This is simply a bill to tell kids, hold on, parents, hold on.
Before they have double mastectomies, before they're castrated, before they take drugs that are not FDA approved for the use that they are given, that are chemical castrating drugs.
We have to stop.
Thank you.
I urge the House to vote for Protect Children's Innocence Act.
We are invited to believe that the United States Congress is not only more competent to make medical decisions for America's children than their own parents, but that the United States Congress is more competent than all 50 state legislatures to run medical practices within their states.
I'm going to yield now one minute to my friend Representative Schreier from Washington, who is both a mom and a pediatrician.
unidentified
The gentlelady from Washington is recognized for one minute.
Madam Speaker, as the first and only pediatrician in Congress, I rise today to condemn the so-called Protect Children's Innocence Act.
I have served children and their families for over 20 years, and I find this piece of legislation to be dangerous and an absolute slap in the face for parents and for doctors who have dedicated their lives to caring for children and families.
This bill could put doctors behind bars for up to 10 years for providing medically appropriate care for children, and it doesn't even stop there.
It could put parents behind bars for making, after deep consideration and in many cases, anguish, the decision that they deem best for their own child.
This bill will instill fear in doctors and patients and rob parents of their freedom to make decisions for and with their own children.
Instead, it puts that power in the hands of DC lawmakers.
Health care decisions are deeply personal, and the confidential relationship between a patient and their parents and their physician is sacred.
I'd like to thank my friend from Georgia for introducing this bill.
It has so much common sense, and it is so scary that our country has gone so far downhill that we would allow young people, sometimes as young as 14 or 13-year-olds, take powerful drugs,
puberty blockers, or do surgeries on them in the name of this idea that we always all of a sudden have this epidemic of transgenderism, something that nobody ever miraculously seemed to know about 50 years ago.
But instead, in our society, we have all the helping professions, the guidance counselors, the psychologists, the psychiatrists, as well as our pop culture icons from California out there pushing our poor young people into the idea that it's cool to be transgender.
And the fact that recently it's come out, the number of kids who are transgender, and I think it is 18 or 19 year olds, has been cut in half, which proves what anybody with common sense knew all along.
There was a cool thing created so that young people could say, look at me, I'm transgender.
And some of these kids, their life is ruined.
It's a testament, by the way, that this is not genetic when all you have to do is look at the fact that these kids have to continue to take powerful drugs even after surgery.
If it was a natural thing, you wouldn't have to keep taking the drugs.
So in any event, I strongly hope that we take out this bill.
I should also point out, last year doing doorbells like politicians do, I ran into two grandparents who had one granddaughter, one grandson going down this rabbit hole, and I felt so sorry for them because when somebody makes this decision, it affects not only themselves, it affects the whole family.
And in any event, I'm glad the bill is introduced.
I hope they have the common sense in the Senate, probably won't, to pass the bill.
So thanks.
unidentified
Gentleman Reserves, gentleman from Maryland is recognized.
I recognize the distinguished gentlelady from Vermont, Representative Ballant, for two minutes.
unidentified
Gentlelady from Vermont is recognized for two minutes.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I rise today in fierce opposition to Representative Greene's bill that would throw doctors and parents in jail for providing life-saving medical care.
Even for Republicans, this is extreme.
Are we really attempting to lock up parents and doctors?
Your kids' medical care is none of their damn business.
We should call this obsession with your kids and what treatment they're getting in the pediatrician's office what it is.
It's creepy.
It's a creepy obsession, and we've had to deal with it for years.
The science is clear.
Evidence-based, medically necessary care for transgender youth is safe, it's effective, it's supported by every major medical association in the United States, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
My Republican colleagues know this because this intentionally discriminatory bill includes a bunch of exemptions to allow other kids to get the exact same medical care.
I call on my colleagues to vote no on this truly reprehensible piece of legislation.
Congress should not be making medical decisions for your kids.
And for this reason, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee.
If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill.
My amendment would ensure that this bill does not compromise the private medical records of a minor or result in parents or doctors being thrown in jail.
I ask unanimous consent to insert into the record the text of this amendment.
I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit, and I yield back.
Without objection, and members are reminded to direct all of their comments to the chair.
Gentleman from Maryland Reserves, gentleman from Alabama is recognized.
Gentleman Reserves, gentleman from Maryland is recognized.
Well, we obviously disagree vehemently on this bill, but this may be the last time that I get to share the floor with the distinguished gentlelady from Georgia, and I want to thank her for her hard work and her thoughtful comments in CNN News recently, which moved me when she said, I would like to say humbly I'm sorry for taking part in the toxic politics.
It's been bad for our country.
It's been something I've thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
So I want to thank you for that, and I want to wish you all the best and your family all the best in your future endeavors.
Having said that, on the gentlelady's bill, look, there are lots of people in the country who are not getting their kids vaccinated for different reasons and for different kinds of illnesses.
And a lot of people in the country reject that and oppose that, and perhaps the vast majority do.
Does that mean we should come forward with a bill to the United States Congress to say we are going to put in jail any parents who don't vaccinate their children because we think they're making the wrong decision for their children?
In other words, we know better than the parents do, and we know better than the doctors do, and we know better than the medical associations do, and we know better than all of the states do.
I think that would be an absurd abuse of our power, and as Mr. Roy from Texas has been saying, a very questionable deployment of federal power, given the fact that the United States Congress has limited powers that are supposed to deal with actual national and federal issues, which is why medical care has always been left to the states to deal with.
So this is like a bulldozer going into everybody's house if you happen to be dealing with this particular kind of medical crisis.
And you don't have to agree with any particular decision that any particular family or set of parents have made.
All you have to do is respect their right to make decisions with and for their own children.
That's all that we're talking about.
And you know who's on this side and opposed to this legislation?
Medical associations like the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Association of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, representing more than a million doctors in the country, saying no, don't let the politicians start finger painting all over the protocols for dealing with an actual medical problem that millions of people have had to deal with in our country.
So we will stand with the families, we will stand with the doctors, we will stand with the medical associations, we will stand with the states.
This is, we've got enough real work on our hands.
Let's just try to get medical care and medical attention to the people of America.
Millions of people are losing their access to health insurance and to Medicaid.
Why don't we try to deal with that before we barge into the doctor's rooms and the living rooms and the kitchen tables of America to try to take over what is a fundamentally private and personal decision that we should be trusting families to make for themselves.
And with that, I'm happy to yield back.
unidentified
Gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Alabama is recognized to close.
Madam Speaker, how about we just don't mutilate our children?
I think that's a good call, and this is allowing people above the age of 18 to make those decisions.
But most of us in here were young people at one time or another, and I can remember being in the second and third grade.
And I, you know, there was a thing called cooties.
I don't know if y'all remember that, but if you hung around the girls, you know, they'd say, oh, don't do that.
You're going to get the cooties.
I don't know if y'all ever heard that term, but it's a South Alabama thing, Ms. Bice.
But by the time we were into sixth grade, we were on the gym floor trying to decide whether or not to ask, we didn't have the courage to ask the girls to dance.
And by the time we were in the 10th or 11th grade, we were hoping they would notice us in the hallways.
And by the time we were seniors, maybe we had the courage to ask them on a date, and maybe they said yes.
But you know, the decisions that they're wanting to make, these are kids that are in the second and third grade.
These are not kids that are either old enough to understand that we might be interested, we might want to, you know, go the direction, like Marjorie said, only 12% of the males who go through this actually stick with it.
So it's important to us to understand that these are children, and in many cases, they are being bullied by the physicians.
You know, one of the physicians in Vanderbilt said we make a boatload of money on these procedures.
And often I think that it's more about the children and protecting the children than driving this ideological left-wing, whatever it is, and a mutilation of our children.
So with that, I'll yield back, and thank you.
The gentleman yields back.
All time for debate on the bill has expired.
The chair understands that amendment number one, printed in the House Report 119-411, will not be offered.
Pursuant to House Resolution 953, the previous question is ordered on the bill as amended.
The question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill.
Union calendar number 256, H.R. 3616, a bill to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to review regulations that may affect the reliable operation of the bulk power system.
unidentified
Pursuant to House Resolution 951, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Energy and Commerce printed in the bill is adopted, and the bill, as amended, is considered read.
The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, and the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Pallone, will each control 30 minutes.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the legislation and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 3616.
Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3616, the Reliable Power Act, sponsored by my colleague from Ohio's 12th congressional district, Mr. Troy Balderson.
Put simply, this bill protects reliability that is critical to the economy as well as the public health.
The bill protects the public from future federal rules that would force the premature retirement of power generation that is absolutely essential to keeping our grid reliable.
Madam Speaker, our nation today is confronting a reliability crisis.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is the nation's electric reliability organization, shows vast regions of our nation are at risk for blackouts when weather events and peak demand collide.
And it's only going to get worse.
The Energy and Commerce Committee has repeatedly heard from grid authorities about the massive number of premature retirements of baseload power in our very own electric system.
These retirements take much needed energy out of the grid system without adequate replacement of the types of baseload power needed to remain the very reliability we depend on.
The numbers are staggering, Madam Speaker.
Over the next decade, 150 GW of power is expected to come offline, while 151 GW demand are needed to come online.
Do that math.
For too long, radical green activists in the Obama and Biden administrations were able to hijack environmental agency with no authority over the grid to force shutdowns of power plants without regard of the impacts on that very reliability I said we depend on.
Madam Speaker, if the Biden EPA's Radical Clean Power Plan 2.0 had gone forward, it would have shut down most of the nation's coal-fired power and threatening the closing of a substantial number of existing gas generation plants to a disastrous effect.
We cannot, we must not let federal agencies with no authority over electric reliability undermine that very vital electric service.
Congress already established the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as the Reliable authority or reliability authority, but when FERC is needed most, there is no requirement that its experts' views should be accommodated.
This bill fixes that.
Let me repeat, this bill fixes that.
During periods of increased reliability risk, FERC, informed by the technical expertise of grid operators and NERC, can require changes before a rule can be finalized.
FERC will not stop agencies from pursuing their policy responsibilities effectively.
It just protects reliable power.
The legislation is necessary to provide a mechanism to adjust federal rules to ensure they protect electric reliability, which is so essential, Mr. Speaker, to the economy, to our public health, and yes, our safety.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3616, yet another Republican bill that puts large corporate polluters over people.
And at a time when American families are struggling with rising monthly energy bills, this legislation does nothing to address the affordability crisis.
They've increased by 13 percent just since President Trump took office, and they're about to get worse as the Republicans' big, ugly bill is expected to increase those prices another 61 percent.
You'd think Republicans would want to do something to address the affordability crisis, but this is just more the same from them.
unidentified
They refused to address health care affordability, and now they continue to ignore the crisis with regard to electricity this afternoon.
Now, this bill is basically a thinly veiled attempt by Republicans to obstruct any future administration's EPA regulations that keep our air, lands, and water clean.
This bill would allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, to block any regulation from any other agency under certain circumstances.
unidentified
It takes what should be an apolitical process, a neutral review of the reliability of our nation's electric sector, and twists it into a fully partisan exercise.
And that's why we should reject this bill entirely.
Right now, a number of federal agencies have authorities that could impact the power sector.
FERC and the Department of Energy have the ability to comment on those regulations if they have concerns and work through the interagency review process to ensure that those concerns are heard.
FERC commissioners in recent years have not been shy about using their powers to publicly highlight and comment on federal actions that they deem flawed or insufficient.
And agencies can and do respond to that feedback, as we saw with the EPA during the previous administration.
What no agency has the power to do now is to arbitrarily block another agency's regulations that Congress gave that agency the power to make.
unidentified
And that's simply ridiculous.
If Republicans have their way, agencies will not only have to seek review from the Office of Management and Budget, but will also ask permission from FERC to see if FERC likes the regulation or not.
And if not, even if the White House likes a regulation, the agency can't finalize it.
So if that's not bad enough, FERC testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee that it does not even have the capacity and expertise necessary to investigate every other agency's regulation for the impacts that they will have on the electric on electric reliability.
And that was before the staff attrition that has hit FERC over the past 10 months.
unidentified
The agency has lost over 1.1 percent, no, I'm sorry, over 11 percent of its staff through September.
And who knows how many additional staff have left over the last three months because you know the president he's wanting to fire everybody.
So let me just review this again because I don't want to be too bureaucratic here, Mr. Speaker.
House Republicans want FERC to do something it has no ability to do that would politicize our nation's electric reliability regulator and would make FERC into a super authority with powers rivaling those of certain White House offices.
unidentified
And this is all to kill regulations that keep our air clean and our water drinkable.
That's what this is all about.
Let's not pretend that the House Republicans are worried about regulations coming from the Trump administration.
They knew those regulations are all going to be to destroy whatever clean air or clean water we have.
Instead, they're worried about the next time we have a president who actually cares about protecting public health and the environment.
A president who wants to restore the bedrock environmental laws that the Republicans have gotten rid of.
Republicans then want to use this bill as a shield to protect polluters.
So if the polluter now under a new president isn't going to have the protection and the public's going to have the protection, it makes sure the water and the air are clean, then they want to make sure that they have some shield to protect the polluters.
Now, we shouldn't let them do that.
I mean, that's not what we're supposed to do.
We're supposed to worry about the public.
So I urge my colleagues to vote no, and I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I yield two minutes to the gentleman from Georgia.
unidentified
The gentleman is recognized for two minutes.
I thank my friend from Texas for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3616, the Reliable Power Act, of which I am a proud co-sponsor.
My home state of Georgia has been named the number one state to do business for 12 consecutive years, making it a popular destination for new manufacturing facilities and data centers.
While I join Georgians in welcoming these economic drivers to our state, it also presents increased demand for our grid that we must address.
We know electricity demand is expected to grow significantly over the next several years, which means this body has a duty to ensure our constituents have a dependable grid that meets the need of hardworking families.
Unfortunately, both the Obama and Biden-Harris administrations were guilty of using the EPA to promote radical policies designed to drive out baseload generation in favor of wind and solar, which simply cannot assure adequate grid reliability and it increases the risk of rolling blackouts.
H.R. 3616 will correct that very problem by improving federal rulemaking to ensure that future regulations impacting power generation will not harm electricity reliability, especially in already vulnerable regions.
Under this bill, if FERC finds that a proposed rule will have a significant impact on reliability, the rule cannot be finalized.
That's about as common sense as it gets.
Mr. Speaker, the United States has abundant energy supply.
The question we must ask ourselves is not if we have enough energy resources, but can we produce energy at the necessary levels to meet the growing demand?
The Reliable Power Act will help us do just that.
I urge a yes vote on H.R. 3616, and with that, I yield back.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank Ranking Member Pallone for yielding the time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3616.
It's another Republican bill that fails to address skyrocketing electric bills that are part of the overall affordability squeeze that is gripping the country right now.
What should we be doing on the floor of the House right now?
We should bring up the discharge petition to make sure that health care costs don't skyrocket for 20 million Americans, 4.7 million Floridians back home in the sunshine state.
Now that the discharge petition has the necessary number of votes to come to the floor and extend those life-saving and cost-saving ACA tax credits, we should be doing that instead.
That would have a real impact.
That would send a great sign to folks back home who are struggling with the rising cost of living and are wondering how they're going to pay for their health coverage next year.
That would really help our neighbors back home.
But alas, we're not doing that while at a time prices are up, inflation is up, and despite the Republican promises to do something about it, all of their bills and their policies are making it worse.
They're making life even more expensive.
Household electricity prices are up across America by about 13 percent and a lot higher in some places.
Why is that the case?
First of all, the big ugly bill that Republicans passed in July to provide tax breaks to the wealthy and well-connected took away tax credits to keep cleaner, cheaper energy producing across America.
They ripped away rebates for households to help them afford the cost of upgrading their homes, making their lives more energy efficient.
Also, these arbitrary Trump tariffs are at the tariffs now at the highest level since the 1930s.
You see it in your grocery bill, but it's also impacting electricity costs.
Even poles and wires and things that we import for our electricity system, those costs are way up and that's being passed along to consumers.
And then the Trump administration has canceled the hundreds of projects across America, some that were permitted and approved, ready to bring cleaner, cheaper energy onto the grid to help keep electricity prices lower.
All of that is a recipe for skyrocketing electricity bills.
But what do Republicans in Congress do?
They keep bringing these random bills to the floor to boost the profits of polluters.
This bill is a good example of that.
This bill would elevate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission above any other federal agency, give it unprecedented veto power, and transform it and the North American Energy Reliability Corporation into political actors.
A world away from the independent agencies that they are now, where they act in the public interest, not in the interest of polluters.
And you know, Mr. Speaker, FERC doesn't even want this power.
And they lack capacity and they lack the staff for this highly technical work.
When we discussed this bill two years ago, David Ortiz, then FERC's director of the Office of Electric Reliability, testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee that FERC couldn't execute on the bill because FERC does not have the capacity to assume other agencies' expertise.
And that was before FERC lost 11 percent of its staff, hardworking public servants, due to resignations and layoffs under the Trump administration.
This bill does it do anything to provide FERC with the staff or funding they would need to implement the bill?
No, it doesn't.
Polluters simply want to short-circuit any oversight of their higher costs and pollution.
That's what this is about.
You know, FERC already has the power to intervene and comment on agency rulemaking dockets if they think there could be a reliability issue, as does NERC, as does any of the grid operators and any utility.
This polluter-friendly bill is a way to sabotage cleaner, cheaper energy, however, and energy storage, and it's a recipe for higher cost and electric bills for American families.
Regional grid operators have the necessary expertise and staffing to maintain reliability on their grids already.
Regional operators know that there are cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable energy sources available, not just expensive coal and gas.
And there are modern grid solutions that the committee has refused to take up this year.
That's another reason electric bills are so high.
Answers like energy storage, demand response, grid-enhancing technologies, and regional and inter-regional coordination that can provide reliability at a lower price with less pollution.
Republicans also don't want you to know that while this bill gives FERC more responsibilities that it cannot meet and does not want, the Trump administration has been busy gutting the agencies that are already working to ensure that we have a reliable grid.
For example, the Trump Department of Energy eliminated the Grid Deployment Office last month.
That was an office created by under the bipartisan infrastructure law to manage important and cost-saving investments to make our grid more reliable.
Over $3 billion in grid deployment investments were cut in October.
The real Republican mantra should be a less reliable grid with higher costs, because that's what this year has produced.
Republican energy policy is creating a less reliable environment for businesses, making it harder for companies to invest in America.
Just yesterday, Ford announced that they were laying off all 1,600 employees at their battery manufacturing plant in Glendale, Kentucky.
In October, on top of the grid modernization cuts at the Department of Energy, DOE canceled 321 awards totaling $8 billion in funding.
The largest award was $316 million to support the manufacture of components from recycled EV batteries in Kentucky.
That would have helped us compete with Chinese batteries.
$197 million was supposed to help a plant in St. Louis producing 30,000 metric tons annually of critical mineral products.
$117 million was intended to support production of synthetic graphite, including construction at a large plant in Alabama.
$31 million was cut.
It was going to build an advanced glass factory at the site of an old coal plant in Detroit.
All of this taken together, as a result, the United States will have less capacity to support real, reliable power.
This bill does not solve problems, doesn't tackle the affordability crisis, it makes it worse, doesn't even support more reliable power.
Republicans are just trying to slap a new permitting reform label on bad ideas that they've never been able to pass into law.
The last week in session, here we are in the last week in session this year, Mr. Speaker, and Republicans have not brought a single bill to the floor of the House that would lower costs for hardworking families.
They have no new ideas here.
No ideas on how to make energy more affordable for everyday Americans.
No ideas to help us out of this health care crisis.
People really deserve better.
They deserve better at the holidays, and they deserve better from this Congress.
So I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill, and I yield back my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield two minutes to the author of this bill, Representative Troy Balderson from the great state of Ohio.
unidentified
The gentleman is recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Vice Chair Weber.
America's electric grid is facing a reliability crisis, one created by heavy-handed federal rulemakings that prioritize politics and ignore the realities of power generation and the needs of American families.
That is why I rise today in support of my bill, the Reliable Power Act.
Under the Biden administration, federal agencies pushed out rapid fire climate rules and mandates with little coordination and even less accountability.
Instead of listening to grid operators, they race to advance extreme policies that threatened our most dependable power sources, with the American people paying the price.
The Reliable Power Act puts an end to this by preventing federal rules from moving forward if they threaten the ability of the grid to keep the lights on.
This legislation ensures proper coordination between FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and federal agencies proposing regulations that could affect the power generation and grid reliability.
It strengthens federal accountability, streamlines communication, and puts in place common sense guardrails needed to protect the bulk of the power system.
Since introducing this bill in spring, I've heard from energy leaders across Ohio, energy co-ops, utilities, manufacturers, and grid operators, who all say the same thing.
Regulatory chaos driven by climate activists is putting grid reliability at risk and driving up cost.
Just look at this map I have with me today.
You can see for yourself how short-sighted policies can drive up electricity costs from one state to the next.
When Democrat states sideline reliable conventional fuels and mandate a rust transition to renewables, consumers pay more.
I don't know about New York or California, but Ohio cannot afford ruling blackouts, price spikes, or uncertainty about whether our grid can meet future demand.
Earlier this year, the Department of Energy released a reliability report warning that blackouts could increase by 100 percent by 2030.
The Reliable Power Act directly responds to those concerns.
First, it requires NERC, the Electricity Reliability Organization, to conduct annual long-term assessments of the bulk power system.
If NERC finds the grid is at risk of inadequate generation, it must notify FERC.
Then FERC must notify the Department of Energy, the EPA, and other relevant agencies, and once notified, those agencies must send the proposed rules back to FERC for review, comment, and recommendations to prevent severe impacts on grid reliability.
I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bipartisan, common sense legislation and ensure that no future administration or unelected federal bureaucrat can unilaterally jeopardize grid reliability.
I have a lot of respect for the gentleman from Ohio who just spoke, but the bottom line is I think it's dishonest for Republicans to claim that the cost of compliance with environmental regulations is driving up utility prices.
The regulatory chaos that the gentleman from Ohio mentions is created by the Trump administration.
Since President Trump took office, his administration has created tremendous regulatory uncertainty through doge, senseless tariffs, and unprecedented executive actions.
And as a result, as I mentioned, electricity prices are up 13 percent and natural gas prices are up 8 percent since the president took office.
Mr. Speaker, this holiday season, Americans are struggling to afford record-high utility bills and skyrocketing grocery prices.
Donald Trump and the Republican Party were elected on their promise to bring prices down.
unidentified
Instead, the Republican Party is about to become the Grinch who stole Christmas.
They want to let the Affordable Care Act credits that kept health insurance affordable for families to expire on January 1st.
And this bill, the Reliable Power Act, would let the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, kill any environmental regulations they don't like.
unidentified
In other words, this bill would make Americans sicker as health insurance prices are skyrocketing.
And Republicans in Congress are just not delivering on their promise to bring down prices.
The big ugly bill will increase electricity prices for American families by 61 percent.
Instead of passing partisan bills this week that would increase energy prices, Republicans should be working with us and Democrats on bipartisan proposals that can decrease energy bills.
Americans are just begging for relief on skyrocketing prices, Mr. Speaker, and President Trump's only response has been to call the affordability crisis a Democratic hoax.
unidentified
His rhetoric is an insult to the American people, but my Democratic colleagues and I are taking the affordability crisis very seriously.
We hear your concerns, we hear the concerns of the public, and we strongly urge our Republican colleagues to come to the table to pass common sense legislation that brings prices down for the American people.
unidentified
And I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.
You know, I want to stress again that the President promised to cut Americans' power bills in half, but instead he and his Republican accomplices in the House are causing those prices to soar with their backward policies and essentially their war on cheaper clean energy.
Thanks to Republicans, electricity prices are climbing more than twice as fast as inflation, and more than 80 million Americans are struggling to pay their utility bills.
Many of these Americans are having to make the impossible choice of either paying for housing, medicine, and food or keeping their lights on.
And we mentioned that the big ugly bill will raise electricity prices by a staggering 61 percent over the next decade due to its attacks on clean energy, cleaner and cheaper energy, and its crippling of the American clean energy industry.
The big ugly bill destroyed tax credits that were designed to incentivize developers to build more domestic energy projects, raising barriers to building on America, to those buildings in the process.
unidentified
And it will halve the deployment of cheap, renewable American energy and imperil our power grid.
And these historic price hikes are on top of the $29 billion in electricity bill rate hikes that utility companies have requested since the start of President Trump's term.
unidentified
Now, I don't want to just talk about prices because the bottom line is we're also talking with this bill about a cost to Americans' health and safety.
This bill allows FERC to override regulations established by other agencies.
This is the Christmas gift to some of the nation's largest polluters.
Think about that.
FERC, which has no expertise in public health or environmental protections, would just be able to stop another agency's regulation meant to protect public health.
Other agencies spent years crafting regulations, often after an extensive analysis that shows the benefits of that regulation from a health and safety point of view outweighs the cost.
unidentified
But this bill would throw all of that out the door by allowing FERC, which has no expertise in these areas, to just say no.
And FERC doesn't even want to do it.
Told us, and as the ranking member of the energy subcommittee, Ms. Castro said, they literally told us at the committee that they didn't want to do this and didn't have the capacity to do it.
So we've just made so much progress in the United States on environmental protection over the last 50 years.
Our nation's rivers used to catch fire.
Now they don't.
Smog used to surround our cities, particularly Los Angeles.
Now it doesn't.
And President Trump and House Republicans want to undo all that.
They've waged an all-out war against public health, and this bill is just one piece of that.
So if you care about public health, if you care about prices, if you want to make sure people can breathe and they can still pay their electricity bill, I urge you to oppose this bill.
It just makes common sense.
And with that, I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.
I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio's 12th Congressional District, Troy Ballerson, for sponsoring this important legislation.
H.R. 3616, the Reliable Power Act, provides a critical tool to protect the public from future federal rules that would force the premature retirement of power generation that is absolutely essential to keeping our grid reliable.
The Reliable Power Act, Mr. Speaker, is about safety, it's about security, and it's also, quite frankly, about affordability.
There is nothing more expensive, Mr. Speaker, than a blackout, rolling blackout, I know.
And there's nothing more costly than green visions that drive out affordable power for expensive overbuilding of weather-dependent generation and backup power.
That is why these bills, electric bills, are rising.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot afford to let radical rules destroy reliability in our great nation.
H.R. 3616 provides a way to adjust proposed rules to absolutely ensure good federal policies while protecting electric reliability.
A yes vote on H.R. 3616 is a vote for that kind of reliable power.
There's nothing more important for our electric policy than that, Mr. Speaker.
And Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to urge my colleagues to vote yes on H.R. 3616, and I yield back.
unidentified
The gentleman yields.
All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 951, the previous question is ordered on the bill as amended.
The question is on engrossment and third reading of the bill.
A bill to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to review regulations that may affect the reliable operation of the bulk power system.
unidentified
The question is on passage of the bill.
Those in favor say aye.
Those opposed, say no.
In the opinion of the chair, the bill is passed.
The yeas and nays are requested.
Those in favoring a vote of the yeas and nays will rise.
A sufficient number having risen, the yeas and nays are ordered.
Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed.
Pursuant to clause 12A of Rule 1, the chair declares the House in recess, subject to the call of the chair.
A busy day in the House as members try to wrap up legislation before the holiday recess.
The main issue in the chamber today is a GOP health care package.
The measure does not include proposed amendments to extend expiring health care subsidies, despite lobbying from several moderate Republicans.
Also on the floor, a bill criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors, as well as war powers resolutions to block military action in the Caribbean, related to boat strikes and against Venezuela.
Watch live coverage of the House on C-SPAN.
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This week at 11 a.m. Eastern, reenactors mark the anniversary of the 1780 Battle of Camden in South Carolina.
The British victory led to the replacement of General Horatio Gates with General Nathaniel Greene as commander of the Southern Continental Army.
Then at 1.45 p.m. Eastern, the first of three holiday programs.
In 1989, President George H.W. Bush received the first menorah to be displayed in the White House.
At 6 p.m. Eastern, a 1968 United States Army film showcases how American soldiers celebrate Christmas around the world.
And then at 9 p.m. Eastern, the 1982 President Ronald Reagan Christmas message about military service and help for refugees during his weekly radio address.
And at 9.15 p.m. Eastern on the Presidency, Conversations on Christmas in the White House, hosted by the George W. Bush Presidential Center and the National First Ladies Library and Museum.
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President Trump spoke with reporters after attending the dignified transfer of U.S. service member remains at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Here's a look at his comments after landing at Joint Base Andrews.
Well, that was a beautiful event for three great people.
And they're now looking down and their parents and wives and all of the people that were there were, I mean, devastated, but great people.
Great people.
So thank you very much for being there.
Yeah, she's doing a great job.
Just a blockade.
Not going to let anybody going through that shouldn't be going through.
You remember they took all of our energy rights.
They took all of our oil from not that long ago.
And we want it back, but they took it.
They illegally took it.
Oh, Dan Dan did a great job.
I think he wants to go back to his show.
Yeah, I did.
Oil rights, whatever we had.
They took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn't watching, but they're not going to do that.
We want it back.
They took our oil rights.
We had a lot of oil there.
As you know, they threw our companies out, and we want it back.
Well, I think the message this evening is we inherited a mess, and we've done a great job, and we continue to.
And our country is going to be stronger than ever before very soon.
Thank you very much, everybody.
unidentified
A busy day in the House as members try to wrap up legislation before the holiday recess.
The main issue in the chamber today is a GOP health care package.
The measure does not include proposed amendments to extend expiring health care subsidies, despite lobbying from several moderate Republicans.
Also on the floor, a bill criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors, as well as war powers resolutions to block military action in the Caribbean related to boat strikes and against Venezuela.
Watch live coverage of the House on C-SPAN.
Tonight, President Trump addresses the nation.
We'll have live coverage from the White House at 9 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
C-SPAN now, our free mobile video app, and online at c-SPAN.org.
Friday, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, at a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman and Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the top issues facing the country.
They join host Dasha Burns.
Bridging the Divide in American Politics.
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Coming up in the House, votes on a Republican plan to lower health care costs.
That's at 5:30 p.m. Eastern.
House Democrats also talked about that issue today.
As you all know, earlier this morning, Leader Jeffries' bipartisan discharge petition to force a vote on a clean three-year extension of the Enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits reached 218 signatures.
The fuse has been lit, so to speak, and the Speaker must call a vote on this proposal today.
We now know with certainty that the votes are there to ultimately ensure that these tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for working families across the United States don't expire before year's end.
Speaker Johnson has a very simple choice to make.
Does he send home the Republican Congress for the holidays and let these tax credits expire?
Or does he do the right thing now that House Democrats and four of his own members have signed a discharge petition compelling a vote that would otherwise not ripen until early January?
I and my colleagues here will continue to make the case that the Speaker ought to do the latter.
He ought to call that vote today.
Let the chips fall where they may, and let us work together to ultimately secure health care for millions of Americans.
With that, I want to yield to my distinguished colleagues here who have joined us, each of whom are really professionals in every sense of the word, many of whom have served as physicians and understand the real stakes when it comes to this particular debate around the Affordable Care Act.
And there is no one, in my view, who understands those stakes more clearly than my colleague, the distinguished gentlewoman from Illinois, a former nurse, Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, who serves as one of the co-chairs of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee.
unidentified
Thank you.
Well, good morning, and thank you so much, Representative Nagoos.
Thank you all for joining us today.
Today is one of my favorite days in Congress because today's a health care day.
I'm so pleased to be able to be with you in such a critical moment.
As you all know, I'm a registered nurse, and I'm joined by colleagues who, like myself, have made health care our life's work.
We are just 15 days away from the expiration of life-changing, life-saving health care tax credits that have put affordable health care within reach for record-breaking numbers of American families.
This health care crisis was created by this Republican majority through their own cruelty and neglect.
In communities all over the country, working families are learning that their health care costs will rise to completely unaffordable levels.
These are families who will be forced to make a choice between their mortgage payment or a doctor's visit, between taking a second or third job, or spending more time at home with their kids.
People will be sicker.
They will not be able to see their providers.
Families will be forced into bankruptcy, and our already strained health care system is about to be stretched even further.
We are staring down a complete disaster, and I need everyone to understand that this is a choice.
These incredibly popular tax credits come from my legislation, the Health Care Affordability Act, and for months we have been calling on Republicans to make these savings permanent.
But they chose to ignore the issue.
They decided to ignore the pleas of our communities and working families around the country.
And still, all year at every turn, we have offered solutions and a path forward for ending the crisis that they created.
We fought ferociously to save health care for the American people.
But we have some good news because we now have the signatures to force a vote on my bill to extend these tax credits for three years.
This majority has waited far too long to address this issue, and some damage has already been done, right?
Open enrollment has now ended.
That deadline was on the 15th.
But there's no reason, there's no reason to add to the uncertainty and the anxiety that the American people are facing.
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has an opportunity to do the right thing today and call the vote.
And certainly, he should not be sending the Congress home without an opportunity to vote to extend these health care tax credits.
We know the votes are there.
It's just a matter of time.
But why put the American people through more chaos, more uncertainty, more anxiety, more cruelty?
Let's do it now.
So I am really delighted to introduce my colleague, a great physician from California, Representative Rawl Ruiz.
Thank you, Assistant Leader Joe Nagus, for calling us together.
I am extremely honored to be standing here in front of some amazing health care professionals.
As you all know, Nurse Lauren Underwood is also a public health expert.
And standing with Drs. Maxine Dexter and Drs. Kelly Morrison makes my heart jump with delight.
I welcome them in their first term.
And they're exceptional physicians who care so much about their patients that they're here in Congress fighting tooth and nail for their better health.
Republicans created a health care crisis with the big ugly law.
They cut nearly a trillion dollars in Medicaid.
They cut over $600 billion of aid to hospitals, long-term care facilities, community clinics.
And then they cut food support for the most at-risk individuals in our country.
This not only increases costs to those that are going to be cut from their Medicaid, but it increases costs for everybody.
Because now you have 15 million people who are going to go uninsured and are going to be uncompensated care in your local emergency departments.
These are 15 million people that are going to go without health care and their preventative care, their chronic illnesses will get worse and will get more costly and you're going to see a lot more comorbidities, a lot more pain and suffering in the American people.
And now, on top of all of that, they've fabricated an additional affordability crisis by failing to actually refusing to extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits.
These tax credits make health care more affordable for millions of individuals and families across the country.
But because of Republicans' deep-set grudge against the ACA, these tax credits are going away.
But Republicans are actively choosing to put politics over people.
Millions of Americans will lose, will soon be paying, in many cases, double what they used to for health care coverage or more.
That's $18,000 a year for an individual on average that's 60 years old in my district.
And after months of asking the Republicans to extend the affordable tax credits before they expire on December 31st deadline, they introduced a bill with 15 days left, a bill that will make health care costs more and worsen the health care affordability crisis.
It's been 15 years since the ACA was passed, and they waited 15 days before the tax credits expire to introduce this bill.
And this is the very best they could come up with.
A bill that will leave millions without insurance and cause premiums to more than double for many Americans.
Republicans have had 15 years to come up with another plan, explore ideas to make health care even more accessible and affordable for Americans, and their solution is to take away health care from more people and raise costs even more.
This is ridiculous.
Their solution is to create loopholes to circumvent the ACA's essential health benefits.
Their solution is to push more consumers into these junk plans that don't cover essential health benefits.
Their solution is to crack a backdoor abortion ban and strip women of the autonomy to make their own health care decisions to allow these junk plans to discriminate against people with chronic health conditions.
Are you kidding me?
Their so-called Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act, which should be named the Making Health Care More Costly and Worse Act, like its name is nothing but thinly veiled deception.
Just another example of Republicans to pull one over the American people, the people they swore an oath to serve.
Now, we have a very immediate now solution that will put this to rest and give us time to work on lowering costs even further and to increase access to health care.
And that solution was answered by four Republicans who signed the discharge petition to extend the Affordable Care Act for three years.
It is now solely up to Speaker Mike Johnson, who has the decision and the authority to bring this bill up for a vote now and today so that people don't have to pinch pennies before Christmas,
so people don't have to go through the stress and anxiety during the holidays, so people don't have to suffer even more when they see their sticker shock with skyrocketing prices of their premiums.
Today is the time for Speaker Johnson to bring this up for a vote.
We have the amount of votes to pass this bill.
Without a vote, the fault lies clearly on the shoulders of Speaker Johnson, who refuses to help lower costs for the American people and instead, in order to benefit his billionaire buddies, wants to increase costs and take away the important protections that the Affordable Care Act has given the American people for so many years.
And with that, I want to invite Representative Dr. Maxine Dexter up to the podium.
Thank you so much.
And what an honor to be here.
And thank you to our Assistant Leader for bringing us together on this really critical day.
Good morning.
I am Maxine Dexter, Congresswoman from Oregon's 3rd.
I'm very honored to serve that district.
And I bring with me my perspective as a mother and a physician.
And I did not come after 20 years of saving lives in the ICU to Congress to turn my back on the American people.
I came here to fight for affordable coverage for every American.
It needs to be accessible health care.
That has to be our number one goal.
As a party, as a country, Americans are struggling right now just to make ends meet.
It is our job today to make it possible for them to afford their health care.
Mike Johnson, as has been said, must immediately hold a vote on the clean extension of the ACA enhanced premium tax credits.
His moderate members are understanding what's at stake.
The American people need relief, and they can get it from Congress if we take a vote before we go home this week.
Not tomorrow, not next month, today.
Four Republicans joined Democrats to force a vote on the Clean ACA extension tax credits or extension of the ACA tax credits.
And four Republicans recognize the simple truth that if Congress fails to extend the ACA tax credits, families across this country will be forced to make impossible decisions whether to fill their prescription or fill the gas tank, whether to pay their mortgage or pay their premium.
We cannot put our families in persistent affordability crises that we can prevent.
This is something we can do today, and we must.
Speaker Johnson should bring this bill immediately for a vote and the life and the health care of our constituents depends on it.
Thank you very much.
At this point, I get the honor to introduce Representative Dr. Kelly Morrison for her statement.
Sorry, I'm not going to say that.
Good morning.
Honored to be here with our assistant leader and these esteemed health care professionals.
I'm Dr. Kelly Morrison.
I have the privilege of representing Minnesota's 3rd District, and I am the first and only pro-choice OBGYN to ever serve in Congress.
In just two weeks, tens of millions of Americans will be forced to pay health insurance premiums that have skyrocketed or get priced out of health insurance and lose coverage entirely.
And what is Republican leadership doing in our final three days of session?
Using the precious little time we have left to kick even more Americans off their coverage and block the bipartisan effort to extend tax credits so that working families can afford health insurance and show through a backdoor abortion ban.
As an OBGYN, I want to call out this latest attempt at a national abortion ban and included in the Republicans' health care plan that we're voting on today.
Their plan would force private insurance companies to drop abortion coverage.
This means even more women, even women who live in states where abortion health care is protected, would lose access to care.
That they would double down on banning access to life-saving care at a time when we are already seeing the consequences of the abortion bans that have been enacted since the court overturned Rover v. Wade is particularly unconscionable.
Abortion bans literally put people's lives in danger.
I am so tired of having this conversation.
It is not a joke.
We are talking about people's lives.
Abortion bans increase maternal and infant morbidity and mortality.
So this morning, I'm thinking about my patients and people across the country who, under the Republicans' proposed health care plan, would have less access to care, less affordable care, and more dangerous restrictions on women's health care.
And on top of that, we'll suffer from Republican leadership refusing their access to any health care.
Speaker Johnson, as my colleagues have said, could bring the bipartisan clean extension of the tax credits to the floor today, and I urge him to do so.
He should do it today, and we can save health care for millions of Americans.
And I am grateful to my colleagues for really being the tip of the spear with respect to not just this particular issue, but more broadly, making health care more affordable for Americans across the country.
I will just say in closing, one of the ways in which I think the Democratic caucus is so unique is that the mosaic of our caucus has such depth and breadth of talent.
And you see that with respect to the medical professionals standing here today, Dr. Louise, Dr. Morrison, Dr. Dexter, and Nurse Underwood, of course, all, as I said, preeminent health care professionals who serve their patients for decades and now are serving those same patients and a broader constituency in a meaningful way here in Washington, D.C. Questions?
Yes?
unidentified
Congressman, you think this bill passes in the House?
Do you see any realistic path forward in the Senate?
We saw them already reject an extension of subsidies.
I have no doubt that if and when this bill passes the House, Ms. Underwood's bill, which I believe will pass, that it will pass in the Senate as well.
And the reason for that, I suppose, bold claim is fairly straightforward.
Passed is prologue around here.
For two months, Republican members of Congress said that the three-year extension of the ACA tax credits was a non-starter.
They bemoaned it.
They condemned it.
They said that this is something that wasn't palatable to their conference.
And we now are going to have an opportunity to vote on it.
So, yes, while I understand there are Republican senators who voted against this four weeks ago, five weeks ago, or I said three weeks ago, and I suppose we're saying, Yeah, exactly.
Precisely, yeah, time is kind of blending around here.
I have no doubt that given how high the stakes are, when this measure gets back over to the Senate, that they will do the right thing and that ultimately this bill can get to the president's desk for his signature.
That's my view.
unidentified
Yes.
I was going to ask Mike Johnson, as we had it pretty clear, he has no appetite to bring this to a vote.
How does that play into how today is going to transpire?
Well, I would say, one, the good news is that it's not up to Speaker Johnson, with respect to this particular measure, getting a vote eventually.
As Ms. Underwood said so eloquently, it's really only a matter of time at this point.
The discharge petition will ripen.
It will take seven legislative days to do so.
So you're talking about a vote potentially in early January.
And we know that that vote will succeed because the petition has the requisite signatures.
So the only real question, is Mike Johnson going to allow, as Dr. Ruiz said, families in Louisiana, in Colorado, and across the country to be scrambling over the course of the next three weeks as they face these exponentially high premium increases?
Or will he do the right thing and simply call the vote now, given the fact that members of his own conference have now signed a discharge petition led by the minority party here in the United States Congress?
One would think that he would do the latter.
And again, if past is prologue, we've seen this movie before.
We heard the Speaker for months suggest that he was opposed to the discharge petition regarding the release of the Epstein files.
And very much, you know, the Speaker did everything he could to try to stop it.
Once that discharge petition had the requisite signatures, a vote was called shortly thereafter.
So I would hope that, as I said, Republican leadership would see the writing on the wall, call the vote now.
I cannot understand the cruelty of an approach that you're suggesting they might adopt, which is essentially saying, even though we know there are votes to extend these health care tax credits, we're going to send everyone home for Christmas anyways, and we're going to delay this vote until the new year.
I just think that is a patently cruel, unconscionable approach.
And Mike Johnson, I think, will face electoral consequences, as will his conference, if they make that decision.
Other questions?
unidentified
Yes?
Congressman, I want to ask about pharmacy benefit managers.
This was brought up a lot in House rules yesterday.
And anybody can answer this.
This was brought up frequently in House rules yesterday.
The seemingly bipartisan perception that they're kind of opaque middlemen, they raise prices, reduce reimbursements, especially for independent providers, reduce patient choice.
I want to ask, is there a proposal, a plan amongst Democrats to potentially either alter their role or even remove them in entirety?
Dr. Ruiz serves on Energy and Commerce Committee and they can answer.
unidentified
So if you look at what Republicans and Democrats have passed out of committee, it's been one of more transparency so that the American people, Congress, and others can identify where these cost savings are going.