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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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, by the direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 242 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 242

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 24) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, 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''. All points of order against consideration of the joint resolution are waived. The joint resolution shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the joint resolution are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the joint resolution and on any amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees; and (2) one motion to recommit.

Sec. 2. Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 75) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, 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''. All points of order against consideration of the joint resolution are waived. The joint resolution shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the joint resolution are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the joint resolution and on any amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees; and (2) one motion to recommit.

Sec. 3. At any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, 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 bill (H.R. 1048) to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to strengthen disclosure requirements relating to foreign gifts and contracts, to prohibit contracts between institutions of higher education and certain foreign entities and countries of concern, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and Workforce or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. In lieu of the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Education and Workforce now printed in the bill, an amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 119-1 shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as the original bill for the purpose of further amendment under the five-minute rule and shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. No further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution. Each such further amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report 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 in the House or in the Committee of the Whole. All points of order against such further amendments are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill, as amended, to the House with such further amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any further amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse), 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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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, last night the Rules Committee met and produced a rule, House Resolution 242, providing for the House's consideration of several pieces of legislation: H.R. 1048, H.J. Res. 24, and H.J. Res. 75.

The rule provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 24 and H.J. Res. 75 under closed rules. The rule provides each with 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, or their designees. Additionally, the rule provides each a motion to recommit.

Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 1048 under a structured rule. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divide and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Education and Workforce or their designees. The rule also provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule before us today provides Congress with another opportunity to take a stand for consumer choice in America and take a stand against our Nation's foreign adversaries who continue to infiltrate colleges and universities across the Nation.

The DETERRENT Act, one of the bills considered under this rule, offers a necessary injection of transparency, accountability, and clarity to foreign gift reporting requirements for colleges and universities. It offers legislative prescriptions that are long overdue.

Under current law, section 117 of the Higher Education Act, colleges and universities must adhere to reporting requirements related to foreign donations. However, many fail to do so because of how weak the current law actually is.

A 2019 Senate report found that up to 70 percent of colleges and universities fail to comply with reporting requirements outlined in section 117 of the Higher Education Act. You heard that right. Up to 70 percent of colleges and universities fail to comply.

The DETERRENT Act updates section 117 to provide the very clarity and guidance that colleges and universities need to ensure they properly disclose foreign sources of funding and remain in compliance. It also adds a set of razor-sharp teeth to current law to hold colleges and universities accountable for failing to comply with section 117. Again, the DETERRENT Act offers legislative prescriptions that are long overdue.

The other two pieces of legislation under consideration via today's rule are two separate Congressional Review Act resolutions: H.J. Res. 24 and H.J. Res. 75. These two CRAs will strike down separate rules from the Department of Energy that were finalized under the Biden administration.

H.J. Res. 24 overturns a wrongheaded midnight rule from the Department of Energy relating to conservation standards for walk-in coolers and walk-in freezers. The Department of Energy issued this final rule a mere 2 days before Christmas last year. This is yet another gift from the Biden administration that nobody asked for.

This midnight rule piles on additional costs to the shoulders of Main Street businesses, while at the very same time takes a hatchet to consumer choice.

H.J. Res. 75 will overturn yet another wrongheaded rule from the Department of Energy related to conservation standards for commercial refrigerators, freezers, and refrigerator-freezers.

Like the previous rule from the Department of Energy that was just discussed, this rule is yet another example of the regulatory barrage that the Biden administration launched against Main Street as well as consumers. Thankfully, the regulatory warfare of the past 4 years is over. Republicans are back in charge.

Mr. Speaker, regulating this country into the ground benefits absolutely no one. It does not benefit Americans and their families. It does not benefit free enterprise and entrepreneurs. It does not benefit small businesses. Nobody wins when the Federal Government goes hog wild with regulations.

These two CRAs that the House will consider under this rule will help us break out the shovels and bury the Department of Energy's rules in the grave. They won't be missed.

Mr. Speaker, I spent time last week in my district, too, talking to people. I spend time every weekend talking to the people in my district. Do you know what they complain about the most? Unnecessary rules and regulations.

I met today with folks from the homebuilding industry. They can document that 25 percent of the rules related to homebuilding are unnecessary and drive up the costs of doing business for homes. We need new homes everywhere.

My colleagues are trying to make it look like what we are doing is frivolous. Mr. Speaker, this is far from frivolous. We in Congress are taking back our authority from unnamed, unaccountable bureaucrats who, in the dark of night, write unnecessary rules and regulations that burden the American people and drive up the cost of business and drive up the cost of products.

It is important for us to have further discussion on this critical Congressional Review Act that we are operating under. The Congressional Review Act agenda as a whole is important. My Democratic colleagues are falling into a repeated trap of copying and pasting comments these days. It is true of remarks for rule debate, as well. Every week, they come before this body to complain that we are undoing this or that regulation and that our collective time could be better spent elsewhere. Well, Republicans beg to differ.

The Congressional Review Act provides the American people the greatest possible say over the endless tide of regulations that always stem from Democratic administrations, and it is one of the greatest keepers of Congress' Article I authority. It is also upsetting in many ways that the Democrats complain we are doing these individual rules when they opposed the Midnight Rules Relief Act, where we could have taken care of these all in one fell swoop.

Let's not forget it was a Democrat, President Clinton, who signed the Congressional Review Act into law on a bipartisan basis, but our colleagues have obviously fallen far from those past overtures of consensus and common sense.

Republicans and President Trump are constantly emphasizing common sense, which is not very common from the other side of the aisle. Many Members of Congress provide lipservice to excessive rules and regulations, but the Congressional Review Act provides Congress the ability to put our money where our mouth is.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has tabulated that Federal regulations impose a cost of $1.9 trillion on the economy. This averages out to more than $14,000 imposed on every American household, a hidden regulatory tax that is eating up American paychecks.

The amount of rules far exceeds statutes by Congress. In 2022 alone, there were more than 3,100 rules issued by agencies compared to 247 laws passed by Congress. Yet, despite these figures, my Democratic colleagues can't seem to muster the courage to find one regulation that they believe is worthy of repeal.

The fact is that we have a very limited window under the Congressional Review Act to expunge these harmful rules, again, written by unnamed, unaccountable bureaucrats. These rules continue to drive up costs for American families and take away consumer choices.

I am so glad that we are taking up these CRA resolutions, ones that would protect consumer choice and competitive prices for freezers, refrigerators, and walk-in coolers.

To my colleagues on the other side, these may seem like small issues to you, but driving up the cost of appliances is a regressive approach that will hurt low-and middle-income Americans the most. Regulating every possible square inch of the economy in the name of your zealous green radicalism may give the coastal elites a sense of accomplishment, but it is doing real harm to Americans.

When the Congressional Review Act window is completed, we are going to be tabulating the cost of these regulations, as well as the votes to repeal them. It may seem like a little bit of cost here and there, but wait until you see the cumulative price. I hope my colleagues can heed the warning, but if the past is prologue, I won't be holding my breath.

Mr. Speaker, I have said it before. They are cutting and pasting and saying the same things over and over again. Fear-mongering is beneath the dignity of this body. That is not what we are here to do.

We have told our colleagues over and over, and they know this, but they refuse to acknowledge it. Nothing we have done this session has touched the sanctity of Social Security, nothing. In fact, President Trump has over and over again said that he will not touch the sanctity of Social Security. I have said that, and our colleagues have said that. We have done nothing.

Putting out false information to the American people is really unfortunate because it does frighten people. However, we have the facts on our side, Mr. Speaker, and the facts are that no bills we passed, the budget bill nor the Trump administration continuing resolution, hurt in any way Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, or any other program that the Federal Government has a contract with the American people on. It is time for our colleagues to stop saying that.

In fact, Republicans sued over ads that were being run in certain districts last week, and the Democrats had to pull those ads because the court ruled that they were not factual. They were the same kinds of things that are being said on this floor day after day.

Nonetheless, let's get back to the bill at hand: the rule that we are discussing and the underlying bill of that rule.

We have talked in the abstract, but I would like to drill down on the actual problems this bill would address and the specific failures of disclosure that this bill addresses.

A 2019 Senate report found that up to 70 percent of all institutions, these are postsecondary institutions, failed to comply with section 117 and those that do not comply often underreport.

Investigations by the Trump administration discovered that there was $6.5 billion in previously undisclosed gifts and contributions provided to so-called elite colleges, and this money came from countries that pose serious national security threats to our country.

In 2020, the Department estimated that schools had anonymously accepted $8.4 billion in foreign money over the past decade.

Let's keep in mind that the Biden administration did not utilize section 117 authorities at all in its 4 years. You heard that correctly, Mr. Speaker. In 4 years, the Biden administration did not enforce section 117. Despite the Trump administration's uncovering and investigating, the Biden administration didn't invoke section 117 at all, not once.

Let's turn to some more recent examples.

In April 2023, the former chair of Harvard University's chemistry and chemical biology department was sentenced to prison for lying about his affiliation with and income from the Wuhan University of Technology in Wuhan, China.

In July 2024, University of Maryland, College Park paid $500,000 for failing to disclose foreign funding from the Chinese companies of three researchers who simultaneously received Federal grants.

In September 2024, the Research Foundation of the State University of New York paid $313,574 after a scientist failed to disclose Chinese support.

In December 2024, the University of Delaware paid $700,000 for not disclosing that a faculty member receiving a NASA grant taught at a Chinese university.

A 2024 joint investigation between the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Committee on Education and Workforce found 21 joint U.S.-Chinese education institutes. A case study of two such institutes, UC Berkeley and Georgia Institute of Technology, revealed both a lack of proper disclosure under section 117 and research with clear military applications. Just those two schools alone totaled over $40 million in unreported contracts with China.

Clearly, Congress needs to do more to bring these unreported contracts, gifts, and funding sources of all sorts into the public eye. Taxpayer dollars are going to these universities. The public is owed the facts about where the rest of these funds are coming from.

Mr. Speaker, give me a break. We are to believe that something printed on the front page of The Washington Post is always true? Mr. Speaker, only 31 percent of the American people have any faith in the print media in this country, and they are very, very wise in that assessment. That is almost as low as the 27 percent of Americans who have faith in the Democratic Party right now.

I would like to clarify something else that was said. It was said that Republicans hate universities or there is a question as to why we hate universities. Mr. Speaker, we don't hate universities. We just want the universities to be honest, and we want them to be transparent. That is one of the bills we are discussing here today that this rule covers. It is very important that we have transparency throughout our government, and that is what Republicans want.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman and the gentlewoman seem to believe that the new personnel structure at the Department of Education couldn't possibly implement this bill, yet our colleagues failed to mention the fact that section 117 investigations weren't invoked a single time under the Biden administration. What were the people at the section 117 desk doing under President Biden's watch? They were collecting a check, apparently, or perhaps they were asleep at the switch, which is very fitting for the Biden era.

Mr. Speaker, President Trump has made it clear that the Department of Education will implement the laws that we pass here in Congress until such time as the full transition is made with the Department.

The number of personnel at the Department doesn't really matter if you don't have the political will to carry out the authorities. I know that the people in the Department of Education will carry out these authorities until such time as the Department does not exist, and at that time, whatever laws exist will be implemented by appropriate agencies and departments.

Whatever we do is going to be better than what was done under the Biden administration when this law was never enforced and should have been.

Mr. Speaker, I would characterize what we are doing here today as the people's business. We are the people's House. We are here to look after the American people in the best way that we can. We are fulfilling our constitutional duties. Unnamed, unaccountable bureaucrats pass rules and regulations in this city every day that they should not be passing.

Congress gave us the ability to stop them, and my colleagues are complaining that we are wasting time, that it is slow and inefficient to implement the Congressional Review Act. It is slow and inefficient, but we passed a bill called the Midnight Rules Relief Act primarily with Republican votes that would have allowed Congress to dispense with multiple rules and regulations under one bill. That bill is currently in the Senate, and if that would pass and be signed by the President, we could all save time and be much more efficient. We are doing the people's work today.

Mr. Speaker, being lectured to about how we feel about anti-Semitism on our side of the aisle is not something that I am used to hearing. It is the Republicans who have led the fight against anti-Semitism on our college campuses.

Mr. Speaker, we did make Democratic amendments in order in this rule. If my colleague had submitted his amendment in a more timely fashion and not just a few minutes before the Rules Committee met yesterday, we would have certainly had a chance to consider it. The deadline for submitting amendments was last Thursday, and that gives us an opportunity to review the amendments to see what can be put in.

Mr. Speaker, I urge our colleagues to follow the rules for deadlines because that is very important for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I am not really amenable to hearing people criticize us about our response to anti-Semitism when I fight it every day of my life. I am wearing my necklace that I wear every day, which says: ``Bring Them Home.'' I am wearing my yellow ribbon. Being told that I am not sympathetic to fighting anti-Semitism is not something that I take lightly.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, we are nearly at the end of this, and I don't believe that we need to have a colloquy. We each have an opportunity for closing comments.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are laser focused on governing and advancing legislation that addresses pertinent issues across the Nation. It is unfortunate that our colleagues do not agree that protecting Americans from unnecessary rules and regulations is not something that is important to them.

It is very important to us, and we are following regular order here. The Rules Committee is represented by me, the chair, on this important rule today. That is significant.

The three pieces of legislation that will be considered under the rule that will be debated tomorrow are part of our governing efforts and are in alignment with the mandate that Americans gave us last November.

Shielding consumer choice and combating foreign influence within higher education are issues that Americans care about. We have heard their concerns, and we are addressing them yet again this week.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question, ``yes'' on the rule, and then, later, ``yes'' on the bills that will be presented as a result of this rule.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Neguse is as follows: An Amendment to H. Res. 242 Offered By Mr. Neguse of Colorado

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 4. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the bill (H.R. 433) to prohibit funds made available to the Department of Education by previous Appropriations Acts from being used for any activity relating to implementing a reorganization of the Department, and for other purposes. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and Workforce or their respective designees; and (2) one motion to recommit.

Sec. 5. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 433.
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