Expressing Support for Rural Communities Across the United States As Stewards of the Environment, Major Suppliers of United States Energy Resources, Critical Providers of Food Production and Manufacturing Capacity, and Drivers of National Economic Stability, and Recognizing the Work of the House of Representatives in the 119th Congress in Support of Those Vital Communities

Floor Speech

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Speaker, I want to just take a moment as our colleagues did across the aisle to recognize Ranking Member David Scott and his family from Georgia. It is a sad day. Certainly Ranking Member Scott has proudly served this institution for a great many years and particularly on the Agriculture Committee which has helped so many Americans. I want to take a moment to just thank him, his family, and his community for his service to our great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, for me his passing also brings to light the fundamental hypocrisy that I see embedded in this resolution today.

I was actually quite shocked, disgusted, and angry when I read this resolution. That is because I am a daughter of rural America. I was born and raised in rural New Mexico. I was born in Farmington, New Mexico. I am the daughter of a machine operator who was one of the first women heavy equipment operators who built a coal-fired power plant in rural America which your resolution is celebrating.

I grew up working with my hands digging trenches and bussing tables in rural communities in New Mexico, so to read a resolution that is filled with celebrations and rebrands in an attempt to try to repackage a bunch of corporate giveaways and tax breaks for billionaires as some sort of celebratory resolution for rural America and the hardworking people who get up every day, work their jobs, and can barely make ends meet is not only a joke, it is an insult to hardworking Americans in every community across the country.

Let me just say this: Even though this resolution is trying to rebrand your big, ugly bill and give it a new name, even though this resolution is trying to self-congratulate you on a bunch of corporate giveaways like gutting environmental programs and public consumer safety programs so that corporations can save and make more money on the backs of the American people, let me just say this: You don't have a branding problem. You have a policy problem.

The policies that the Republicans are putting forward don't actually help working people in America. Any attempt here today to try to package it in a different way for the American people is basically just that, an exercise to try to make what they have already shoved down the American people's throats somehow seem more appealing.

I want to say how completely out of touch with rural America this resolution is. It celebrates rebranding a bill that cut healthcare for millions of Americans. It is attempting to celebrate a bill that took food out of the mouths of millions of American children. It is literally celebrating legislation to put oil and gas pipelines and LNG terminals in rural America. It is celebrating gutting clean air protections and repackaging that as a gift to rural America.

You are welcome. You can't breathe clean air anymore, according to our colleagues across the aisle.

That is what is actually in this resolution, a list of the litany of bills that our colleagues across the aisle have spent the last several months passing, including their utility bills. Showerheads, they spent precious time for an entire week to pass high-pressure showerheads for rich people's bathrooms. Congratulations.

Republicans have the majority in the House, the Senate, and the White House, and this is what they are celebrating? It is so out of touch with real people. Real people are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.

Right now, real farmers are facing diesel prices and a lack of access to fertilizer. They are wondering how they are going to plant their fields and how they are going to break even and pay back their bank loans at the end of this season.

Congratulations. The President did that by going to war, an unauthorized war, in the Middle East.

Republicans don't have a branding problem. They have a policy problem. They have used their time in the majority to pass legislation that gives permanent tax breaks to the richest Americans, and our lowest earning Americans actually saw a tax increase. Republicans are coming to the floor trying to celebrate this legislation and rebrand what they passed previously? It is outrageous.

Let me share the things that we are doing for rural America in my district. We are passing earmarks to build fire stations with emergency services. We are building hospitals. We are building behavioral health clinics to help people with the opioid crisis. We are building rural housing. We are building water pipelines. We passed the first free childcare policy in the country and are using Federal resources to build daycares and elementary schools across New Mexico. We are investing in Tribal communities.

We are delivering millions of dollars to our communities every single day because that is what rural Americans are asking for. They are not asking the Republicans to pat themselves on the back for giving tax breaks to Wall Street billionaires.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to give the Republicans a round of applause if they would like that, but I am not voting for this resolution. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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