Providing for Consideration of H.R. Don't Mess with My Home Appliances Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Homeowner Energy Freedom Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith) for yielding the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, you have to love these Republicans. I mean, they have no problems with subsidies for Big Oil, Big Tech, Big Ag, or big tax cuts for multimillionaires and billionaires. Yet, when it comes to helping consumers afford electric water heaters or stoves, all of a sudden, they have a big problem.

I just don't get it. I mean, that is where their attention is, on going after consumers, making life more difficult for everyday working families.

Mr. Speaker, tonight is the State of the Union, and I am sure that the President is going to come here and paint a very rosy picture, indeed. He is going to say that the economy is great and that tariffs are working. He is ending wars, not starting them. He is going to spew all kinds of nonsense.

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that the facts are the facts. The fact is that his economy sucks.

I just spent the last week at grocery stores, senior centers, and townhalls. I went to food pantries and Boys and Girls Clubs across Massachusetts. I spoke with people who are working hard and getting crushed.

They are paying more for food, more for rent, more for utilities, and more for healthcare. They are struggling, and they are watching Donald Trump pump the rich with more tax breaks and more giveaways to the billionaire Epstein class while the rest of America struggles just to get by.

With all of that going on, with families begging for relief, this is what Republicans bring to the House floor today: more bills about appliances. This Republican majority has brought up more than a dozen appliance bills. The lobbyists for the appliance manufacturers sure must be getting paid well.

The worst part of these bills is that these bills would actually raise utility costs for consumers. Who asked for that? I mean, one of these bills is H.R. 4626, the Home Appliance Protection and Affordability Act. That is not the original name of the bill, though. No. The original name is the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act.

Republicans changed the name to slap the word ``affordability'' on there, but they didn't change a single word of the actual bill. All of this is slapping on a word to pretend that they are doing something. It is window dressing masquerading as an attempt to help real people because Trump and the Republicans know that their economy sucks.

They know that the public perception is that all they care about is helping Wall Street to get richer and helping billionaire CEOs rip people off because, to be honest with you, Mr. Speaker, that is all they seem to care about.

Guess what. These bills are worse than doing nothing. They would make utility costs go up. I mean, Republicans are trying to gut popular energy and cost-saving programs at the Department of Energy. They would lower efficiency standards and prevent consumers from choosing the best products for their households.

Mr. Speaker, last night in the Rules Committee, I was chastised by the gentleman from Virginia, who was upset with me because I was asking questions that he said were too hard. He said that the witness wasn't prepared and that I was cross-examining him. He said that my questions weren't fair.

Mr. Speaker, let me explain for the gentleman why I asked so many questions last night. It is because this House has been turned into a place where you can hardly ask questions at all.

This majority locks down the process, shuts out amendments, shuts down debate, and then acts offended when somebody tries to get a straight answer about what the hell is going on around here.

This rule that we are debating today officially breaks the record. This is now the most closed Congress ever--ever, in the history of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, 117 times in this Congress, Republicans have advanced bills to the floor with no amendments allowed, including today. They just broke the record for the whole Congress, and we are barely halfway through.

Mr. Speaker, that is insane. More than 8 out of 10 times when we consider legislation under this majority, Republicans lock down the floor and allow zero amendments--zero. That is stunning.

Mr. Speaker, that is a stunning, stunning break from normal.

Speaker Johnson promised transparency and more debate, but the numbers tell a different story. Under Speaker Johnson, the Rules Committee has helped to block 82 percent of all amendments this Congress--82 percent. That is over 3,300 amendments blocked so far in just over a year, including 95 percent of Democratic amendments, 57 percent of Republican amendments, and even 63 percent of bipartisan amendments. Think of that. When a Democrat and a Republican decide to work together to improve a bill, they are told no.

Mr. Speaker, that is the exact opposite of what the people in this country are asking for.

Republicans blocked votes on tariffs. We had to move Heaven and Earth. We had to finally force a vote after months and months of getting blocked.

Republicans blocked votes on releasing the Epstein files. I mean, they sent us home early because they didn't want the Rules Committee to take another vote on whether or not to release the Epstein files. We had to use a discharge petition. That is unprecedented. We had to go around the Speaker of the House simply to get a vote.

Right on brand, Republicans blocked votes on thousands and thousands of amendments designed to make bills better. Under this Republican majority, the Rules Committee has basically become a place where democracy goes to die.

Mr. Speaker, what is this all about? What is this all about? It is all about turning Congress into a giant rubberstamp for you know who: Donald Trump. Nobody in the House of Representatives is allowed to change a comma unless Donald Trump gives Mike Johnson permission. It is embarrassing. It is embarrassing, and it is a stain on this institution.

Clearly, the Speaker of the House thinks that he works for the White House and not for the American people. He has diminished Congress and turned his position into a pathetic echo of what it used to be. Shame on him, and shame on Republicans who go along to get along, even though their amendments are blocked and their voices continue to be silenced by their own leadership.

This is now the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America, and it is happening right here, right now, in real time, because Republicans want to protect Donald Trump by blocking votes instead of doing the job that they were elected to do. It is pathetic.

Mr. Speaker, this economy is a mess. Look at the polls. There is like a 30 percent approval rating for this President. People are hurting. They want us to be on the floor legislating. They want us to be deliberating. They want us to be finding solutions, and that means voting on amendments to try to get this economy on the right track. Instead, we are shut out. Everybody is shut out because they are all too afraid of the guy in the White House.

Mr. Speaker, I am really at a loss for words. I am just trying to contain myself because I have never heard such nonsense in my life. The gentleman speaks about Thomas Jefferson. He is looking at us right up here, and he is rolling over in his grave right now at the way this House is being run. My friend should be ashamed of it. They should be ashamed of it.

He is talking about the amendments that were offered in the Committee on Rules last night were dilatory. Let me read one of them. It says: ``This act, and the amendments made by this act, shall not take effect until the date on which the Secretary of Energy publishes a certification that the implementation of this act would not result in increased costs for homeowners and renters.''

What the hell is dilatory about that?

The yada, yada, yada that the gentleman is talking about is affordability.

The gentleman can say as many times as he wants, and my Republican friends can say as many times as they want, that somehow this economy is great and doing much better. That doesn't make it so. Look at the polls. The majority of the American people think that they are driving this economy into a ditch.

People told me this last week when I was going throughout my district: What the hell is going on in Washington? Because all the Congress and this President seem to care about are the well-off and the well-connected, the Epstein class, if you will, the people who have lots of money, the big corporations. They get protected. They get tax breaks. They get all the benefits. The rest of the people in this country get screwed. They are sick of it. That is why they are losing so miserably in the polls. People have had it.

To come onto this floor and defend not only this lousy economy, but to defend this rotten process, I have got to say, I have heard a lot. This is indefensible. Again, if they don't like the amendments that are being brought to the Committee on Rules, vote against them when they come to the floor. If they don't want to debate, then stay in their office; but let the rest of us be able to debate.

Now, they have crossed the line. This is the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America, and all they can say is: Well, we have an obligation to block amendments to the Committee on Rules I guess that we don't like, that are inconvenient.

I don't know what the hell is wrong with saying to the Secretary of Energy: If these bills add costs to average consumers, then we shouldn't move forward with them. That is all. If the Secretary of Energy says: Oh, they won't, then they can move forward with them.

That is what the gentleman is calling dilatory. I mean, God Almighty, what is going on around here? People are disgusted with what is happening here in Washington, and they have a right to be disgusted.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 7615, the RELIEF Act, to force the Trump administration to give back the money it illegally stole through its unconstitutional tariff scheme.

Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of last year, President Trump has declared a series of bogus emergencies as a pretext to pickpocket more than $165 billion from American consumers and businesses of all sizes, including small businesses, family-owned businesses, farmers, and everyday citizens. In response, several small businesses sued the President, arguing that the President does not have the power to arbitrarily tax American businesses and consumers without an act of Congress.

Last Friday the Supreme Court finally--finally--ruled that a large portion of the President's tariffs are unconstitutional. While, as Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his majority opinion that the power to impose tariffs is supposed to be controlled by Congress, Speaker Johnson and the vast majority of congressional Republicans have continued to rubberstamp President Trump's disastrous tariffs, even though they know that they are raising the prices of groceries, housing, and other everyday goods.

In response to the Court's decision, President Trump lashed out at the Justices who ruled against him, even the ones he himself appointed, saying they are: ``unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution,'' ``swayed by foreign interests,'' and ``an embarrassment to their families.''

Who the hell speaks like this? What other President talked like this? It is shocking that anyone can defend these shameful words by this President.

Department of Justice lawyers, in briefs filed during the case, promised more than once to repay the tariffs if they lost. We have that in writing. I am happy to share it with the gentleman and any of my Republican colleagues. They stated: ``If tariffs imposed on plaintiffs during these appeals are ultimately held unlawful, then the government will issue refunds to plaintiffs, including any post-judgment interest that accrues.'' That is the Justice Department's own legal brief.

Well, Mr. Speaker, the Trump administration lost. They lost big time. Now the President is trying hard to break yet another promise.

Get this, when he was asked about the refunds, do you know what the President said? He said, ``. . . We will end up being in court for the next 5 years.'' Again, not trying to help average consumers or small businesses. We are going to stay in court so you don't get anything. You don't get a refund.

However, if the Republicans were to join with Democrats to defeat the previous question, we will offer an up-or-down vote to require the Trump administration to pay out tariff refunds that he owes in the next 90 days. Voting with us is a vote to ensure that President Trump follows through on earlier promises to give back the stolen money.

The main issue that Americans are struggling with is the affordability crisis. People cannot afford food. They cannot afford rent. They cannot afford utility bills, and the basics. Tariffs are one of the primary causes of these rising prices.

Republicans are always willing to bend over backward to give tax breaks to their multimillionaire and -billionaire donors, but when we talk about helping regular people, Republicans are nowhere to be found. It is never too late to do the right thing.

I urge my colleagues to work with Democrats to ensure that the money that was illegally stolen is returned, that in the future we return the money directly into the pockets of working families who have had to pay more for everything because of these damn tariffs.

Mr. Speaker, I can hardly believe my ears. The gentleman said that he wants to legislate. He could have fooled me, because as far as I can tell, the gentleman has voted for virtually every single, if not every single, closed rule that has come out of the Rules Committee. There were 117 closed rules he voted for in the Committee and on the floor. There were 117 closed rules, no amendments allowed at all, no amendments, and a lot of them were germane.

Now we are hearing that, oh, well, you know, we are just trying to manage this House better. My Republican friends now regularly do not even call for amendments. They basically let everybody know that whatever you submit, we are going to turn away and we are going to block because we don't want any amendments at all.

Really?

Is that the process that my friends are defending?

I think I just heard the gentleman say for several minutes a lot of words basically trying to justify why the American people don't deserve a refund as a result of Trump's illegal tariffs. Okay. If that is their position, fine. I actually think the American people deserve a refund. They deserve a check. Small businesses deserve a check from this President's illegal tariffs. That is what the Supreme Court has said. They are illegal.

The gentleman has talked a lot about appliances as if that is what is on everybody's mind. I don't know about his district, but when I do townhalls, the first words out of my constituents' mouths are not showerheads or water heaters or stoves. They are worried about prices rising all across the board.

They also want us to talk about real, serious challenges that we are faced with here, not just issues of affordability. That is because right now, right as we gather here today talking about appliances, President Trump is ramping up toward a strike against Iran, a war.

Reports say that his national security team is telling him that the U.S. military could be ready to hit Iran within days, and they are openly talking about a massive, weeks-long campaign.

Why?

They are suddenly claiming that Iran is a mere week away from having the material to make a nuclear bomb.

It sounds like what happened last year if you remember, Mr. Speaker. In June of 2025, Trump said that Iran was weeks away from getting a nuke.

What happened?

The administration proceeded to bomb Iran.

The White House spent the entirety of last summer telling the world that Iran's nuclear facilities had been obliterated in a strike that the U.S. conducted. Those aren't my words. Those are the words of this administration. They said ``obliterated'' over and over and over again--obliterated. It is still up on their website.

So which is it?

If Iran's nuclear facilities were obliterated, then why are we sprinting toward another war based on false claims about weapons of mass destruction?

They weren't obliterated. If that was all political spin to make their strike sound more successful than it actually was, then why should anyone trust the judgment of the people now pushing us toward escalation?

This is how disasters start, not with a clear plan, not with honesty, but with a President who thinks foreign policy is a reality show and human lives are props.

Let's be clear about what is at stake: Americans in uniform, American families, a region that could explode, an economy in which working people are already struggling to survive, and where a wider war could set energy prices soaring and make life even more expensive for everybody back home.

Congress is not a rubberstamp. It should not be a rubberstamp. The Constitution does not give one man the power to drag this country into another war on a whim.

De-escalate. Get serious about diplomacy. Tell the truth. If the President thinks he needs a war, then he can come to the people's House, and he can make his case out in the open where the American people can see, hear, and judge it. Then, let's wait to let us vote on it, because it is Congress, after all, who decides where and when to go to war. It is not the President; it is Congress that is to decide that.

Again, given what is potentially about to happen, you would think that we would want to have that debate here, Mr. Speaker. I don't care which side, maybe even if you want to go to war with Iran, Mr. Speaker, you would think you would want to have that debate to convince the American people that it is the right thing to do. Mr. Speaker, you would think you would want to go on record as voting for that war. I think it is a terrible mistake, but I would think if you felt the opposite, Mr. Speaker, you would want to be transparent and open about it.

Guess what. Nothing.

We are debating phony bills on appliances, on stupid stuff, when people are hurting every day because they can't afford the basics.

We are on the verge of going to war, and this is what we are doing? This is what we are doing, appliances?

Give me a break.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

Mr. Speaker, what we are really voting on here is not just a rule. It is whether the House of Representatives is going to act like a real legislature or whether it is going to keep acting like it works for Donald Trump.

Closed rules have become the norm around here. As I said earlier, 3,300 amendments have been blocked, and many of them have been germane. In fact, most of them have been germane. It has just become a habit for the gentleman and other Republicans on the Rules Committee to vote ``no.'' They vote ``no.''

I don't want to hear an argument about germaneness because when amendments are germane--again, most of those that have been offered have been germane--up to 3,300 amendments have been blocked. That is what is happening here.

We are getting lectures and lectures and lectures about legislating, and the bottom line is that this Republican majority basically has thrown the rule book out. To hell with Jefferson. To hell with this institution. To hell with the Constitution. We are just going to shut everything down. That is what we are doing here.

If the gentleman or anybody on the other side thinks that appliances are the most important thing in the world, fine. They can bring them to the floor. But let us offer amendments and respect us and, by the way, other Republicans who want you to bring more important matters to the floor. Whether it is votes on war and peace or votes on affordability or votes on the tariffs, we ought to have those debates on the floor. They are always blocked. We can't talk about those things. It is so disappointing and so sad, Mr. Speaker.

The bottom line is, it is not just Democratic amendments, but Republican amendments, bipartisan amendments. Anything that might force a real debate or real vote is blocked.

The message that it sends is simple: The leadership doesn't want accountability. They want control, total control.

That is why the exchange with my colleague from Virginia that we had last night is so important. If Republicans are mad because Members are asking hard questions or we are talking about issues that may not be necessarily relevant to the bills we are talking about, it is because we don't have any other chance to do so.

I get it. My Republican friends don't want scrutiny. They don't want daylight. They want us to sit down, shut up, and vote for Trump. Guess what. We are not going to do that. We are not going to do that.

The bills before us today are a perfect example of what happens when you silence regular people and empower those at the top. Working families are getting squeezed by Trump's economic mess. Costs are up. People can feel it every time they swipe a card at the grocery store or open their checkbook to pay a utility bill.

Instead of bringing serious cost-of-living relief to the floor-- housing, healthcare, childcare, prescription drugs, cracking down on price gouging--Republicans bring bills like this so that we can pretend that we are doing something when we are not.

That is the scam: Protect the people at the top. Stage a few votes for press releases. Then lie to the American people and tell them that the economy is going great.

The people I represent are not buying this bs. They are asking us to take on the folks rigging the economy against them. They are asking for a House that debates and approves legislation, not one that takes orders and acts like a rubber stamp for the White House. They are asking for real relief from Donald Trump's awful economy, which is making life harder for regular families.

Mr. Speaker, we have a President who wants to be king, and unfortunately, we have Republicans in this House who bow down to him. We have officials in this administration who have compared the House of Representatives and Congress to the Russian Duma, a legislative body in name only, a body that just rubberstamps whatever the Russian leader, whatever Putin, says.

I don't want to be the Russian Duma. I want to adhere to the ideals of Thomas Jefferson. We ought to be debating. We ought to have amendments made in order. We ought to legislate. We ought to behave like we are the United States House of Representatives, and we are not.

It is so disappointing. The precedents that are being set here are so disappointing. It is depressing what has happened to this House.

I say to my colleagues: vote against this rule. Another two closed rules, that is what we are getting here. No amendments at all, nothing, two closed rules, take it or leave it.

We have to do better. I am so disappointed with my Republican colleagues who go along to get along, who are so afraid of being punished by the bully in the White House, who are so afraid of even changing a comma in a bill because there might be retribution.

We are all elected by the people of this country. We ought to start acting like it. We ought to start fighting back. We ought to start legislating and deliberating. We ought to restore some dignity to the House of Representatives.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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