Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H.R. Build Back Better Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1316 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 1316

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 5376) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of S. Con. Res. 14, with the Senate amendment thereto, and to consider in the House, without intervention of any point of order, a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on the Budget or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment. The Senate amendment and the motion shall be considered as read. The motion shall be debatable for three hours equally divided among and controlled by the respective chairs and ranking minority members of the Committees on the Budget, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means, or their respective designees. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening motion.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 1316.

The rule provides for consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 5376, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It makes in order a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on the Budget or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment to H.R. 5376.

Finally, it provides 3 hours of debate on the motion equally divided among and controlled by the respective chairs and ranking minority members of the Committees on the Budget, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means, or their respective designees.

Mr. Speaker, for too long too many people in this country have felt like the work that happens in Washington isn't meant to help them. Like the people who work in this city are not on their side. You know what? For a long time they have been right. For decades, corporate special interests and their out-of-touch friends in the Republican Party have blocked progress in Washington. They got what was good for the rich and powerful, not what was right for working families and the middle class.

No more. That time is over. President Biden and Democrats are putting people over politics. We are fighting to create better jobs, safer communities, and a brighter future for our planet. This is a historic bill, Mr. Speaker, and at the end of the day it is not a complicated vote. It all comes down to what your values are.

Democrats have been fighting for years to lower drug prices, and this bill lets Medicare negotiate with drug companies to lower the price of prescription drugs. It caps the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 for people on Medicare. It stops excessive price hikes on drugs and says, if you are on Medicare you won't have to pay more than $2,000 a year for your prescriptions. Meanwhile, Republicans oppose this bill because it will cut into Big Pharma's corporate profits. Boo-hoo. I mean, really? They oppose this bill because they want to let pharmaceutical companies continue price gouging. Give me a break.

This bill listens to the climate experts who tell us that melting glaciers and record heat are not normal. It puts us on a path to cutting carbon emissions 40 percent by 2030, helping create millions of new jobs along the way. This is a huge investment in energy security made in America by American workers that lowers energy costs for working families. It is the biggest investment in fighting climate change in history. Ever. This is a turning point in the fight to protect our planet.

Republicans oppose this bill because they have never given a damn about pollution or climate change--they are more interested in protecting Big Oil's bottom line. That is whose side they are on.

Let's look at healthcare costs. This bill cuts healthcare costs for millions of people by locking in lower Affordable Care Act premiums, saving people $800 a year on average. Republicans oppose it because they want insurance companies to make more money by ripping people off. You can't make this stuff up.

Democrats want a tax code that is fair, where rich and powerful people pay what they owe, just like everyone else. Honest, hardworking middle-class families have to pay their fair share, but the top 1 percent dodge $160 billion in taxes each year.

The Republican answer? They want to make it easier for the rich and powerful to cheat. Whose side are they on?

Mr. Speaker, this is historic. It is bold. Just so everyone understands, it lowers the deficit, and it is fully paid for with no new taxes on families making $400,000 per year or less, and no new taxes on small businesses. Those who oppose this bill don't want to talk about how it will help people. Instead, they are pushing total made-up BS.

The money in this bill for the IRS isn't going to result in increased audits on anyone making under $400,000 a year. Don't take my word for it.

Who appointed Charles Rettig, the current Commissioner of the IRS?

Oh, it was Donald Trump.

Charles Rettig, Trump's appointee, says the money in this bill will go towards better customer support, quicker turnaround times, so people can get long-overdue refunds, and enforcing tax laws against rich people cheating on their taxes. Don't take it from me, take it from Trump's own hand-picked IRS Commissioner.

I get calls into my district office every day from people who are frustrated that their calls to the IRS go unanswered and their tax returns are late. This bill will help fix it. Look, here is the truth. This bill puts our government back on the side of working people in this country.

Like I said earlier, this is about values: Democrats put people over politics. We are fighting to reduce inflation for the people, lower the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs, make heating, cooling, and electricity bills cheaper, combat climate change with green energy, and lower the deficit.

Let's just tell the truth. Republicans are cheering for inflation. Every day they come to this floor cheering for us to fail. In my opinion, they are cheering for this administration and this country to fail because they think it will help them politically. They don't put people over politics. They put Big Pharma, oil CEOs, corporate tax evaders, and greedy insurance companies over everything else. It is rotten, it is wrong, and it is hurting America.

Enough with the cynicism. This is a great day for America. I am proud to be here. It is not very often we get to pass bills that are going to change the course of history for generations to come. I will sleep better tonight knowing that when we pass this bill we are putting people over politics to leave a better world for our kids and grandkids. This is a historic moment. Let's get this bill passed and to the President's desk.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I feel as if I just walked into the Festivus celebration, the annual airing of grievances. There is so much that needs to be responded to.

Let me just say two things.

On inflation, last week, five former Treasury Secretaries issued a statement--five former Treasury Secretaries--urging us to pass this critical legislation to ``help increase American competitiveness, address our climate crisis, lower costs for families, and fight inflation.''

Larry Summers was among those former Treasury Secretaries who said that this bill helps fight inflation. My Republican colleagues love to cite Mr. Summers but it seems as though they only like to acknowledge his analysis when he agrees with the point that they are trying to make.

Just on process, I just have to say this: Perhaps my friends are forgetting the extensive hearings and markups that we held during consideration of Build Back Better. The Energy and Commerce markup alone took 3 days. Almost every piece of the Inflation Reduction Act was included in some form in the original House bill. Of course, it is not identical. Unfortunately, we had to let the Senate work its will, too. Believe me, I wish we could send the House-passed bill straight to the President's desk. But I don't have the time to go through an exhaustive list.

Let me just remind my colleagues of just a few of the many provisions that this body already considered through regular order. The ACA premium reduction, prescription drug pricing reform, clean energy tax credits, energy-efficiency rebates, funds to fight wildfires, rural energy programs, clean vehicle manufacturing, funds to reduce air pollution, drought assistance, and a lot, lot, lot more.

Now, I understand that my colleagues don't like this bill, but it has gone through regular order, and it is way past time that we send it to the President's desk for his signature.

Mrs. TORRES OF California. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin my comments by thanking President Biden for doing what he actually had said that he is going to do and delivering for the people. I also thank our Vice President from California, Kamala Harris, for being courageous and splitting that 50/50 Senate. I also recognize the leadership of both Houses that have brought us to where we are today to consider a Senate amendment to H.R. 5376, the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA, of 2022.

This is a critical piece of legislation that will help reduce the Federal deficit and tackle inflation, lower healthcare and prescription drug costs, and address the climate crisis. The Inflation Reduction Act will also help lower energy bills for working families all while changing the Tax Code to ensure--to ensure the corporations--you know, Mr. Speaker, the ones that can donate politically and be considered as if they were humans?

If they are able to give money politically, then they should be able to also pay their own fair share of taxes, and the filthy rich should also pay their fair share.

Many families are still struggling to make ends meet with the cost of goods on the rise, forcing many to choose between basic necessities like food and lifesaving medication to stay healthy.

Let us not forget that we shut down our economy as a result of a massive world pandemic. Let us not forget that Russia, the bully, has declared war on their neighbor; and, yes, China continues to shut down many of their communities as a result of high coronavirus infections. So inflation is high.

It is disappointing to see that American families pay nearly twice as much for their prescription drugs in comparison to other developed countries.

Why is that?

Because we have been handcuffed because we are not able to negotiate fair pharmaceutical prices. I have even heard from my constituents that medication can be so expensive that in many cases they decide to reduce the recommended dosage and to decline medication altogether.

With all due respect, my friend asked why we are here in August and what is the emergency. Well, the Inflation Reduction Act actually addresses an emergency that a lot of families are faced with right now.

Rising grocery costs, rising fuel costs, those things are emergencies, maybe not to people on the other side of the aisle here, but they are to a lot of families in my district and across the country. Rising prescription drug prices are an emergency.

If that is not enough, addressing the issue of the climate crisis. I mean, the front page of The Washington Post: ``As U.S. prepares for climate action, planet isn't waiting around.'' The planet is, literally, on fire, and we are actually addressing that in a meaningful way with this bill, the biggest investment ever to combat the climate crisis. Now, that is an emergency.

You should talk to young people in your district who have been fighting passionately to try to get Congress to finally address this issue. Talk to your farmers in your district. They will tell you that climate change is real.

Maybe my friends would rather be on vacation, but we are here, in August, to do something meaningful for the American people and for this planet.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a New York Times article titled, ``IRS says funding won't mean more audits for middle- income Americans''; an AP article titled, ``IRS plans to hire 10,000 workers to relieve massive backlog''; a TIME article titled, ``Trump Allies Are Attacking Biden For a Plan to Hire 87,000 New IRS Agents That Doesn't Exist''; and a New York Times article titled, ``For Older Americans, Health Bill Will Bring Savings and `Peace of Mind.' '' [From The New York Times, Aug. 4, 2022] The I.R.S. Says New Funding Won't Mean More Audits for Middle-Income Americans (By Alan Rappeport)

Washington.--Charles P. Rettig, the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, told Congress on Thursday that the tax collection agency would not increase audits of households earning less than $400,000 if it was given the additional $80 billion that lawmakers were considering in a proposed climate and tax legislation package.

Providing more funding for the I.R.S. has been a top priority of the Biden administration and has emerged as key way to finance some of the policies that Democrats are proposing without raising individual tax rates. The additional funding is expected to go toward hiring more enforcement agents to crack down on wealthy tax evaders and corporations and to modernize the agency's antiquated technology.

``These resources are absolutely not about increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans,'' Mr. Retting wrote in a letter to lawmakers. ``As we have been planning, our investment of these enforcement resources is designed around Treasury's directive that audit rates will not rise relative to recent years for households making under $400,000.''

That commitment is in keeping with President Biden's promise not to raise taxes on middle-income Americans.

Mr. Rettig added that better technology and customer service at the I.R.S. would make honest taxpayers less likely to be audited.

The I.R.S. funding is projected to raise $124 billion in additional tax revenue over a decade. Treasury Department officials believe that this estimate is overly conservative and that an agency with more robust audit abilities will deter tax cheats.

Democrats are expected to consider the additional funding as part of a new package, the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes raising taxes on corporations and lowering prescription drug costs, among other provisions. The overall package has garnered stiff opposition from Republicans and would need every Senate Democrat to support it in order to pass.

Among the provisions that Republicans oppose is the I.R.S. funding. Republicans have a long history of trying to starve the I.R.S. of funds and have complained for years that it is being used as a political weapon and unfairly targets conservative groups.

The agency's scrutiny has crossed party lines, according to the I.R.S. inspector general. But it came under fire again last month after The New York Times reported that James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and his deputy, Andrew G. McCabe--both perceived enemies of former President Donald J. Trump--faced rare, exhaustive audits during the Trump administration. The I.R.S. said Mr. Rettig had not been involved in the audits.

In assailing the proposed legislation, the Republican National Committee claimed this week that an ``army'' of 87,000 I.R.S. agents would ``disproportionately target poorer Americans.''

Mr. Rettig, whose term expires later this year, insisted on Thursday that those suggestions were unfounded.

``Large corporate and high-net-worth taxpayers often engage teams of sophisticated representatives pursuing unsettled or sometimes questionable interpretations of tax law,'' he said. ``The integrity and fairness of our tax administrative system relies upon the ability of our agency to maintain a strong, visible, robust enforcement presence directed to these and other similarly situated noncompliant taxpayers.'' [From AP NEWS, Mar. 10, 2022]

IRS Plans To hire 10,000 Workers To Relieve Massive Backlog (By Fatima Hussein)

Washington (AP).--The IRS said Thursday it plans to hire 10,000 new workers to help reduce a massive backlog that the government says will make this tax season the most challenging in history.

The agency released a plan to work down the tens of millions of filings that includes speeding up the traditionally slow hiring process, relying more on automated processes and bringing on more contract workers to help with mailroom and paper processing. Getting it done will be the big challenge, tax experts say.

The agency faces a backlog of around 20 million pieces of correspondence, which is more than 15 times as large as in a normal filing season, according to the agency. And the IRS workforce is the same size it was in 1970, though the U.S. population has grown exponentially and the U.S. tax code has become increasingly complicated.

Additionally, the need to administer pandemic-related programs has imposed an entirely new workload on the agency.

White House officials have said the agency is not equipped to serve taxpayers even in nonpandemic years. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity Thursday to preview the new IRS plan, said processing returns will continue to be a massive challenge so long as the agency operates on 1960s infrastructure.

The IRS' latest plan to combat the current backlog includes creating a 700-person surge team to process new returns, adding 2,000 contractors to respond to taxpayer questions about stimulus and child tax credit payments and developing new automated voice and chat bots to answer taxpayer questions.

There is no plan to extend the current April 18 filing deadline, the senior official said. The new IRS plan comes as lawmakers have made persistent calls for additional federal funding for the agency.

Congress' mammoth $1.5 trillion omnibus package, released early Wednesday, would provide $14.3 billion to the Treasury Department, including $12.6 billion devoted to the IRS. That would be the largest funding increase for the tax agency since 2001.

However, Republicans have questioned the need for additional funding. Florida Sen. Rick Scott's ``11 Point Plan to Rescue America,'' unveiled in February, proposes a 50% cut in funding and workforce at the IRS.

The White House and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have roundly rejected Scott's idea.

Caroline Bruckner, a tax professor at the American University Kogod School of Business, said the agency is ``at a competitive disadvantage'' for finding new staff based on its reputation for employees being wholly overworked. She said she based this on her own survey of tax students she teaches.

Bruckner said, ``It's absurd we have put so much work on the IRS'' without giving it the necessary resources to help Americans in the way that is expected.

Bruckner says along with increased funding, the IRS also ``really has to change its narrative and the way it talks about its mission to one of service and being one of the most important antipoverty systems that we have in the U.S.'' [From TIME, Aug. 9, 2022]

Trump Allies Are Attacking Biden For a Plan To Hire 87,000 New IRS Agents That Doesn't Exist (By Eric Cortellessa)

Since news broke on Monday that the FBI searched former President Donald Trump's South Florida home, Republican members of Congress and right-wing media figures have launched a new line of attack against Democrats: that the Internal Revenue Service intends to use nearly $80 billion in new funding to pursue similar intrusions on average Americans. Those dollars, Trump allies are saying, will go toward the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents.

``Do you make $75,000 or less?'' tweeted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. ``Democrats'' new army of 87,000 IRS agents will be coming for you--with 710,000 new audits for Americans who earn less than $75k.'' Richard Grenell, Trump's former Acting Director of National Intelligence, wrote on the social media platform: ``The FBI raids Trump's house and the Democrats vote to add 87,000 new IRS agents to go after Americans. Wake up, America.''

Other high-profile conservatives have insinuated that the Biden administration intends to direct those additional auditors to dig up dirt on the President's political opponents. ``After todays raid on Mar A Lago what do you think the left plans to use those 87,000 new IRS agents for?'' tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio.

It's a notion that has taken off like wildfire, signaling what is likely to be a prominent broadside from Republicans against Democrats in the midterm elections.

There's only one problem. It's not true.

The Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate, health care and tax package that passed the Senate on Sunday and is expected to head to Biden's desk after the House approves it on Friday, includes roughly $78 billion for the IRS to be phased in over 1O years. A Treasury Department report from May 2021 estimated that such an investment would enable the agency to hire roughly 87,000 employees by 2031. But most of those hires would not be Internal Revenue agents, and wouldn't be new positions.

According to a Treasury Department official, the funds would cover a wide range of positions including IT technicians and taxpayer services support staff, as well as experienced auditors who would be largely tasked with cracking down on corporate and high-income tax evaders. ``It is wholly inaccurate to describe any of these resources as being about increasing audit scrutiny of the middle class or small businesses,'' Natasha Sarin, a counselor for tax policy and implementation at the Treasury Department, tells TIME.

At the same time, more than half of the agency's current employees are eligible for retirement and are expected to leave the agency within the next five years. ``There's a big wave of attrition that's coming and a lot of these resources are just about filling those positions,'' says Sarin, an economist who has studied tax avoidance extensively and who was tapped by the Biden administration to beef up the IRS's auditing power.

In all, the IRS might net roughly 20,000 to 30,000 more employees from the new funding, enough to restore the tax- collecting agency's staff to where it was roughly a decade ago.

The IRS currently has roughly 78,000 employees. According to John Koskinen, who served as IRS commissioner from 2013 to 2017, that's down from around 100,000 when he first started. By the time he resigned four years later, he said, it was clear that the agency was in the grip of a systematic attempt by the GOP to weaken it.

``Nobody loves tax collectors,'' Koskinen tells TIME.

It's an effort that goes back to 2010, when Republicans took back control of the House of Representatives and immediately instituted a series of crippling cuts on the IRS. Since then, overall funding for the IRS has fallen further, by more than 20 percent, while enforcement funding has dropped by 31 percent. That's made it easier for high-net- worth tax cheats and major corporations to avoid federal taxes to the tune of billions of dollars.

``The largest corporations in the United States with over $20 billion of assets have had their rate of audits go from nearly 100% to 50%,'' says Janet Holtzblattt, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. ``Among wealthy individuals who had a positive income of a million dollars or more, the audit rate fell from 8.4% in 2010 to 2.4% in 2019.''

Meanwhile, the employee shortage only made it harder for average Americans to reach IRS customer support, which has been inundated with requests far beyond what the staff could handle. ``I used to say there's no Democratic or Republican way to run the IRS,'' Koskinen says. ``The people who are significantly disadvantaged are the average taxpayers who have a simple question and can't get through. Those are Republicans as well as independents and Democrats.'' As of last month, the IRS backlog included 10.2 million unprocessed individual returns.

Funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will also go toward tech modernization. The IRS currently uses technology from the 1960s, called COBOL, to process and intake individual tax returns. According to government officials, the agency has struggled to find workers who are still equipped to code under the antiquated system.

The increased funding for the IRS is a key part of Democrats' plan to pay for the Inflation Reduction Act. By going more forcefully after tax cheats and increasing compliance, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the agency will increase revenue by $204 billion over the next decade.

Yet while the IRS may be in desperate need of more funding, it's not exactly most Americans' favorite government institution. Nobody likes to fork over a big check to Uncle Sam. Which is a big reason why Republicans are likely to keep hammering this point in the coming months, and potentially pointing to 87,000 new IRS agents who will never materialize.

``I think a lot of people are going to be upset by this across the country and across the political spectrum,'' Hogan Gidley, Trump's former White House deputy press secretary, tells TIME, when asked about IRS funding. He falsely described the Biden administration's plan as hiring ``85,000 IRS agents to come after mom-and-pop businesses.''

But if Gidley's right, Americans will only be angry because of what Republicans are telling them about the IRS--not what's actually happening there. [From The New York Times, Aug. 10, 2022] For Older Americans, Health Bill Will Bring Savings and `Peace of Mind' (By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Noah Weiland)

Washington.--After Pete Spring was diagnosed with dementia in 2016, he and his wife emptied their checking account in part to pay for his prescription drugs, then ran through $60,000 in pension payments before resorting to a charge card to help make sure Mr. Spring had the heart and Alzheimer's medications he needed to survive--just two of the 11 drugs he took. Mr. Spring, of Marietta, Ga., died in April, before the unveiling of the tax, climate and health bill that the Senate passed over the weekend. The measure aims to lower the cost of prescription drugs for people on Medicare, like him; his wife, Gretchen Van Zile, has been left to look back on what felt like an outrageous injustice.

``Here seniors are in their golden years,'' said Ms. Van Zile, 74, ``and the only people seeing gold are the pharmaceutical companies.''

Nearly 49 million people, most of them older Americans, get prescription drug coverage through Medicare, yet many find that it does not go very far. Low-income people quality for government subsidies, so those in the middle class--people like Mr. Spring and Ms. Van Zile--are hit hardest by high drug costs.

The Senate bill, which the House is expected to pass on Friday, then send to President Biden's desk, could save many Medicare beneficiaries hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year. Its best-known provision would empower Medicare to negotiate prices with drug makers with the goal of driving down costs--a move the pharmaceutical industry has fought for years, and one that experts said would help lower costs for beneficiaries.

But the legislation would also take more direct steps to keep money in people's pocketbooks, though they would be phased in over time.

Beginning next year, insulin co-payments for Medicare recipients would be capped at $35 a month. As of 2024, those with costs high enough to qualify for the program's ``catastrophic coverage'' benefit would no longer have to pick up 5 percent of the cost of every prescription. And starting in 2025, out-of-pocket costs for prescription medicines would be capped at $2,000 annually.

``This is a huge policy change and one that has been a long time coming,'' said Dr. Stacie Dusetzina, an associate professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University. ``For people needing high-cost drugs, this will provide significant financial relief.''

Between 2009 and 2018, the average price more than doubled for brand-name prescription drugs in Medicare Part D, the program that covers products dispensed by pharmacies, the Congressional Budget Office found. Between 2019 and 2020, price increases outpaced inflation for half of all drugs covered by Medicare, according to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Perhaps no drug has been talked about as much as insulin, the diabetes medication that is more than 100 years old. Prices for insulin and its analogues have risen so fast that many diabetes patients who rely on the drug put themselves at risk by taking less than is prescribed to cut costs.

More than three million Medicare beneficiaries take one of the 42 different types of insulin that are covered by Medicare, according to an estimate by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that the average out-of-pocket cost is $54 a month. But for some people, the costs are much higher.

Evelyn Polay, 82, of Merrick, N.Y., spends more than $1,200 every three months on four different diabetes medicines, including Humalog and another type of injectable insulin, which she has been taking for about 30 years.

She still works as a part-time bookkeeper and counts herself as fortunate. ``It's not a question of do I eat or do I take my medicine,'' she said.

But she worries about other people, including her own grandchildren, three of whom also have diabetes. Democrats tried to apply the bill's proposed $35 co-payment to all insulin prescriptions, including those covered by private insurers. But Republican senators forced the removal of that language--even though seven of them wanted to keep it in the bill. To hear the voices of older Americans who confront high drug costs month in and month out is to hear fear and worry, anger and stress. Many say they are figuring out how to get by, skipping vacations and other niceties for which they saved.

For Kim Armbruster, 65, who recently retired after a 40- year nursing career, keeping down the costs of her medications for diabetes, psoriatic arthritis and Graves' disease, an autoimmune disorder affecting the thyroid, has been a scramble since she started on Medicare in March. Ms. Armbruster, of Cary, Ill., said she had saved extra insulin from prescriptions filled when she had commercial insurance, enough to keep costs down before a monthly cap kicks in. But her other conditions have caused immense financial strain.

By June, she had reached Medicare's threshold for catastrophic coverage after paying more than $7,000 for Enbrel, a drug she takes for the arthritis; Synthroid, which she takes for Graves' disease; Eliquis, for atrial fibrillation, insulin and her insulin pump.

``It's all about thinking ahead, looking for alternatives and strategizing the home budget to be able to take the necessary meds,'' she said. Learning to keep up with costs, she added, had been like ``baptism by fire, to learn everything I can possibly learn about it to maneuver drug costs and stay healthy without complications.''

The carousel of medications taken by Mr. Spring, the dementia patient who died in April, included eye-popping price tags for drugs including Eliquis, for a heart condition, and Namenda, an Alzheimer's drug. Mr. Spring also took an antidepressant and medications to dull the side effects from Namenda.

Those drugs ran the couple around $1,000 a month. Had the $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap been in place when her husband was alive, Ms. Van Zile said, they would have reached it by March every year. Ms. Van Zile retired from her job working for Fulton County in Georgia so that she could take care of her husband, further cramping their savings. ``His sense of humor put a smile on my face every day,'' she said. ``The bitter aspect of it was the financial stress.''

Democrats have been promising for years to lower the cost of prescription drugs. So have some Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump. But the Senate bill passed along party lines, without any Republican votes. In the 50-50 Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris broke the tie vote.

Republicans, and the pharmaceutical industry, insist that the measure will stifle innovation and reverse progress on therapies and treatments, including those for cancer care--a high priority for Mr. Biden. The industry's main trade group, PhRMA, says the bill, which imposes stiff penalties on companies that refuse to negotiate, amounts to government price setting--not negotiation.

At a media briefing last month, Stephen J. Ubl, the chief executive of PhRMA, warned that Democrats were ``about to make a historic mistake that will devastate patients desperate for new cures.''

But backers of the measure say new treatments are meaningless if patients can't afford them. The promise of Medicare, enacted in 1965, has always been that it would take care of older Americans. The prescription drug benefit was not added until 2003.

It includes the provision for catastrophic coverage, in which the government picks up the full cost of medicines-- except for 5 percent, paid by the patient--after an individual spends $7,050 a year out of pocket. The Kaiser Family Foundation says that 1.3 million Medicare beneficiaries hit the catastrophic threshold each year; 1.4 million have out- of-pocket costs of $2,000 or more.

``You rarely hear people complain about turning age 65 and going on Medicare; it's often a relief,'' said Larry Levitt, the foundation's executive vice president for health policy. ``But the way Medicare now works, there can be some nasty surprises for people with very high drug expenses, and this bill will provide a lot of relief.''

A study conducted by Dr. Dusetzina highlighted how the middle class gets squeezed. She examined 17,076 new prescriptions issued between 2012 and 2018 for Part D beneficiaries, and found that those receiving subsidies were nearly twice as likely to obtain the prescribed drug within 90 days as those without subsidies.

Among those who did not qualify for subsidies, 30 percent of all prescriptions for cancer drugs went unfilled, as did more than 50 percent of prescriptions to treat immune system disorders or high cholesterol.

Patti Kellerhouse, a 64-year-old in Henderson, Nev., was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2017 that had spread to her liver. On long-term disability through her employer, she had paid $10 a month out of pocket for the oral cancer treatment she needed. But when she transitioned to a Medicare Advantage plan, the medication cost more than $3,100 for the first month.

While she has been able to afford the price jump, it has stressed her financial planning. She is saving money for a new car, among other things. She said she has daughters and grandchildren whom she would like to continue supporting.

``I worked hard my whole life,'' she said. ``These are high co-payments. They shouldn't happen when you're at retirement age.''

Many Americans make tough choices about whether to continue taking drugs they need. Bob Miller, a 71 year-old multiple sclerosis patient in Prior Lake, Minn., is among them.

Every other day for 12 years, Mr. Miller took Betaseron, a brand-name prescription drug that can delay the progression of his disease by staving off flare-ups of numbness, muscle stiffness and other symptoms that can leave patients worse off than they were before. But the drug was expensive; even with his Medicare insurance, it cost more than $10,000 a year.

So he quit taking the drug in 2016 after consulting with his doctors, who told him he could ``roll the dice'' and survive without it--at least for the time being. Since then, he has lived with the unsettling worry that he is gambling with his own health.

``In the background, you don't know what's going on,'' Mr. Miller said. 'There might still be some damage being done to my nerve fibers.''

When a neurologist recently told him it might help to go back on a disease-modifying drug, Mr. Miller told him he would like to, if not for the prohibitive cost. The new legislation, he said, will deliver something he has been longing for: ``Peace of mind.''

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, seniors know that this bill will help bring down their healthcare and prescription drug costs dramatically. Passing this bill will be a huge sigh of relief for 34 million Americans covered by Medicare.

Scanlon), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

For anybody to suggest that the IRS is somehow coming after people is absurd and dangerous. This fear-mongering has to stop.

Yesterday, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, made this outrageous statement that armed IRS agents will go door-to-door with assault rifles after this bill passes. All I can say to that is everyone grab your tinfoil hats.

I mean, in response, Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden said: ``It is unbelievable that we even need to say this, but there are not going to be 87,000 armed IRS agents going door-to-door with assault weapons.''

This is funding for answering phone calls, upgrading computer systems, and getting our constituents the refunds that they have been waiting for, for months and months.

I get it. My Republican friends do not want to give the IRS the ability to go after wealthy tax cheats, big corporations that are using every loophole possible to avoid paying taxes. But do you know what? Our constituents have to pay their fair share. These rich people ought to pay their fair share, as well.

I get it. My Republican friends, when they were in charge, passed a $2 trillion tax cut to make it easier for the rich and powerful to cheat on their taxes. This Democratic majority is going to make sure they pay their fair share.

Jackson Lee).

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise enthusiastically to support the rule and the underlying bill.

As I do so, let me ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join me in asking President Trump to lower the rhetoric so we don't have people dying every day because of his provocative words.

Let me say, this bill is a miracle of success. It is a miracle because we, the Democrats, are giving back $300 billion to reduce the inflation that was created by the Trump tax cut that has been killing us for the last couple of years.

I am excited about the idea that those who are not paying their fair tax, the top 1 percent--$160 billion they do not pay--yet we will raise no taxes on those making $400,000 or less.

We will make corporations and ultrawealthy persons pay their fair share through the IRS working to help working people. No new taxes on families. That is crucial.

Now, on the underlying bill, I would have wanted to offer an amendment dealing with the carried interest, which would have gotten us $14 billion. I wanted to make sure that we had the $35 limit on insulin and, as well, help for Medicaid recipients.

This is a great bill. I support the rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend you and Chairman McGovern for the Rule enabling the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, H.R. 5376, to be considered and voted on the floor today.

Rapid action on the Inflation Reduction Act is vital, as it will have a major positive impact on quality-of-life for American families, reduce inflation for all Americans, and bolster our national economy and competitiveness for years to come.

This landmark legislation will provide urgently needed relief, as well as many reforms and initiatives that will help our nation transition to its next era of economic success for all Americans.

Even though H.R. 5376 doesn't include every solution that I hoped would be included, I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically support the rule and the bill because of the overwhelmingly positive effects that the Inflation Reduction Act will have.

The bill makes historic investments to combat climate change by putting the United States on a path to reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2030, including investments in clean energy and energy efficiency that will lower household energy costs.

The bill's clean energy and emission reduction programs attack the climate crisis at its source--electric utilities, cars, trucks, and even methane-producing farm animals--while ensuring that rural and disadvantaged communities share the benefits.

It would bring electric cars--and the fuel costs they save--within the reach of working families. It would also lower utility bills, promote community solar projects, and boost America's clean energy manufacturing base and workforce.

The Inflation Reduction Act will lower the costs of prescription drugs by empowering Medicare--for the first time--to negotiate prices, while limiting out-of-pocket costs and price increases. Medicare would negotiate a maximum price of high-cost prescription drugs for Medicare Part B and Part D that will take effect in 2026. This provision will make prescription drugs more accessible and stop drug companies from raising the price of prescription medicines faster than inflation.

This legislation will also extend the Affordable Care Act's health insurance premium tax credits through 2025. This will avert a huge price hike in premiums for the majority of the 14 million people who have enrolled in ACA Marketplace plans.

The Inflation Reduction Act would create a more equitable tax system by applying a 15 percent minimum tax to corporations with more than $1 billion in average annual income over a three-year period. This would ensure that these corporations at least pay roughly the same rate as many working taxpayers.

The bill would also impose a 1 percent excise tax on corporate stock buybacks, and it would enable the IRS to reverse staff cuts and ensure compliance with tax laws and regulations.

By creating a more equitable tax system, this legislation will ease the pressure of inflation and allow more Americans to participate productively in the economy. Americans overwhelmingly agree that corporations have paid too little for too long. Only in Washington would Republicans fight against cutting costs for low- and middle- income workers and their families in defense of wealthy corporations.

That point about fundamental equity brings me to one of my regrets about this bill. When the agreement that led to this bill was announced in July, it had a provision to close the carried interest loophole. That tax code loophole allows managers of private equity and other investment funds to pay lower taxes on their earnings than those paid by wage and salary earners.

The Senate agreement, as it was first announced, would have closed the carried interest loophole by extending the required holding period to five years, which is more in line with how long private equity funds typically hold their investments. But unfortunately, the Senate dropped that provision from the bill, giving up $13 billion that it would have raised over ten years.

The carried interest loophole benefits billionaires, and by that provision being dropped from the bill, billionaires scored a victory worth billions of dollars at the time when most Americans are struggling to make ends meet.

Obviously, that offends principles of equity and fairness, and, if I had the opportunity amend H.R. 5376, I would have offered an amendment to close the carried interest loophole.

Another amendment that I would have offered would have lowered the costs of insulin for people whose health care coverage is with private insurance companies.

While I am delighted that H.R. 5376 imposes a $35 per month cap on the price of insulin for people covered by Medicare, this cap should have extended to Americans with private insurance. I was very upset that Senate Republicans rejected that policy, as it is unconscionable to force people to choose between affording their life-sustaining insulin or their other daily needs. Some Americans have died because they couldn't afford their insulin, which has been subject to unjustifiable pricing practices.

So, I would have offered an amendment to ensure that all Americans, including those with private health insurance, benefit from a $35 per month cap on their insulin costs.

Finally, I was disappointed that Senator Raphael Warnock's amendment about Medicaid expansion was not adopted by the Senate. This amendment sought to close the Medicaid coverage gap so that 2.2 million people living in poverty, with no affordable health care, would be able to see a doctor when they are sick, pregnant, or have other health needs.

The third amendment I would have offered would have closed the Medicaid coverage gap for health care to impoverished Americans who have a need for, and the right to, health care. Although it is not in this bill, I will continue to fight for this.

Even without those three elements, the Inflation Reduction Act is excellent legislation that will be a great leap forward for the American people, particularly for my constituents in the 18th Congressional District of Texas, as well as for all of America.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make clear to my colleagues that, actually, in the Senate bill, there was explicit language that made it very clear that none of this money would be used for audits for people earning $400,000 or less or targeting small businesses. But Republicans over in the Senate insisted that the language be stripped out, and now they are complaining about it.

But do you know what? I have good news for you.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that makes it crystal clear that that is not what is going to happen, along with a letter from Donald Trump's appointed IRS Commissioner, who is still there, who made it very clear that it won't be used for that. Secretary of the Treasury, Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC, August 10, 2022. Charles P. Rettig, Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service, Washington, DC.

Dear Commissioner: The Inflation Reduction Act includes much-needed funding for the IRS to improve taxpayer service, modernize outdated technological infrastructure, and increase equity in the tax system by enforcing the tax laws against those high-earners, large corporations, and complex partnerships who today do not pay what they owe.

These crucial investments have been a focus of the Biden Administration since the President's first day in office, and I was heartened to see the legislation pass the Senate this weekend.

Notwithstanding the changes that arose because of Republican challenges during the Byrd process, I write today to confirm the commitment that has been a guiding precept of the planning that you and your team are undertaking: that audit rates will not rise relative to recent years for households making under $400,000 annually.

Specifically, I direct that any additional resources-- including any new personnel or auditors that are hired--shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels. This means that, contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.

Instead, enforcement resources will focus on high-end noncompliance. There, sustained, multiyear funding is so critical to the agency's ability to make the investments needed to pursue a robust attack on the tax gap by targeting crucial challenges, like large corporations, high-networth individuals and complex pass-throughs, where today the IRS has resources to initiate just 7,500 audits annually out of more than 4 million returns received.

This is challenging work that requires a team of sophisticated revenue agents in place to spend thousands of hours poring over complicated returns, and it is also work that has huge revenue potential: indeed, an additional hour auditing someone making more than $5 million annually generates an estimated $4,500 of additional taxes collected. This is essential work that I know the IRS is eager to undertake.

For regular taxpayers, as you emphasized last week, the result of this resource infusion will be a lower likelihood of audit by an agency that has the data and technological infrastructure in place to target enforcement resources where they belong--on the high end of the income distribution, where the top 1 percent alone is estimated to not be paying $160 billion in owed taxes each year. That's important as a matter of revenue-raising, but it's also essential as a matter of fairness.

Crucially, these resources will support a much-needed upgrade of technology that is decades out-of-date, and an investment in taxpayer service so that the IRS is finally able to communicate with taxpayers in an efficient, timely manner. I look forward to working with you on creating new digital tools to allow taxpayers to get information from the IRS instantaneously and on improving taxpayer service, so the agency is well-equipped to answer calls when they come in.

This historic investment in our tax system will accomplish two critical objectives. It will raise substantial revenue to address the deficit; and it will create a fairer system, where those at the top who do not today comply with their tax obligations find it far less easy to do so, and where all taxpayers receive the service from the IRS that they deserve, and that your dedicated workforce is eager to deliver. The importance of the work ahead cannot be overstated. Sincerely, Janet L. Yellen. ____ department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Washington DC, August 4, 2022.

Dear Member of the United States House of Representatives: It has been the greatest honor of my professional life to spend the last four years at the helm of the IRS. I am struck each day by the commitment of dedicated IRS employees to helping American families. And our employees have done all that without the tools to do so effectively. For too long, the agency has not had the resources that it needs to ensure the tax laws are enforced fairly and that Americans receive the level and quality of service they deserve. We are the greatest country in the world, yet the agency that touches more Americans than any other continually struggles to receive sufficient resources to fulfill its important mission.

The resources in the reconciliation package will get us back to historical norms in areas of challenge for the agency--large corporate and global high-net-worth taxpayers-- as well as new areas like pass-through entities and multinational taxpayers with international tax issues, where we need sophisticated, specialized teams in place that are able to unpack complex structures and identify noncompliance.

These resources are absolutely not about increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans. As we've been planning, our investment of these enforcement resources is designed around the Department of the Treasury's directive that audit rates will not rise relative to recent years for households making under $400,000. Other resources will be invested in employees and IT systems that will allow us to better serve all taxpayers, including small businesses and middle-income taxpayers. Enhanced IT systems and taxpayer service will actually mean that honest taxpayers will be better able to comply with the tax laws, resulting in a lower likelihood of being audited and a reduced burden on them.

Large corporate and high-net-worth taxpayers often engage teams of sophisticated representatives who pursue unsettled or sometimes questionable interpretations of tax law. The integrity and fairness of our tax administrative system relies upon the ability of our agency to maintain a strong, visible, robust enforcement presence directed to these and other similarly situated taxpayers when they are noncompliant. These important efforts also support honest taxpayers who voluntarily comply with their filing and reporting requirements.

The IRS has fewer front-line, experienced examiners in the field than at any time since World War II, and fewer employees than at any time since the 1970s. Advances in technology have been helpful but have not kept pace with the ever-increasing responsibilities and challenges facing the IRS. As a result, the IRS has for too long been unable to pursue meaningful, impactful examinations of large corporate and high-net-worth taxpayers to ensure they are paying their fair share. This creates a direct revenue loss from evaders and lessens the potential to deter others from pursuing a similar path of noncompliance. Every American should support a fair and impartial system of tax administration supported by an appropriately resourced tax administrator. In fact, the continued success of our country depends, in part, upon the success of the agency in appropriately, fairly and impartially enforcing the tax laws and in providing meaningful, impactful services to every American.

As an extremely proud American, I'm grateful for your support of the IRS and our dedicated employees. I cannot be forceful enough in emphasizing that these resources will be transformative for the agency and for American taxpayers. I am available to meet with you at your convenience to discuss the foregoing.

Thank you, Charles P. Rettig.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let's stop the misinformation and stop the fear-mongering.

I get it. My Republican friends do not want to lower the costs of prescription drugs for senior citizens. They don't want to do anything about climate change. They don't want to pay down the deficit or the debt. I get it. But we do, and the American people do, and I am proud of this legislation.

Waters), the distinguished chairwoman of the Committee on Financial Services.

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Mr. McGOVERN.

Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. This is an important bill, and, yes, it will bring down inflation.

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing here with basic economics, and unless we have multiple forces working simultaneously, we will not be able to bring down the costs of food particularly.

I raise this point because, as Chairwoman Waters pointed out, it does help in terms of prescription drugs. It brings down the cost of healthcare. Those reflect some of our basic needs. It helps our veterans with their healthcare.

Just as I stepped up and helped to deal with the step-up, we are having a problem with the front end of our food supply chain. We have 17,000 of our ranchers and small farmers going out of business every year.

Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, let me just say that this is very important, and it sets the stage for this bill working with our lower food and fuel costs to continue the process.

Finally, we will have a bill in September that addresses the front line of our supply chain that will also bring down costs and inflation.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to please stop the fearmongering and pandering to the extremists.

People are listening when people speak on this House floor. We had someone show up at an FBI field office with a nail gun. Enough of the misinformation.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a Washington Post piece titled, ``Climate change's impact intensifies as U.S. prepares to take action.'' [From The Washington Post, Aug. 11, 2022]

Climate Change's Impact Intensifies as U.S. Prepares To Take Action (By Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis and Sarah Kaplan)

For residents of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, the United States' recent success in clinching a major piece of climate change legislation may feel like too little, too late.

Over the past 40 years, as the world's largest historical emitter of greenhouses gases repeatedly failed to take significant action on the climate, the region surrounding Svalbard has warmed at least four times faster than the global average, according to significant research published Thursday.

The study suggests that warming in the Arctic is happening at a much faster rate than many scientists had expected. And while U.S. lawmakers this summer hashed out the details of a massive bill to speed their nation's shift toward cleaner energy--the culmination of months of deliberations--the new findings were just the latest visceral reminder that the planet's changing climate isn't waiting around for human action.

Recent studies on subjects including tree mortality in North America and evidence of weakening ice-shelves in Antarctica, combined with a stream of extreme weather events that include last month's European heat wave and torrential floods of late in Kentucky and South Korea, are providing steady evidence of global warming's intensifying impact on the planet.

The Arctic is where some of the shifts are most severe.

Svalbard, a cluster of Arctic islands famed for populations of polar bears, experienced its hottest June on record. A record 40 billion tons of ice from the archipelago had melted into the ocean by the end of July. Melting permafrost and unstable mountain slopes are threatening homes.

And that's just a sampling from a region that has warmed at an astounding rate--roughly 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1979.

``It's a really vulnerable environment in the Arctic, and seeing these numbers, it's worrying,'' said Antti Lipponen, a scientist with the Finnish Meteorological Institute who contributed to Thursday's peer-reviewed study published in Communications Earth & Environment.

The study provides sobering context for this week's expected passage by the House of Representatives of the Inflation Reduction Act. Experts say it is a landmark piece of legislation that will drive down U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases by incentivizing the purchase of electric vehicles and energy-efficient appliances, and a quickening pace of renewable-energy installations. Recent estimates suggest that the bill could lower U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by as much as a billion tons per year by the end of 2030.

But that's still tiny, compared with the more than 2 trillion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide gas that humanity has emitted since the year 1850--a figure that does not include any other warming gases, such as methane, which also is playing a major role in the world's temperature increases.

The Inflation Reduction Act will mark ``an historic moment'' for the United States--one that hasn't seemed plausible since President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore pushed for significant action in the 1990s, said Bill Hare, a climate scientist and the chief executive at Climate Analytics, a prominent science and policy institute. The bill could have a global ripple effect that spurs other countries to take more ambitious steps, Hare said.

Yet, Hare noted that the legislation does not bring the United States to President Biden's goal of cutting emissions at least in half by 2030 from their 2005 levels. It also includes provisions for additional oil and gas drilling and easing permitting processes for fossil fuel infrastructure-- contradicting findings from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the world must nearly eliminate coal and significantly slash the use of oil and natural gas to have a hope of avoiding catastrophic warming.

At the same time, Hare noted, there is an ongoing ``rush for gas'' in Africa and Australia ``that is quite inconsistent with the Paris agreement,'' the 2015 accord in which nations vowed to progressively lower their emissions to avoid dangerous levels of warming. And Russia's war in Ukraine has prompted a near-term scramble for fossil fuels even in relatively climate-conscious Europe.

These forces continue to push the world off track from meeting the Paris accord's most ambitious goal: limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Beyond that threshold, experts warn, the world faces a future of chronic food crises, escalating natural disasters and collapsing ecosystems.

Already, with the world have warmed by roughly 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit), deadly climate impacts are unfolding. Europe is broiling amid record-setting heat waves that have scorched crops and sparked wildfires. At least eight people were killed in Seoul as the heaviest rainfall in more than 100 years deluged the South Korean capital. Droughts have ravaged Mexico and contributed to a spiraling hunger crisis in East Africa. In the United States, people are dying of extreme heat, and in overwhelming Hoods and raging wildfires.

``This summer is just a horrorscape,'' said Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at Brown University and the lead author of the IPCC's most recent report on the science of climate change. ``And I know it won't be stopping in the near term.''

These disasters underscore what an exploding body of scientific research continues to show: that adverse climate change continues to outpace the plodding progress of political action. Even a historic investment such as the Inflation Reduction Act, Cobb said, is dwarfed by the scale of the crisis.

``There needs to be an infinite acceleration in frequency of this kind of legislation,'' she said. ``I think the planet is sending that message pretty loud and clear.'' Startling trends in the Arctic

Take the new Arctic study, which shows that the amplified warming occurring at the top of the planet, while long expected, exceeds what climate models predict by a noticeable margin. ``We suspect that either this is an extremely unlikely event, or the climate models systematically underestimate this Arctic amplification,'' Lipponen said of the rapid pace of Arctic warming.

The study takes as its starting point the year 1979 because of the availability of satellite data covering the Arctic. It defines the Arctic as the region above the Arctic Circle, and the authors acknowledge that if longer periods are considered or if the Arctic is defined more broadly, the rate of Arctic warming can appear somewhat less.

The warming is most concentrated to the east of Svalbard, in the Barents and Kara seas, regions that have also seen some of the fastest loss of Arctic sea ice. This ice has traditionally reflected a huge amount of the sun's heat back into space, keeping the planet cool. But as it vanishes from the sea surface, more sunlight is absorbed by the ocean--and then the warmer sea surface supports even less ice.

It is one of the most well-known climate ``feedbacks''--a phenomenon through which an effect of warming contributes to further warmth. Although scientists try to account for this feedback in the models they use to predict future climate change, they might be underestimating it. At the extreme, the new study finds some regions between Svalbard and the Russian island of Novaya Zemlya that are warming at a rate of over 1.25 degrees Celsius, or 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit, every decade,

That's massively disruptive to Arctic life, human and otherwise.

But interconnections among the ice, atmosphere, land and ocean mean that no part of the planet will be unaffected. As extreme temperatures bake the carbon-rich permafrost of northern landscapes, the thawing earth releases carbon dioxide gas.

Even as people begin to cut their emissions, nature's emissions have just begun. A sudden collapse

There's also concerning news from the other pole.

NASA scientists, led by Chad Greene, have derived a technique allowing them to study the enormous, sometimes country-size platforms of ice, called ice shelves, that encircle Antarctica. These are Earth's main defenses against massive sea level rise, acting as a bracing mechanism that holds back Antarctica's inland ice.

But the shelves are sustaining severe damage. Several, like Larsen A and B, have collapsed entirely. Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica's most worrying and perhaps most vulnerable spot, has lost about 2 trillion tons of ice from its ice shelf, which has dramatically retracted inland, new research found. The overall area lost from Antarctic ice shelves since 1997-- about 14,000 square miles--is a little bit larger than Maryland and represents about 2 percent of the total ice shelf area.

As a reminder of these ice shelves' vulnerability, the Conger Ice Shelf in East Antarctica--traditionally thought to be the coldest and most stable part of the ice sheet-- suddenly collapsed this year.

Conger was not very large for an Antarctic shelf--merely the size of a large city. But its unexpected collapse--which appears to have been triggered by a sudden period of unusual warmth--should prompt alarm, scientist say.

``It means that Antarctica's ice shelves are vulnerable, and they can still surprise us,'' NASA's Greene, who works at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said of the event. Greene's study, which appeared in Nature this week, was co- written with colleagues from NASA and the University of Tasmania.

``Conger counters a common expectation that ice shelf collapse should only occur after a long period of thinning and weakening,'' he continued. ``Conger tells us that ice shelves can collapse without any warning signs whatsoever.'' Imperiled northern forests

In another sign of the swiftly shifting climate, new research this week also details how tree species that dominate North American boreal forests--including firs, spruces and pines--are experiencing growing stress and a decline in the survival of saplings in response to rising temperatures and reduced rainfall.

The five-year, open-air experiment details how critical trees that have populated the southern edge of boreal forests--a key ecosystem for wildlife, timber production and for soaking up massive amounts of carbon dioxide--are suffering profound impacts as the world warms. But the species that are most likely to replace them, such as maples, are not poised to expand their distribution fast enough to fully replace the trees that are on their way toward dying out.

``The species that are most abundant there are much more vulnerable to climate change than I and other scientists had thought,'' said Peter Reich, a lead author of the study also published in Nature and a longtime forest ecology professor at the University of Minnesota.

If current trends continue, Reich said, swaths of boreal forests ``will be impoverished, and they might even fall apart or collapse'' over the next half-century unless warming slows. ``The take-home message for me is that a large part of boreal forests, one of the largest carbon sinks in the world, is probably going to take a pretty good hit in the next 40, 50 years, even in a best-case scenario,'' he said.

That's disturbing news, because Earth needs to gain forests, not lose them, as people try to employ every trick in the book to get carbon that is in the atmosphere back into plants, soils, rocks and even underground storage caverns.

Reich sees his most recent findings in a broader context: While the climate-focused legislation expected to pass in Congress this week is a positive, the impacts of climate change will continue to accelerate, and they will require more far-reaching action.

Reich called the Inflation Reduction Act a ``good first step'' but added that ``even in the most optimistic scenario, there's going to be a lot of pain and suffering.''

``It's going to take an economic toll on poor and rich alike in the future,'' he said. ``We shouldn't pat ourselves on the back and say, `Mission accomplished.' ''
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I don't see any other speakers on our side, so I yield to the gentleman for his closing, and I reserve the balance of my time.

The decision before us is simple. I don't know what my friends across the aisle find so off-putting about making historic investments in healthcare, cutting costs at pharmacy counters, combating climate change, slashing energy prices, and reducing the Federal deficit. Maybe they are just angry that we want to lower costs for the American people by making the wealthy pay their fair share. Or maybe it is because they know that this bill will put their Big Pharma and Big Oil buddies on notice.

Do you know what? I am proud of what we are finally doing here. I am proud that we are finally allowing drug prices to be negotiated to lower those costs. I am proud that we are extending the biggest expansion in healthcare coverage in a decade. I am proud that we are reducing future energy costs for thousands of families. I am proud that we are making the biggest investment to combat climate change ever.

Today, we are putting people over politics. People over politics, that is what Democrats are about. Today, we are delivering.

I know it took a while to get us to this point. It is a testament to the President and the Vice President. It is a testament to the Speaker of the House and to the Democrats on both sides of the Capitol that we are finally pushing this across the finish line. It is a testament to the climate activists, especially the young people who have been fighting for action. It is a testament to the senior activists, groups like AARP, that have been fighting tirelessly to get prescription drug costs down lower so seniors don't have to choose between their prescription drugs and paying their rent or their utility bills.

We have done it. We have moved the ball.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to seize this opportunity before us. Vote for this rule and the underlying legislation so that the American people can truly have a fair shot in the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the previous question.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Burgess is as follows: Amendment to House Resolution 1316

Strike all after the resolving clause and insert the following:

That immediately upon adoption of this resolution the Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the Senate amendment to the bill {H.R. 5376) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of S. Con. Res. 14. The first reading of the Senate amendment shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the Senate amendment are waived. General debate shall be confined to the Senate amendment and shall not exceed three hours equally divided among and controlled by the respective chairs and ranking minority members of the Committees on the Budget, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means, or their respective designees. After general debate the Senate amendment shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. No amendment to the Senate amendment shall be in order except the amendment specified in section 4 of this resolution. That amendment may be offered only by Representative Smith of Nebraska or his designee, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 10 minutes equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question. All points of order against that amendment are waived.

Sec. 2. Upon disposition of the proposed House amendment made in order in the first section of this resolution, the Committee of the Whole shall rise and report the Senate amendment to the House with such amendment as may have been adopted.

Sec. 3. (a) If the Committee of the Whole reports the Senate amendment back to the House with an amendment, the pending question shall be a motion that the House concur in the Senate amendment with such amendment. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening motion.

(b) If the Committee of the Whole reports the Senate amendment back to the House without amendment or the question of adoption referred to in subsection (a) fails, the pending question shall be a motion that the House concur in the Senate amendment. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening motion.

Sec. 4. The amendment referred to in the first section of this resolution is as follows:

In section 10301(1)(A) of the Senate amendment, strike clauses (ii) and (iii).

In section 10301 of the Senate amendment, strike paragraphs (2), (3), (4), and (5).

Sec. 5. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 5376.
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