Critical Mineral Consistency Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I want to say that the chairman, who is on the floor, is a good friend of mine and one of, I think, our best leaders in the Congress. I thank him for his continuing efforts and his willing to work together across the aisle.

I rise, Mr. Speaker, to address the American public, of course, through the Speaker. We are at war, Mr. Speaker. When I rise in support of this bill, which is a bill on which we all agree, I want to suggest that we also, at this time of crisis, pass something that we all agree on, that we have already voted on, that passed the House. It is legislation which funds Homeland Security.

Within that bill are things critically important to the security of our country, particularly at a time like this. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, has a piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, that funds all the items on which we agree. That ought to be easy. It particularly ought to be easy at a time of crisis when we are at war and homeland security is so important.

The bill that Ms. DeLauro has put on the floor would fund the Office of the Secretary and the executive management. It would fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It would fund the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It would fund the Coast Guard of the United States. It would fund the Secret Service, charged with the responsibility of defending the President of the United States and other officials. It would fund the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA, as it is called. It would fund the Transportation Security Administration. It would fund the Science and Technology Directorate.

It would not fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement nor Customs and Border Protection.

Now, they are tied in one bill, but surely, I hoped, Mr. Speaker, my remarks would be compelling without us being at war, which we have been now for, I suppose, almost 96 hours. However, certainly at this point in time, we ought to come together at a time when we are at war on things on which we agree.

All of the ones I listed we have already voted for. They need to be funded. They are critical to our national security, and surely men and women of goodwill and patriotism should stand for funding things on which we agree.

Now, there are two things on which we do not agree, and, frankly, our disagreement is not relevant to our national security today or tomorrow or perhaps for at least 24 months.

Why?

It is because ICE and CBP, the Border Patrol, were funded in another bill that has already passed and been signed by the President, and approximately $74.8 billion has been set aside for those two agencies already, so they are operating. Presumably their people are getting paid because we have already appropriated money for those two.

However, we have a substantial disagreement on the operations and activities being conducted by those two agencies, and therefore we don't have agreement on that. It is irrelevant to their present operations because we have already appropriated money which, by the way, none of us voted for on this side of the aisle. We have a very substantial difference, based upon our constitutional concerns, that those two agencies are not acting within the strictures of the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the United States, or the norms of police activity in the United States of America. That is a legitimate and honest difference of opinion, and we ought not to hoist on the petard of the differences we have on these two agencies to preclude funding the Office of the Secretary, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Secret Service, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Transportation Security Agency, and the Science and Technology Directorate.

What person of common sense sitting around their kitchen table would say: Yes, we agree on those, but at a time of war, we will not give unanimous consent to fund all of these agencies I just mentioned.

Why?

It is because we have a legitimate difference. By the way, that legitimate difference is supported by more than 50 percent of the American people. As a matter of fact, it is somewhere in the sixties.

I rise on this bill which is not about this because I would not get time to speak about it otherwise, and I think it ought to be compelling to each one of us in this body and every American citizen to be concerned at a time of war when we are allowing a difference on one segment of a bill to preclude us from agreeing to the segment so critical to our domestic and international security.

I am hoping, Mr. Speaker, that my Republican colleagues, and as I said, Mr. Westerman is not involved in this other than I am speaking on his bill, but I hope the logic of what I am saying appeals to the patriotism in every one of us that we ought not to allow these agencies I have read and on which we have already voted, on which we already agree, and which the President ought to sign, because we are holding hostage all of them to the legitimate disagreement that we have on two of the agencies within this bill.

Surely, I don't believe the American citizens would say that that is a commonsense thing to do, nor do I think they would say that it was within the best interests of this country to do.

Surely, as a democracy, we should not take the position that if we can't agree on one of the issues, then we won't agree on any of the issues. I suggest that would be irrational.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the DeLauro bill, of which I am a cosponsor, and there are some 50 others of us who are cosponsors, to ask that the Republicans who are in charge, who are in the majority, and who can make this decision, I ask them to give consent, unanimous consent, to the passage of the DeLauro bill so that, and I will mention once again, we can fund within the Department of Homeland Security a Secretary in the executive management of Homeland Security, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and we have big snows, big winds, big storms, and crises around this country that require action for domestic security as we require international security.

There is not one of us who wants to defund the Coast Guard. There is not one of us who wants Coast Guard personnel going to work and not getting paid. There is not one of us who wants the U.S. Secret Service to be working and not getting paid. They have got to work because we deem them essential employees, as the Coast Guard are essential employees.

Under the present circumstances, where we can't get unanimous consent, and I hope we can, I urge that we do, I urge my Republican colleagues to say: On this we agree, and, therefore, we will move it forward. We will send it to the President for signature, and we will pay the members of the Coast Guard, we will pay the members of the U.S. Secret Service, we will give emergency relief around this country from FEMA, we will pay those who are working in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and we will pay the people at TSA whom all of us rely on to make sure that skies are safe.

I don't think there is a Member among us who wants to say: I don't want to pay them. I don't want that agency to be operating.

Now they are operating because they are essential, but we are not paying them. That is not right. In any event, we all know we are going to pay them at some point in time when, hopefully sooner rather than later, we open up the authority and the funding for those agencies.

We are considering suspension bills now. We expect them to get over 290 votes, and I will be one of those 290 votes on suspension bills.

Why?

It is because we agree, and it makes sense.

I welcome anybody who wants to come to the floor and say: I don't think the Coast Guard ought to be paid. I don't think FEMA ought to be paid, and I don't think Secret Service ought to be paid.

I welcome them to come to the floor. I don't think they are there. I think they do agree.

Mr. Speaker, do not take hostage those employees because we have a fundamental constitutional difference.

Now, by the way, you may think that, oh, well, we don't have a difference. Yes, we do. We don't believe that the two agencies we want to exempt are following the law.

Now, let me quote the border czar. His name is Tom Homan. The President of the United States sent him to Minneapolis to work at bringing the confrontation in Minneapolis to a close. They knew the public was for that.

However, when a court ruled that what Border Patrol was doing was inconsistent with law and the Constitution, what was his response? Tom Homan said: I don't care what the judges think. I don't care.

I tell my friends in the House--through you, Mr. Speaker, of course-- that we all ought to care that we have a law enforcement officer, the czar of our border, who says: I don't care what the judges say.

Mr. Speaker, we are a Nation of laws, and the laws are determined, finally, by the courts of our Nation and ultimately by the Supreme Court.

That is why we are not prepared to vote for a bill that includes those two agencies. Why opposition to that is so hard to believe is because they are already funded, notwithstanding our disagreement.

We are going to continue to make the point, unlike the Vice President of the United States who said the officers who killed two people in Minneapolis had total immunity. The Vice President of the United States said that. We don't agree with that. We want to debate that, and we want to change that. We want to offer amendments. We want to have the House consider it because I would be appalled if the whole House on either side of the aisle wants to have law enforcement officers who say: I don't care what the judges say.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my friends: When Ms. DeLauro asks for unanimous consent to fund the agencies--I will not read them again, but they are critical--I will ask them to give their consent and pass those bills for which we have agreement.

America deserves that. Frankly, our men and women in uniform in the Middle East deserve that. Our men and women in uniform who are here and who may be deployed deserve that. More importantly, every citizen in this country and every person who is in this country deserves to know that we follow our Constitution and laws of our Nation. We take an oath to that. Our citizens expect us to do that.

I hope that as of no later than tomorrow we will pass a unanimous consent request to fund the personnel who are protecting this country in a way on which we all agree and then move at some point in time to a legitimate discussion in this body about what CBP and ICE are doing within or without the law.

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