Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

On Monday, Mr. Speaker, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning- hour debate, and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour and 12 p.m. for legislative business.

On Wednesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.

The House will consider an omnibus appropriations package so the House and Senate can both pass it before March 11. As the Republican minority whip knows, on March 11 at 12 o'clock, if we have not passed additional authorization for the funding of the government, the government will shut down. It is imperative that we act.

In light of the fact that many of us on the Democratic side of the aisle will be going to Philadelphia for a legislative retreat on the Wednesday preceding March 11, March 9, we need to act by that time and send something to the Senate. I hope we can do that.

The House will also consider H. Con. Res. 70, condemning threats of violence against historically Black colleges and universities--too many of which we have seen in recent weeks--and reaffirming support of HBCUs and their students, introduced by Representative Alma Adams. That will be considered under suspension of the rules.

The House will also consider other bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. Additional legislative items, of course, are possible.

I want to say that, clearly, one of the principal focuses that we have is the onslaught and criminal behavior led by Vladimir Putin, which is occurring in Ukraine. The President spoke to the country and to us on Tuesday in the State of the Union message, in which he made it clear that we need to be unified. In fact, we passed a resolution in which--for the most part, save three of our Members--we were unified.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that we would remain unified in the face of what is the breaking of international law and could be called a genocide of the Ukrainian people by Vladimir Putin. I am hopeful that we will remain unified and focused on that issue as we proceed.

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Mr. HOYER. As I said, I hope we can be unified and seek to pursue that which unifies us. If we did everything that the gentleman suggests is in that bill, it would not make an immediate difference, and the gentleman knows that. The gentleman knows that there are literally millions of acres available for additional pumping, oil rigs to be arrayed both offshore and onshore. The gentleman knows we just released 300 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

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Mr. HOYER. Excuse me. Thirty million.

So this administration has taken actions immediately to assist the Europeans. In addition, of course, the Europeans have done something. As the gentleman knows in terms of reliance, the Germans, in a very difficult political decision for them, have canceled any further actions dealing with receiving energy through a pipeline in Germany known as Nord Stream 2.

He knows further that there is consideration to reactivate or to not decommission nuclear plants which provide not only clean energy but abundant energy. In my part of the world in a southern Maryland district that I represent, we have a nuclear power plant that produces clean energy for us in abundance. Very frankly, I have heard this argument when we had recession; I have heard this argument when we had the stock market go down, and the stock market go up. We are producing more energy than any other country on Earth right now. We are exporting energy right now.

Now, the issue as to whether or not--we have a relatively small sector, but the gentleman is correct, we are receiving oil in some jurisdictions from Russia--as to whether we ought to continue that, I think that is a valid argument, and we ought to pursue it.

But I want to say to the gentleman very, very frankly that we need to be focused on what we have done and what we are doing. NATO is unified. NATO is taking unified action. All the nations of NATO are taking actions both with respect to stopping any benefits to Russia which may facilitate the funding of their operations. We have taken very, very substantial sanctions, as you know, and we have cut off the Russian central bank which freezes Putin's strategic reserve funds. He had $600 billion that he was relying on that he called the ``war fund''.

We have imposed full sanctions on Russia's other major financial institutions, state-owned enterprises critical to its economy. We have removed Russian banks from SWIFT, an action that nobody thought the Europeans would join us in, but they have. We have secured new export controls to cut off Russia's access to tech inputs, including microchips. We have frozen the assets of Putin and oligarchs close to him and launched a task force to hunt down and freeze more of their wealth. We have stopped the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that I talked about which would have made Germany and some of Europe even more dependent on energy from Russia.

Again, some months ago, nobody would have thought that was possible. President Biden has achieved that.

We have done $1 billion in security assistance to Ukraine over the past year--a massive increase over past administrations--and have also announced a $1 billion sovereign loan guaranty to shore up Ukraine's economy.

America, essentially, is energy independent. As I said, we are exporting energy. If we didn't export energy, we may be fully independent. Having said that, the gentleman comes from an area of the country that refines some of the kind of oil we get from Russia, heavy crude, as the gentleman knows much better than I do because he is very, very familiar with that industry.

Energy is important. We believe as well that assuring energy that is not damaging to our global health is also important. I would be for not buying any oil from Russia. Then what would happen is--and may happen yet--is the price of oil would go up. The gentleman knows that. And then the gentleman would rise and say to me: How can you possibly allow prices to be where they are?

I want to honestly tell the American people that we are not sending troops. We will not have people on the front lines. But we will pay a cost to take the actions that the President has courageously taken and that President Zelensky has courageously taken to defend Ukraine's freedom. We will pay a cost.

So the President is trying to balance that with doing what needs to be done. I, frankly, think he is doing what needs to be done, and I am very proud of the fact that, as I said yesterday, we joined together in a bipartisan way to support the Ukrainian people.

We have differences of opinion on energy policy. For the most part, I think many of your Members don't believe global warming is the threat that we believe it is on this side of the aisle. So we have differences of agreement on energy. But what we don't have differences of opinion on, I hope, is that we ought to decrease to the extent we possibly can any economic benefits to Putin--not the Russian people, but to Putin and the war machine that he has put in place, and, as you and I have agreed, killing Ukrainians unprovoked, unjustified, and illegal under international law. So that is the real issue we ought to be focused on.

Yes, we ought to continue to have a fulsome debate on energy policy-- very, very important. But I will tell the gentleman, as I said before, there are millions of acres--millions--currently available to produce more energy in this country.

The gentleman's party was in charge for a long period of time of both the House, Senate, and the Presidency under President Trump, and essentially the policies that the gentleman--I don't know all the policies in that bill, obviously, I haven't read that bill--that could have been affected during that period of time.

So the bottom line is, the gentleman is correct. We need to make sure that Putin pays a horrific price and that we substantially reduce the resources he has available to perpetrate this international crime. And in the process, we ought to remember that this Congress appropriated over $400 million some years ago to help Ukraine, and President Trump held that money hostage, urging Mr. Zelensky to see if he could get dirt on President Biden. President Trump has recently said how brilliant he thinks Mr. Putin is and that our President is dumb. That doesn't reflect unity. That doesn't reflect a country that is together to confront an enemy. That undermines our democracy.

Mr. Pompeo has also said he thinks Putin is brilliant. I think Putin is an international criminal. He says he is very shrewd and very capable. There are many dictators and tyrants of the world that you can say that about. He didn't say he was a criminal--I am talking about Pompeo and Trump--or that he was committing a genocide, as you and I have said. Those were not words that either the former of Secretary of State or the former President of the United States used just recently after the invasion.

So I say to my friend very sincerely: We have differences of views on energy. We don't have difference of views, however, on diminishing very radically any resources which Putin could rely on to perpetrate his unjustified and criminal invasion of a sovereign country who has shown no threat to Russia or the Russian people.

At some point in time we will continue this argument about drilling and production of more oil. We will continue, I think, to try to be unified on the issue at hand. America's unity expressed to the rest of the world will give the Ukrainians, I think, more confidence and give NATO more confidence. And I might say when I mentioned that NATO has taken extraordinary steps, President Biden, unlike his predecessor, created respect and unity among the NATO allies. Germany, in particular, on Nord Stream 2, the former President uniformly demeaned Ms. Merkel and the Chancellor of Germany, and our relations with Germany were very strained. President Biden has put those together-- critically important in facing Putin down at this point in time.

As General Milley said in our briefing--this was not classified--he said he thought Russia was going to lose in the end--or at least Putin was going to lose.

The Russian people do not want this war. The Russian people do not feel threatened by Ukraine.

Putin wants to create empire, and that is what I think we ought to stay focused on and unified on. We will debate energy policy, but let us not deceive the American public that any policies of this administration have undermined the ability to drill and produce additional energy on those millions of acres that are available on public lands and in public waters right now. Right now.

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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield so I can clarify?

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Mr. HOYER. I do not believe energy ought to be taken off the table. I want to assure my friend that is not my position, nor is it our collective position as a party. I understand what the gentleman said. I agree with the gentleman that to the extent that we can decrease any-- any--underline any--resources available to Putin and his war machine, we ought to do it.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, the Speaker just announced, minutes ago, she is opposed to importing any oil from Russia. So the comment I just made to the gentleman, if you are trying to project that we want to see Russia advantaged by any expenditures we have on imports, now the Speaker has said exactly what I just said. We are not for that. Okay?

There are 26 million acres right now available and unaffected, as I understand it, by any of the constraints that you have talked about, available for additional drilling. There are 11 million acres, so that is 37 million acres currently available for production of additional product in the United States of America, right now.

So the red herring of somehow President Biden is constraining the production of oil in this country, as I understand it--now, you are much more aware of this because you come from a producing State and, obviously, are focused on this.

But the fact of the matter is, I am told that these 37 million acres are unaffected and are ready for production right now.

Now, the debate we have, Mr. Whip, is about what kind of fuels we ought to be using. You talked a lot about carbon emissions. Scientists tell us that carbon emission is a danger. As a matter of fact, the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, testified when asked, ``What is the greatest threat to America's security?'' some--I think it was last year; it may have been the year before that--said global warming. That is what they said.

Right now, we have an immediate challenge. Nothing you suggest will affect that immediate challenge beyond the Speaker and I both telling you we agree, and I hope the President pursues this: No money to Russia, period. No buying of Russian products.

Now, the gentleman mentions that, oh, he urged Russia to produce more energy last year. Why did he urge that? He urged all OPEC nations to produce more energy. Why? Because he did not want Americans to pay more at the pump. I think that is a policy you would probably support, trying to keep prices down.

With the oil cartel, when you constrain supply, what happens? Demand doesn't diminish because people have to drive to work; they have to get their kids to school; they have to get home. Demand stays steady.

What happens, inevitably, when supply is constrained and demand stays where it is or it goes up, prices rise. Yes, you are right, the President stands accused of trying to get more supply on the market to bring prices at the pump down.

But we do have a fundamental disagreement, and frankly, we ought not to be talking about it now. We had an energy bill that most of your side did not vote for. We get that. There is a legitimate difference of opinion of where we ought to invest our dollars. We believe we ought to invest our dollars in renewable energy that will be there for some time and does not pollute our air, increase our heat, and make our storms worse for the safety of our globe and our people for decades and centuries to come.

But, we do agree that we want to stop Putin.

Now, the reason I pointed out Trump, because Trump didn't stop Putin. He regaled Putin: He is my friend. I know him. We can get together.

Putin is a thug. He is a criminal thug. He is an international criminal. I think we all agree on that. And it doesn't help for the former President of the United States to tell the world I think their guy, this criminal, this thug, is smart, or in Pompeo's words, brilliant and our guy is dumb.

Our guy is not dumb. He is very smart. I have known him for 50 years. He may disagree on policy, but that is not because he is dumb. He has a different perspective.

Very frankly, he is not withholding money from Zelensky. He is making sure Zelensky gets money.

Trump tried to hold hostage money for Ukrainian security that we appropriated because we wanted early on to make sure that Zelensky and the Ukrainian people had the resources they needed. Mr. Trump withheld them. Now, ultimately, he paid them out, after it was disclosed--after it was disclosed.

We are going to continue to differ on energy policy, but don't mislead the American people when you have 37 million acres available for additional production unaffected by the restraints that you talk about. He is talking about new stuff.

So, my friend, let's focus, in this instance, at this time of crisis, on how we can make sure that America is perceived as unified and of one mind, as we did right after 9/11 and as we did yesterday.

But we abandon that very quickly in this polarized society in which we are living. We need to be unified, and we need to be honest with the American people. It is not going to be cost-free because neither Biden--and Biden, by the way, is urging the Saudis to increase production and others to increase production.

But as the gentleman knows, we far outstrip any of those nations in the production of energy and oil. China, a country that is three times, four times our size, four times our size, is producing 25 percent of what we produce.

America is producing a lot of energy. It did so under Obama. As the gentleman knows, energy production in the country rose during the Obama years. It rose during the Trump years. And it still is at a high plateau.

The only thing I would say to my friend, the whip: We have differences on energy policy. We ought to discuss those. That is an honest difference of opinion. I want to be energy independent.

I hope you heard the President talk about Make It In America. All of my colleagues rose and sort of pointed at me because I have been talking about making it America, which is producing energy as well, for a good period of time. I started the Make It In America agenda in 2010 and have been talking about it every year since.

We need to be energy independent, and we can use energy as an element of foreign policy and strategic policy as well, which is why the Speaker said, just minutes ago, as I said to you, we ought not to be buying oil from Russia, period.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, can the gentleman clarify when he says, ``just the other day''?

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that question. The answer to it is the Office of the Attending Physician and the Sergeants at Arms in both the Senate and the House are looking at that, both from a health standpoint and from a security standpoint.

I think all of us agree that the American public's access to the Capitol ought to be as fulsome as possible, given constraints of health concerns and of security concerns. So I join the gentleman in saying, as I have said to the press, as soon as we can do that responsibly, we ought to do it. I agree with the gentleman.

I want to add something that is of great concern to me. I hope we have agreement in this House, and I hope we have agreement in the United States Senate. I have been shocked, deeply saddened, when your party passes a resolution and tells the American people that January 6 was legitimate political discourse.

If we are telling people in this country that January 6 was legitimate political discourse, we are going to have great concerns about opening up this Capitol for the safety of our Members, for the safety of the public who wants to visit, and for the safety of our staff.

I would ask my friend; does he believe that January 6 reflected legitimate political discourse?

I was shocked, astounded, that a major political party in this country would tell the American people what they saw on January 6 was legitimate political discourse.

Will he please reject that concept, reject that conclusion, that what they saw on January 6 had anything to do with legitimate political discourse.

Yes, I want to open up the Capitol, but I don't want to make any representation to the American people, Mr. Speaker, that what happened on January 6 bore any resemblance to what we as Americans believe is legitimate political discourse.

Rightfully, Senator McConnell and former candidate for President of the United States, Mitt Romney, rejected that out of hand. I would hope you and your party would do so on this floor and tell the American people, yes, we want to open up this Capitol, but do not delude yourself that anything you saw on January 6 bears any resemblance in any way to legitimate political discourse.

I had not brought that up, but I am constrained to do so as we talk about opening up our Capitol.

Tuesday night, we were an armed camp. You saw it, I saw it, we all saw it, the fence around the Capitol, men and women with automatic weapons, both military and civilian, because of what happened on January 6, because of the concern they had for the safety of our democracy and of the ability of the President of the United States to come and give a State of the Union address to the assembled Members of the Congress of the United States and the United States Senate. That is why all of that was there.

Very frankly, inexplicably, the Republican Party's national committee passed a resolution, apparently overwhelmingly, that told the American people that January 6 was legitimate political discourse.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the equivalency that my friend from Louisiana tries to make between citizens, some who committed crimes, but citizens who are acting because they are seeing their children's lives taken because of the color of their skin and what happened on January 6 to undermine our democracy, our Constitution, and our election of a President of the United States, reflects the resolution the Republican National Committee passed, legitimate political discourse.

They weren't talking about the people--some people saw, obviously, the President incite those people to come from where that political discourse, that discussion--which sounded like incitement to me, maybe not to you--and they came from the White House, at the President's instruction, Mr. Speaker: Go down to the Capitol, stop the steal, give them hell, fight like hell. Instructing the Vice President of the United States to do what the Vice President of the United States concluded was illegal, not within his power, and they came into the Capitol calling for the life of the Vice President and the Speaker of this House.

There is no equivalency. But they continue, Mr. Speaker, to make that equivalency, to justify what was done on January 6, that, oh, well, everybody does it. No, they don't. It is the first time in history that it has happened.

The whip and I are talking about what I think we both want to do, open up this Capitol, make it more accessible, have people come in, gun free, weapon free--come into this Capitol and see their democracy in action. That resolution was read by the American people as, oh, it is okay, legitimate political--there was nothing about January 6 that was legitimate political discourse, including what the President of the United States had to say, at that point in time, Donald Trump. That wasn't legitimate at all.

Sixty courts determined Joe Biden was elected. He still, to this day, lies to the American people. Sadly, too many people believe him, which led to January 6 and the violence. I am sure that the whip believes they ought to be held accountable if they came in here and waved guns at people and killed a police officer. I appreciate that he said that.

If he believes, as Romney believes, as McConnell believes--McConnell didn't say they were talking about the people talking in political discourse, should we do this, should we do that. McConnell responded to that resolution exactly as I have, understanding exactly what it meant, inexplicable.

Very frankly, if we are going to open up this Capitol, we need all of us to tell every American we are opening up the Capitol to peaceful-- sure, political discussion; that is what this place is all about. That, Mr. Speaker, is what this discourse is about, differences of opinion, how we resolve them, how we reach consensus, how we hopefully bring people together. But not by waving racist flags, not by hanging a gallows in front of the Capitol. That is not how we do it.

We ought to all, all 435 of us, reject it out of hand. We should not in any way try to make it look like, well, some other people did this, and some other people did that, and, therefore, it is okay.

They attacked our democracy, our Constitution, this country. They were traitors. We ought to all reject that kind of conduct out of hand, not try to rationalize it with some other group did this and some other group did that, people with grievances.

The Constitution does not guarantee being able to shoot at people, police or nonpolice. It doesn't justify destroying property. That is criminal activity. I agree with that 100 percent. And no city was burned down. A little bit of hyperbole there, Mr. Speaker.

Were there things done that shouldn't have been done? Yes. Were there things that shouldn't have been done and things that happened on this Capitol? Yes.

But January 6 was not analogous to any of those things. It was an attempt to undermine our democracy, our Constitution, and the election of the President of the United States by this Congress in approving what we should have no discretion in one way or the other. That is what lawfully is done in each State when they send their electors here.

What President Trump kept asking Mr. Pence to do was ignore the votes of the American people, ignore the lawfully elected electors and the result of their deliberations.

Mr. Scalise is my friend. He is a good man. A famous quote says that nothing is necessary for the spread of evil but that good men do nothing. And that is why I tell my friend I was so appalled at the rhetoric of that Republican National Committee resolution and what it says to people around this country who may have a grievance, who may be angry.

As Senator McConnell interpreted it, the resolution was speaking to what happened on January 6, whether it was at the White House and incitement, whether it was at the White House and deployment, or whether it was here in execution of what was clearly a coordinated effort to prohibit the Congress from carrying out its constitutional duties. Expressed and acted out.

So I say to my friend in conclusion, I didn't mean to get into this today, but your questions obviously spurred my feeling about this because, yes, we want to open up the Capitol, but I don't want to give any citizen the thought that the Capitol is being opened so they can come in here, threaten the lives of a Vice President, threaten the lives of a Speaker, threaten the lives of the minority leader or the Republican whip or any others of us.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican whip is my friend. He was badly injured by a criminal who may have been deranged or whatever, but no excuse, who attacked him because he was a Republican. Totally unjustified. Totally heinous in its execution. The whip has shown extraordinary courage, Mr. Speaker, in coming back. I know it has been hard. It has been tough for him, and all of us admire him for the courage he has shown in coming back, and we condemn in the severest terms any kind of action that would have put him or any other of our Members, our staff, or the visitors to this Capitol at risk.

We are considering it. We want to open it up. The American people ought to have access to their Capitol.

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