Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Department of Energy Relating to ``Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Walk-In Coolers and Walk-In Freezers''; Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy Relating to ``Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Commercial Refrigerators, Freezers, and Refrigerator-freezers''; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Chairwoman Foxx, for the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today yet again to expose to the American public the misplaced priorities of the House Republican Conference and the Republican majority here in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority gaveled us out of session 11 days ago. Here we are back in Washington, D.C. Of course, for us, it feels a lot like ``Groundhog Day'' because, notwithstanding all the economic turmoil, the conflicts across the globe, the various ways in which this administration is making life harder for the people of Colorado, for folks across our country, notwithstanding all the challenges that our country is grappling with, House Republicans have decided to spend this week debating what? Three bills: walk-in freezers, commercial refrigerators, and giving new responsibilities to a Department, the Department of Education, that they are seeking to dismantle, that they want to abolish. That is what we are debating here today, Mr. Speaker.

I listened to every word of the chairwoman's address outlining every component of the bills that we are considering, but for folks who are watching, for those who have graced us with their presence in the gallery, please understand the three bills: one regulating commercial refrigerators; another regulating walk-in refrigerators; and the third, a bill to give new responsibilities to an agency that they are seeking to destroy. That is it. That is what we are debating this week in Washington, D.C.

If folks in the gallery stay here through the week, that is what you will hear. You will hear a debate today, a debate tomorrow, and a debate on Thursday on those three bills.

I suspect that the folks who are watching this debate, Mr. Speaker, would agree with me that there are better things for us to spend our time on here in Washington, D.C., than debating walk-in refrigerators. Seriously? I don't know, maybe for Madam Chairwoman it is really important to the people of North Carolina. She may have a lot of constituents who have walk-in refrigerators. I don't know.

For me, I can tell you I just spent a week in Colorado, in the rural communities that I represent, hosting townhalls, visiting with folks in my community, constituents, ranchers, farmers, teachers, working families, packed townhalls. At those townhalls, do you know the one subject that no one brought up? Commercial refrigerators. It never came up.

At a townhall that we held 3 days ago with over a thousand people in my community, no one at that townhall approached me and said: ``Congressman, can you please go back to Washington and pass legislation on commercial refrigerators? It is really important.'' Nobody said that.

They are really concerned about the Republicans' plan to gut Medicaid. They are pretty concerned about the Republican plans to dismantle Social Security offices across the country. They are deeply concerned about reports that this administration is going to end phone line customer service for senior citizens who are relying on Social Security. They are pretty concerned about a Secretary of Defense who apparently is sending out war plans on unencrypted messaging apps, putting our national security at risk.

Those are the topics that my constituents care about. Commercial refrigerators is not one of them.

You can tell the frustration, I suppose, Mr. Speaker, in my voice. It is the frustration borne from having to come to the floor every week and debate appliances. Can the Republicans just put all the appliance bills in for consideration for 1 week? We can just do them all and then be done with it, and we can move on to having a debate about defending Medicaid, defending healthcare for the millions of Americans who rely on it. Is that too much to ask?

I just would beg of the chairwoman, I understand this is an important priority to her. It is important to the Republican Conference. We get it. They are obsessed with appliance regulation. After this week, can we please just be done with these appliance resolutions and get back to debating the issues that the American people expect us to debate?

Mr. Speaker, just to be clear, I am not trying to make their legislation on commercial freezers look frivolous. It is frivolous. The American people understand that. They get it. Maybe there are a lot of people in the chairwoman's district buying commercial freezers. Again, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you it is not the top priority of the people whom I represent in northern Colorado and in western Colorado. It is far from it.

Now, I must say, I did hear with interest the chairwoman reference visiting with her constituents. I would simply say that my understanding was that the chairwoman doesn't do townhalls. I think she recently said in an interview that she doesn't do townhalls because they are an opportunity for constituents to yell at their Congressperson. So I find it of great interest.

I would just encourage the chairwoman and every member of the Republican caucus to do a townhall. They are nothing to be afraid of. It is a great opportunity to visit with our constituents. Perhaps if the gentlewoman would do that, she would come away with the same conclusion that I did, which is that the legislation we are considering today is a waste of time and grossly disproportionate to the priorities of the American people. It is simple.

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Mr. NEGUSE. Parliamentary Inquiry

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Mr. NEGUSE. First, I just want to note, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps it is a point of information for your purposes, you admonished the prior speaker, the ranking member, for not making personalities, or rather making personalities against the President. My understanding is the only person he referenced throughout the duration of his speech was Elon Musk. So I am not sure if that was an accident on your part or if that is intentional, and perhaps the Speaker can clarify because I don't believe he referenced President Trump, but apparently you mistook his references to Elon Musk as a reference to the President.

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Mr. NEGUSE. I would just say, Mr. Speaker, that would be an important thing to clarify in the House moving forward that references to Elon Musk will be treated as references to the President of the United States, which is apparently what the Speaker is doing, that if someone references Elon Musk, that the Chair, that the Speaker will treat it as though we are referencing the President.

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Mr. NEGUSE. It is perhaps a point of clarification for a future time. I will say this, before yielding some time to the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico, the chairwoman made reference to supposed fear-mongering regarding Social Security. It isn't fear-mongering. It is on the front page of The Washington Post.

I will read you the quote: ``Elon Musk put a big target on the Social Security Administration in the first weeks of the Trump administration.''

So it is not fear-mongering to share on this floor the concerns that have been articulated by our constituents regarding the dismantling of the Social Security Administration that President Trump and his administration is engaged in. It happens to be the truth.

Leger Fernandez), who is a member of the Rules Committee.

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, we are in a constitutional crisis. President Trump and his co-president Musk apparently are blatantly rejecting the role of the courts while Republicans in Congress are too scared to stand up for their constituents or the Constitution.

When we talk about Social Security, the idea I kept hearing from the other side is: We have done nothing to Social Security.

Yes, they have. Republicans have done nothing to stand up for their constituents who are worried about their Social Security check. They are appropriately worried about their Social Security check because Republicans have done nothing to complain about the executive cutting the workers at the Social Security Administration. Republicans have done nothing to complain about the closing of offices at Social Security or done nothing about the idea that a person can no longer call Social Security. Republicans have done nothing to reject Project 2025 cuts and proposals to cut Social Security.

Social Security is also important, Mr. Speaker, because we are in a cost-of-living crisis. Prices for groceries, food, and housing are rising thanks to Trump's policies and Trump's tariffs.

What are House Republicans doing in response to these crises? Bringing appliance bills, appliance bills which show how out of touch they are with their constituents. These appliance bills, by the way, have consequences. They raise costs. They raise costs so that American small businesses will pay for utilities so that big companies, those big utility companies, can continue racking up more profit.

Republicans seem to always stand with the greediest corporations and not the consumers.

For those few Republicans--not our colleague here--but those few Republicans who are willing to hold townhalls, they are hearing a lot of anger about Medicaid and Social Security cuts, but not much about refrigerators, are they?

What do they say in Iowa?

In Iowa they said that Trump and Musk are ``moving very rapidly toward a dictatorship and an oligarchy.''

This is in Iowa.

In Wyoming, farmers shared with their Representative that Trump's cuts will limit the resources they need to deal with the devastating impacts of drought.

H.R. 1048 under this rule continues Trump's and Republicans' attacks on higher education and the lifesaving and innovative research conducted at our universities. I don't know why they hate our universities so much, because we already have a law that requires disclosures of foreign gifts. However, this Republican bill will have impossible burdens of reporting to a Department that they want to eliminate.

What are we doing here with a bill that goes to a Department they want to eliminate?

This bill shows how out of touch Republicans are, once again, to Americans' concerns because a majority of Americans want to keep the Department of Education that funds programs for kids with disabilities, provides student loans, and makes sure poorer schools can hire enough teachers.

If Republicans were truly worried about national security, they would look at how this administration is destroying America's leadership abroad, from having Signal chats about our national security to everything else they are doing.

I will end with this Mr. Speaker: While Republicans' billionaire class might not need public schools for their kids, the kids in my district do.

I understand the chairwoman apparently now is saying she won't believe The Washington Post articles. I wonder if she will believe the sentiments of her own colleagues? I believe it was Mr. Lawler from New York who a week ago was bemoaning online the closure of one of the Social Security offices in his own district.

What are we talking about? These offices are being closed in North Carolina, as well, I believe. This isn't some fictional, imaginary hypothetical. The Social Security Administration is closing down offices. Wait times are getting longer.

I just would urge my colleague, whom I have great respect for, to visit with her own constituents, and I suspect that they would share the same frustrations that I am articulating here on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 433, the Department of Education Protection Act, which would shield the U.S. Department of Education from efforts to dismantle the agency and ensure that every student receives the education they deserve.

As my colleague Representative Leger Fernandez already articulated, it makes no sense that Republicans have pushed forward a bill today to give more responsibilities to an agency that they are trying actively to dismantle.

Nonetheless, there is a way forward to save teachers and students and rural schools across the country, including back in Colorado, and that is by ensuring that the Department of Education Protection Act receives a vote here on the House floor.

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Mr. NEGUSE. Mrs. Hayes is the author and the sponsor of this legislation, a former public schoolteacher, and a National Teacher of the Year. She is someone who has spent her life serving the students, the young folks, and the working families of the people of Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, some of this can get lost in translation, so I will try make this very simple. The gentlewoman, who I respect, wants to abolish the Department of Education. She is unabashed about that. She has voted to close the Department of Education. She supports the President's efforts to dismantle the Department of Education. I presume she supports the President's efforts to reduce the workforce by half. Mr. Speaker, 50 percent of the personnel in the Department of Education are now gone on administrative leave.

Yet, here we are today, debating her bill to create new responsibilities, new requirements, new duties on the very department she seeks to destroy.

What are we doing here?

If they don't want the Department of Education--again, that is their view; they don't want a Federal Department of Education; they are not hiding that--why are we debating a bill to give the Department of Education more power? It is insanity, insanity.

Stansbury).

Mr. Speaker, I simply echo the sentiments that have been expressed by so many of my colleagues that the policies that Republicans are pursuing here on the House floor are not the priorities of the American people. I think we all would be far better served if we debated the actual issues of the day, such as the challenges that Representative Stansbury and so many others described so eloquently.

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion about townhalls. I don't quite understand, and perhaps the gentlewoman would be willing to expound upon her opposition and the opposition of so many of my colleagues in the Republican Conference to doing townhalls.

I have held 100 townhalls over the course of the time that I have had the privilege of representing Colorado in the United States Congress. We have held them everywhere in my district. I represent communities and counties that voted for Donald Trump, and I have held townhalls and will continue to hold townhalls in those communities because my obligation is to represent every person in western Colorado and in northern Colorado in the district that I serve.

My job is to be accessible to my constituents regardless of their political beliefs. I understand that Republicans are scared right now to host townhalls because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know that the policies that the majority is pursuing in Washington are deeply unpopular.

If I spent my week in Washington pushing bills on commercial freezers, I would probably be a little nervous to do a townhall back in my district, too. I get it. I understand where Republicans are coming from. However, maybe the way forward is to spend our time in Washington working on matters of substance. If we do that, I can promise Republicans that their townhalls will go just fine. They will go just fine.

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse) for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my disappointment that my commonsense amendment to the DETERRENT Act was rejected yesterday in the Rules Committee by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

My amendment would have distinguished between benign donations from friendly democratic countries and donations from potential adversarial, undemocratic states.

My amendment would enact strict oversight on funding from regimes seeking to manipulate students on university campuses and to spread hate, particularly anti-Semitism, on those campuses for their own agendas.

My amendment would have significantly expanded the list of countries whose donations the universities would be required to disclose, including a number of countries not included in the DETERRENT Act that have given billions and billions of dollars to universities in recent years.

More importantly, my amendment would also require that universities disclose the detailed terms and conditions that they agreed to in return for the foreign donation from this expanded list of countries, critically revealing whether those foreign donations come with strings attached that can foment antidemocratic influences on campuses.

Instead, this bill hampers universities' abilities to engage in important educational programming in conjunction with our democratic allies while failing to confront the real problem of antidemocratic and anti-Semitic foreign influence.

Mr. Speaker, it is a shame that we could not work in a bipartisan way to make this bill better and to address the root issue that both sides of the aisle are trying to address, which is the potential nefarious foreign influence on college campuses from a list of countries far greater than the four countries of concern outlined in the DETERRENT Act.

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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, I don't know if the gentleman from New York (Mr. Goldman) is still here, but I will relay the substance of the chairwoman's remarks regarding his amendment and the timing of his amendment submission.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close. I have only a few minutes of debate left. As the chairwoman said, this is the people's House, a House that I have great reverence for.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might, via the Speaker, make a request to the chairwoman to engage in a brief colloquy. Perhaps that could provide the viewing public a sense of real debate, as opposed to us just giving speeches.

Mr. Speaker, with much respect to the gentlewoman, I think that is a shame because I think the American people ought to be able to hear a fair and full exchange of views in an active debate. I think that is far more present when we actually have a colloquy as opposed to just making speeches.

I simply say that the question I was going to pose to the chairwoman is that she has made clear that these three bills, the bill to give more power to the Department of Education that she seeks to dismantle and bills on the regulation standards for refrigerant walk-in freezers and commercial refrigerators, that those bills are very important to the House Republican Conference, that they are a top priority. Interestingly enough, not a single Republican Member of Congress in the last hour that we have had allocated for debate has indulged us with their presence today to come to the floor and extol the virtues of the legislation that Republicans have pursued on commercial refrigerators. I wonder why. It is probably not an accident.

Mr. Speaker, I can't imagine that there are a lot of Republican Members of Congress who wanted to sign up to come do floor debate today on commercial refrigerators. In light of the biggest mishap on a national security front in decades and in light of all of the challenges that our country is facing, debating refrigerators apparently was not something that many of my chairwoman's colleagues wanted to do.

Nonetheless, I am grateful that we have had an opportunity to share with the American public and give them full transparency into how the Republicans have decided to spend their time and their majority here in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we will proceed with a few more days of debate. I am sure Republicans will pass their bills on commercial freezers and walk-in refrigerators, and then we will be back next week. One can only hope that Republicans will have seen the light by then and that we won't be up for appliance week number 4, 5, 6, or whatever it is now.

Mr. Speaker, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to actually debate substantive issues, there is an easy way to do it: opposing the previous question and opposing the rule and the underlying bills so that the House can get back to doing the people's work.

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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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