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Floor Speech

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Mr. COMER. Madam Clerk, I rise on behalf of the Republican Party to nominate Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the 118th Congress.

For the past 2 years, one-party Democrat rule has resulted in multiple crises that are harming Americans without any oversight or accountability from this body. Americans are facing historic inflation, skyrocketing energy costs, the worst border crisis in American history, and surging fentanyl overdoses.

One of the reasons is that there has been no congressional oversight. There is no sense of urgency from this White House or the bureaucrats that populate this town to move. I want to talk about that. Oversight of our tax dollars is our responsibility.

We have all heard reports of hundreds of millions of dollars of potential waste and fraud in the unemployment insurance programs in all 50 States.

We have all heard reports of misuse of hundreds of millions of dollars of the stimulus money, of PPP loan funds, yet there has not been a single hearing in the House Oversight Committee about this.

This border crisis, we have made several trips on this side of the aisle to the border. We have listened to the Border Patrol agents. Their message is loud and clear. Under President Biden, the Border Patrol has become the welcoming committee. They are begging for help to do their job.

Law enforcement officers in all 50 States are begging Congress to force this administration to secure the border, to do something about the fentanyl crisis that plagues every community in every State in our great Nation.

Americans watched in dismay the debacle in Afghanistan, and Americans were left with many questions. How much equipment was left behind for the Taliban? How many Americans were left behind?

The origination of COVID-19--we all know someone personally who lost their life during COVID-19. They deserve answers to what really happened in that lab in Wuhan, China.

Those of us who have kids in the public school system can testify that our kids have lost a year of their education because of the forced virtual learning that so many of our schools put our children through during the COVID pandemic.

Congress ran the debt up at least $3 trillion in the name of COVID- 19. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, there has not been a single hearing in the Oversight Committee to deal with potential waste, fraud, or abuse of the COVID funds, not a single hearing.

We all know, despite what Dr. Fauci said, American tax dollars were sent through EcoHealth Alliance to the Wuhan lab in China for gain-of- function research, yet Dr. Fauci hasn't come before Congress in the House of Representatives.

The American people deserve answers on COVID-19, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given the Republican majority the tools necessary to make that possible.

The Democrats have spent the past 6 years investigating a President for potential wrongdoing in Ukraine and Russia. Let me say this loud and clear: The Republicans will also investigate a President for potential wrongdoing in Ukraine and Russia as well as China.

The American people have a lot of questions for Dr. Fauci, Christopher Wray, Merrick Garland, and Secretary Mayorkas. We can't ask those questions until we get organized and elect our Speaker.

The role of the Oversight Committee under Speaker Pelosi was a full- time committee to harass the previous President, a committee to advocate for wedge social issues--upon which the Oversight Committee had absolutely no jurisdiction--a committee totally uninterested in the American taxpayer.

In a Republican majority under Speaker Kevin McCarthy and many of my friends embedded in these negotiations, the House Oversight Committee with strong Members like Byron Donalds and Andy Biggs and Jim Jordan will return to its original mission of identifying waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in the Federal Government and holding unelected bureaucrats accountable.

In a Republican majority, under Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the forgotten working men's and women's voices will finally be heard and represented.

In a Republican majority under Speaker Kevin McCarthy, this broken Congress will finally be fixed, we will return to regular order, and we will drag those Senators kicking and screaming along with us every step of the way.

We will return to regular order. We will get the backs of the American taxpayers. This is the people's House. Let's get to work.

Madam Clerk, I am proud to nominate Kevin McCarthy to be the next Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

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