Ranking Member Cole Hearing Remarks on H.R. 7309 and H.R 7688

Hearing

As delivered during today's hearing:

Our hearing today covers two items. The first I'll discuss is H.R. 7309, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2022.

Unfortunately, today's hearing represents yet another missed opportunity for bipartisanship. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, or WIOA, has historically been reauthorized on a bipartisan basis, and there certainly is an appetite among Republicans to do so again.

But instead of putting forward a bipartisan measure that builds upon the last reauthorization, providing needed reforms and more flexibility to states, employers and employees, the Majority has instead chosen to move forward with a partisan measure. And what's worse, it's a partisan measure that rolls back previous reforms to WIOA.

If the Majority has its way, it will impose a one-size-fits-all structure from Washington that will limit or remove a vast majority of the flexibility for states. The Majority's bill will impose onerous reporting requirements on the states that will waste time, money and resources that could be better used getting people back to work. And instead of focusing on connecting job creators with job seekers and helping people build up their skills, it will force states to spend their time responding to commands from federal bureaucrats here in Washington.

Mr. Chairman, it is disappointing that the Majority is not putting forward a bipartisan bill today. This is certainly an area where Republicans and Democrats have shared goals. When people join or return to the workforce or gain the skills needed for better, higher-paying jobs, we all win. Taxpayers win, job seekers win, employers win. And on a topic that is so beneficial for the entire country and on which there is so much agreement between Democrats and Republicans, it is disheartening that we are not considering a bipartisan bill today.

Our second bill is H.R. 7688, the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act. The Majority claims this bill is intended to address spiraling gas and diesel prices. But the reality is that this bill is a smoke screen intended only to deflect away from the failed policies of the Biden Administration that led us to this point.

Consider what this bill does: it gives the Federal Trade Commission the authority to go after alleged "price gouging" in the consumer fuel markets. But unfortunately for the Majority, the Federal Trade Commission already has this authority, and today's bill, even if enacted into law, would do nothing that the FTC cannot already do.

But consider what the bill does not do. It doesn't add new sources of energy to help bring prices down. It doesn't fully open up federal lands to oil and gas drilling, which President Biden single-handedly stopped. It doesn't restart the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have brought 830,000 barrels of oil per day to American oil refineries. It doesn't stop the Administration from prioritizing buying oil from adversarial countries like Russia and Venezuela over developing our own domestic energy sources. And it does nothing to ensure that America has an "all of the above" energy policy to secure American energy independence.

Mr. Chairman, it is unfortunate that a bill this weak and this pointless is all that the Majority can offer. American consumers are hurting right now. They are being hit every day with the double whammy of rising inflation and rising gas prices. It is becoming harder and harder for working families to make it, between rising food prices, rising fuel prices and the steadily eroding buying power of wages.

We can and should be doing all we can to expand energy supplies to bring prices down and reduce pain at the gas pump and at the grocery store. And instead, all we have to consider is this pathetic fig leaf of a bill that will do absolutely nothing to solve this crisis.

A sad state of affairs, Mr. Chairman. We must do better than this. The American people expect no less.

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