Washington, D.C. – Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX), Vice Chairman of the House Rules Committee, delivered the following remarks today when he managed the Rule Debate for H.J. Res. 30 and H.R. 347.
As Prepared for Delivery:
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and underlying bills. Today, the Republican Majority is holding the Biden Administration accountable. The American people sent the Republican Majority to Washington to exercise a moderating influence on the executive branch and as a check against President Biden and Democrats’ worst policy impulses.
Mr. Speaker, over the past two years, the American people have been at the mercy of President Biden and Democrats reckless “tax and spend” agenda. Having survived those two long years, the American public couldn’t stomach two more of unified Democrat control in Washington. This past November, American voters elected a Republican Majority in the People’s House to address the people’s business.
Instead of devoting all their time and effort to service industries and projects favored by Democratic consultants, the green lobby, and woke political activists, Republicans are working at a breakneck pace to address the issues that the American people actually care about: protecting the retirement savings of hardworking Americans from Green New Deal radicals. The House GOP is the last line of defense between the American people and President Biden’s inflationary agenda.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend Mr. Barr for introducing H.J. Res. 30 so we can bring this important piece of legislation to the floor today. Without his leadership on this issue, pensioners and retirees would be defenseless against the designs and machinations of a loud but vocal minority planning to conscript the retirement savings of retirees and American workers to pursue an investment agenda that is not founded on a fiduciary responsibility to maximize a return on investment.
Democrats understand that their Green New Deal agenda is politically toxic to the American public, Mr. Speaker. They know that their radical energy agenda has been exposed and laid bare to the American people. For that reason, they have orchestrated and overseen a coordinated campaign to capture boardrooms and pension funds seeking to implement the change that they cannot achieve at the ballot box.
What Democrats are trying to achieve would be more intellectually and morally defensible if they had the courage to bring these measures to the floor for a vote in the People’s House. But Democrats can’t risk that, Mr. Speaker. It would be a highly embarrassing spectacle exposing their woke, ESG agenda as toxic to the American public. Instead, Democrats and their radical environmental NGO allies will continue to skulk in the shadows, strong arming and intimidating corporations and investors alike, using any means necessary to conscript the life savings of pensioners and retirees to implement a dangerous and illiberal investment strategy centered not on the welfare of retirees but of favored political pet projects.
In addition to being an illiberal and undemocratic investment strategy, Mr. Speaker, if this investment strategy is allowed to metastasize the traditional energy sources that heat our homes, cleans our drinking water, and powers our electrical grid will be seriously jeopardized.
This isn’t hypothetical, Mr. Speaker. Democrat policies are pushing our electrical grid to the brink. Reliable baseload generation sources are being phased out at a dizzying pace. The traditional energy projects that make the comforts of modern life possible are being prematurely marked for closure--not because they're uneconomical--but because they run afoul of Democrats crusade against fossil fuels.
In my native Texas, Mr. Speaker, I am in communication with capital market professionals who inform me that their firms will no longer invest energy projects that provide dispatchable and reliable power to the electrical grid. Not because these projects are undeserving or won’t deliver a return on their capital investment but for fear of being named and shamed by Democrats and the corporate allies for being insufficiently committed to their radical environmental agenda. I am reminded of the passage from the Gospel of Matthew, Mr. Speaker, “You will know them by their fruits.” Democrats are once again looking to conscript the lifesavings of pensioners and retirees in their Green New Deal crusade.
Mr. Speaker, this is the deleterious downstream effect of Democrat’s Green New Deal moral panic. It is jeopardizing the health and well-being of American citizens in pursuit of a disturbing, dogmatic energy agenda that is myopically focused on potential environmental impacts rather than the flourishing and prosperity of Americans.
Mr. Speaker, conventional wisdom would suggest that President Biden and his Democrat allies in the House would step back and reassess their policy priorities after having lost their majority in November. One could be forgiven for thinking that having been humbled at the ballot box, Democrats would benefit from reflection and introspection working to understand why American voters rejected their policies so thoroughly in the midterm elections. Unfortunately for the American people, President Biden and Democrats have doubled down on their inflationary and unpopular agenda in the wake of November’s election.
Instead of triangulating and trying to better align themselves with the priorities of everyday Americans, the Biden Administration has continued its barrage of unpopular executive orders. From trying to cancel the student loan debt of borrowers to increasing the household costs of American families through increased energy and food costs, Democrats and President Biden have demonstrated once again that they are out of step with the American public.
That is why Republicans are united in holding the Biden Administration accountable for their reckless economic policies that seek to supercharge and further embed inflation into the American economy. The Republican Majority is proud to bring to the floor, H.R. 347, the REIN IN Act which would mandate that the Biden Administration undertake and produce a report for any major executive order issued that would detail the inflationary impact of the executive action.
