Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on March Providing for Consideration of H.R. Stopping Home Office Work's Unproductive Problems Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Pandemic is Over Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Freedom for Health Care Workers Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I would note that last week, for the first time in 7 years, we were able to offer amendments on the floor of this body with a modified open rule, and for the first time in 10 years, we were able to amend a bill other than an appropriations measure.

I believe the gentleman doth protest too much. The bills we are talking about here are one page each, and one is six pages. We have had these bills out there for 72 hours. They have been publicly available.

When the gentleman asks why we are doing this so quickly, I will tell you why. Because I am not going to look at another nurse, another doctor, another healthcare practitioner in my district who is begging to go do his or her job, to go care for the American people that they want to take care of, and have to look at them and say: You can't do it because the Federal Government is telling you that you can't, without any basis in science, without any basis rooted in any defense whatsoever.

Keep this in mind:

The OSHA mandate put forward by this President: Struck down by SCOTUS.

The Federal employee mandate: Enjoined by the Fifth Circuit.

Federal contractor mandate: Enjoined by Federal courts.

Head Start mandate: Enjoined by Federal courts.

The CMS mandate remaining in effect is making it impossible for some of the men and women who want to serve their constituents and take care of them to be able to do so.

Let's just keep in mind what we are operating under, something that dates back to September 2021, keeping in mind what Dr. Walensky, the CDC Director, said in August 2021: ``What they can't do anymore is prevent transmission,'' ``they'' being the vaccines.

The CDC's own website right now says that the vaccine does nothing for transmission, zero. Yet, that was the whole basis for the vaccine mandates, the whole reason given. To have the power of the Federal Government unconstitutionally and wrongly stepping into the purview of American people wanting to carry out their livelihoods, and you have to look them in the eye--you being us, broadly--look them in the eye and say: Sorry, you can't do your job. You can't do your job because some bureaucrats in Washington said so.

Now, the President of the United States, lo and behold, says: Oh, the groundhog has come out, and now, on May 11, suddenly, we can go ahead and end these emergencies. We can go ahead and end the public health emergencies, end the national emergencies so that we can move on, on May 11, the magic date that the groundhog has doth spoken.

Right now, the American people are dying for us to actually stop the madness out of this town interfering with their lives, and the Republican Party, the majority in the House, is now doing that.

With all due respect to the ranking member on the Rules Committee, this rule is allowing for us to bring forward four very simple measures. They don't need a whole lot of going back and forth in debate and discussion. They are four simple measures. We debated them last night. They have been put forward. They are one-page bills. The American people understand what those bills say, that these emergencies need to end.

Let me be clear: I am an equal opportunity basher of national emergencies that have been in existence for too long that shouldn't be here. I introduced legislation when President Trump was President, saying that we should end 40 years of national emergencies, the ARTICLE ONE Act Senator Mike Lee and I introduced.

I invite my Democratic colleagues to just jump across the aisle. Let's work together to end 40-year-old national emergencies because we have no business carrying out business under emergency.

Why aren't we praising and applauding the end of the emergencies? Why aren't we saying this is a great day in America that we can move forward?

One last point on the efficacy of the vaccines. There are enormous questions that have been raised about the vaccines. There are Americans that are around this country that are saying: I don't want to have something put into my arm through the force of government mandate.

Why are we stepping over that for a vaccine that has been admitted by our own CDC Director, by the CDC, by the NIH, to do nothing to stop transmission?

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not want to address that. They want to hide behind ``the science.'' They want to say Congress has no role to step over into the executive branch and say, wait a minute, on behalf of the American people, enough. But today, the Republican majority is saying enough.

Madam Speaker, we should support this rule.

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