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CRISES FACING AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Auchincloss). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Louisiana?
There was no objection.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, this evening we will have Republican Members from across this country to address the multiple crises that are facing our country, whether it is the economic crisis, the crime crisis, the energy crisis, the border crisis, the foreign policy crisis, or now the related issue of the staggering and ongoing crisis of fentanyl, a scourge upon this country.
Mr. Speaker, I yield first to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith) to address this issue.
Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, in 2020, my State of Virginia hit a tragic milestone: Fatal drug overdoses hit an all-time high of 2,309. Fentanyl and its analogs caused or contributed to 71.8 percent of those deaths. The statistics we have for 2021 indicate it may surpass that heartbreaking number of overdose deaths.
We have tools at our disposal to reduce the availability of illicit substances such as fentanyl and meth and, in turn, prevent overdose deaths, but they are not being used. Cartels are taking components of fentanyl from China, manufacturing it in Mexico, and smuggling it across the border.
In fiscal year 2021, fentanyl seizures by U.S. Customs and Border Protection increased by 134 percent, but the Biden administration is weakening our country's ability to secure its own border, allowing not only more illegal immigration, but smuggling of deadly drugs.
Meanwhile, fentanyl-related substances have only temporarily been listed as a schedule I drug, with extensions passed every few months, including today we extended it another 3 weeks, but not a permanent scheduling.
To correct this problem, I have introduced the HALT Fentanyl Act with Congressman Bob Latta of Ohio. It would permanently schedule fentanyl-
related substances. But our bill doesn't stop there. It streamlines research on fentanyl analogs so we can better understand the effects of these substances.
At a recent hearing of the Subcommittee on Health, we heard testimony there are as many as 4,800 fentanyl analogs. We have data on fewer than 30 of them; in other words, fewer than 1 percent of them.
Most of the fentanyl-related substances we have data on are dangerous, but some are inert and may even have properties that block opioid addiction. We simply need to know more.
Our bill makes room for researchers, not just at Federal agencies, but across research institutions, to get to work. I believe our bill would save lives. House Democrats should help us send it to the President's desk.
But this bill alone will not solve the problem. It helps, but it will not solve the problem. We have to use all the tools available to us.
We need to increase the number of border agents that we have, particularly on the southern border.
We need to give them the tools they need.
We need to give them more drones for electronic surveillance in the air.
We need to give them more dogs to help them figure out what is going on, to sniff out the drugs when they can. It is coming across in small amounts. Here you see it, 2 milligrams, a lethal dose for most Americans, and there it is compared to a penny. They need more dogs at the border.
They need more horses because some of that terrain is not suitable for motor vehicles.
And last but not least, Mr. Speaker, we need to finish building the wall.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I could not have said it better myself. I thank my friend for those comments.
Mr. Speaker, what Mr. Griffith is explaining there is the magnitude of this crisis, and I have a number of colleagues here tonight who will speak to it. Illegal drug overdoses recently became the leading cause of death for Americans age 18-45; the leading cause of death. Today in America illegal drug overdoses are killing more people at this age demographic than car accidents, obviously, than cancer, more than COVID. In my home State of Louisiana alone, opioid deaths increased in 2021 by 40 percent; 40 percent in one year; mostly driven by an increase in illicit fentanyl.
What is fentanyl? Fentanyl is this synthetic opioid that is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine. It is created with chemicals shipped from China to Mexico. It is trafficked across our southern border. Its potency means the smallest amount, even to fit on the tip of a pencil, is considered a lethal dose, and now it is fueling one of the worst drug epidemics in American history.
Mr. Speaker, the Biden administration's response has been nothing, passivity. They have been passive about securing our border, the entry point for all these drugs coming into our communities. They have been passive about prosecuting drug offenders. Many Democrat-led jurisdictions are lowering felony offenses to misdemeanors. They have been passive about preventing drug abuse. The Democrats' American Rescue Plan, so-called, even includes a provision, as you have already heard tonight, and you will hear it more, to distribute drug paraphernalia at taxpayers' expense. It is unbelievable.
Mr. Speaker, fentanyl deaths are certain to increase unless we act with the same resolve that we have used to attack other less-deadly threats. If the Biden administration were serious about addressing this crisis, they would start by securing our turnstile at the southern border. It is time for the Democrats in charge here to wake up.
To help address this problem, we have to take immediate steps. We have to secure our border. We have to prosecute criminals again. We have to work with localities to prevent drug abuse rather than accommodate it.
Mr. Speaker, I have a number of colleagues, as I mentioned, who will address this issue in further detail. I am delighted that they have taken the time to be here. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. C. Scott Franklin).
Mr. C. SCOTT FRANKLIN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Louisiana giving me some time to talk about this vitally critical matter.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of our border agents, who work tirelessly to defend our Nation against the flow of deadly drugs crossing our southern border. Their job is made incredibly more difficult by the Biden administration's open border policies.
I am sometimes asked why, as a Floridian, I care so deeply about what is happening on our southern border. Whether it is criminals, terrorists, human traffickers, or drug smugglers, problems at the Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California borders quickly become problems for all Americans. Florida may be hundreds of miles from the border, but illegal drugs from there are flooding our communities.
The Tampa Bay area, my home, has an overdose rate that is 50 percent higher than the national average. To put that figure in context, 30 people in the Tampa Bay area are dying every week from overdoses. Let that sink in. The lion's share of these overdoses are from fentanyl. This highly lethal drug, primarily manufactured in China and smuggled in by Mexican cartels, is many times stronger than heroin, morphine, and other opioids. As little as two milligrams, smaller than the tip of a pencil, which you can see right here in perspective relative to a penny, is often enough to kill an adult.
Fentanyl overdoses are now the number one killer of adults age 18 to 45. This is a national tragedy. It is exasperating to see the hands of our agents tied as they try to stop this crisis because their own government stands in the way. As one frustrated border agent told his chief in a recently leaked video, ``for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.''
Mr. Speaker, the Biden administration is doing worse than nothing. It is actively promoting an open border policy that allows dangerous drugs to flow into our communities. This administration has the blood of its citizens on its hands. For the safety and security of our Nation, it must stop.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that compelling message. He is right, every State is a border State now, whether you are on the coast or whether you are up north or anywhere in the country, and Tennessee is no exception to that.
I yield now to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Burchett), my good friend.
Mr. BURCHETT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the great work that Chairman Johnson has been doing on this for the last few weeks, and I look forward to working with him in the future.
Six days ago, Mr. Speaker, I spoke about the fentanyl crisis in this Chamber. According to the trajectory of the CDC's most recent 12-month data on drug overdose deaths, over 1,600 Americans have died since that speech, 1,600. In reality, I am afraid that number is actually a lot higher thanks to illegally trafficked fentanyl.
Just last week, an unsuspecting high school student in Connecticut overdosed on marijuana laced with fentanyl. Thankfully, that student is all right, but sadly, there are many others who do not survive an overdose.
A man called my office the other day. His son died. He was in the Carolinas, unsuspecting, took a street drug, and it was laced with fentanyl. They said the fentanyl, the pill was still in his mouth, it was that strong.
Our government needs to stop illegal fentanyl from entering the United States right now, Mr. Speaker. Republicans and Democrats must demand more action on this issue from our leaders.
Here in the House, Speaker Pelosi controls the floor schedule and does not say much about illegal fentanyl trafficking. Down Pennsylvania Avenue, at the White House, President Biden issued financial sanctions against foreign smugglers who bring drugs like fentanyl into our country. Mr. Speaker, that is a nice start, but I doubt these cartel thugs and bums will quit the drug trade just because they can't use an American bank.
Earlier today, I delivered a letter to Speaker Pelosi requesting that she do everything in her power to stop fentanyl from entering our country. President Biden received a copy of that letter as well. I urged them to consider my Fentanyl Trafficker Elimination Act, which would sentence fentanyl traffickers to life in prison, as a possible solution to reducing the amount of fentanyl that flows across our borders.
Politically, I have little in common with Speaker Pelosi and President Biden. I met President Biden after the prayer breakfast, and I told him that I don't agree with hardly anything he does, but I pray for him every day, and that is true. However, I believe all three of us agree more needs to be done to stop Americans from overdosing on illegal fentanyl. I think overwhelming majorities in our respective parties feel the same. The American people will be glad to see us put politics aside and do something to reduce the tragic fentanyl overdose deaths that have become too common in our communities.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we spend most of our time up here and, as I have said before, these bridges and post offices aren't going to name themselves. We need to get back to the people's work, Mr. Speaker, and put an end to this tragedy.
As always, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your more-than-lackluster abilities.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. It is a serious issue. Every moment of levity helps us. I tell you what, if we can't work in a bipartisan fashion to prosecute criminals and stop the cartels, there may not be a lot of hope for this institution. I hope we can get back to that soon.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko). Arizona is a State that certainly deals with this every moment of every day, and she has seen it up close.
Mrs. LESKO. Mr. Speaker, I am going to read off some headlines. The first one is from the New York Post. It says, ``Fentanyl now leading cause of death among teens in Arizona border county.'' In the article it says, ``Fentanyl overdoses have overtaken car crashes as the leading cause of death among teenagers in an Arizona border county, as Governor Doug Ducey blames President Biden's neglect of the U.S. border for the rise in lethal drugs coming into the country.''
The next article is from a TV station in Tucson, and it is entitled,
``Arizona poison centers sound alarm as fentanyl overdoses spike.''
Another article, and this one is from The Center Square. ``Arizona seizes record amount of fentanyl, now cited as leading cause of death of Americans between 18 and 45.'' It goes on to say, ``Authorities in Arizona seized $9 million worth of fentanyl pills in the State's largest bust of the illicit drug--enough, they said, to kill half the population of Arizona.'' Wow. It goes on to say, ``Fentanyl has become the drug of choice of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, which controls the U.S.-Mexico border stretching from California to El Paso, Texas.''
{time} 1845
`` `This is not a recreational drug' Scottsdale Police Department Chief Jeff Walther said. `This is death.' Two milligrams is a lethal dose. A teaspoon holds about 5,000 milligrams, enough to kill 2,500 people. One pound of fentanyl, or 453,592 milligrams, could kill 226,796 people.''
The next headline, and this is from NBC News: ``Fentanyl Deaths from
`Mexican oxy' pills hit Arizona hard.'' And just a couple things it says in this article: Aaron Francisco Chavez swallowed at least one of the sky blue pills at a Halloween party before falling asleep forever.''
He and three other teenagers took this drug.
And it says the four thought they were taking oxycodone. They didn't know that it was laced with fentanyl. ```It's the worst I have seen in 30 years, this toll that it's taken on families,' said Doug Coleman, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge of Arizona. `The crack (cocaine) crisis was not as bad.'''
These are just some of the headlines, ladies and gentlemen. And I live in the border State of Arizona. We are impacted greatly.
I call on President Biden. I plead with President Biden: Come down to the border. See it for yourself. Talk to the Border Patrol agents. They will show you all of the fentanyl pills that they have seized. But we know that there is a lot they haven't even caught, and it is coming into our communities. It is killing our kids. It is killing our brothers. It is killing our sisters. Please, President Biden, take this seriously and secure the border now.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, that passion is authentic. And as we said, from Arizona you see it every day.
Mr. Speaker, I just received a text message from our colleague, Mr. Katko, and he is the lead Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, and he said make sure when we are talking about the cartels to point out they are getting magnificently enriched through this alien smuggling surge, and they are, therefore, flush with cash, and they are now developing their own ability to make fentanyl. That is a dangerous game changer for the country. This crisis gets worse and worse by the hour.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew).
Mr. VAN DREW. Mr. Speaker, I am honored by your yielding and the work that you are doing in this area.
We are in the midst of perhaps the widest array of crises this country has ever seen.
A global pandemic, inflation, and an unstable world stage that could erupt at any moment.
Yet, COVID-19 and these uncertainties aren't the only things slowly infecting every corner of this country.
Fentanyl. Fentanyl. That word.
It takes just two milligrams of this substance, which is 100 times more potent than morphine, to kill a full-grown adult.
In fact, Border Patrol has already seized more than 2,700 pounds at the southern border this year, 2,700 pounds, enough to kill every single American twice over.
The massive inflow of this deadly substance is a direct result of our weakening southern border and policies designed to entice illegal immigrants to flow into our Nation.
Often sourced directly from China, our open-border policies have allowed the worst of humanity to sneak this drug into every community, small and large, rural, urban, or suburban across our great America.
It has become so bad, in fact, that fentanyl is now the leading cause of death, as you have heard over and over again because it is so unbelievable, of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. Imagine that. It is incomprehensible.
Exacerbated by the stress of mandates and lockdowns, fentanyl-related overdoses across the board increased by more than 55 percent.
I have seen it personally in my home district and across the great State of New Jersey, where thousands of families last year lost a loved one to a fentanyl overdose. It has to end. It has to stop.
We must secure our southern border. We must provide the resources to get this drug off our streets, and we must permanently make fentanyl a schedule I drug.
It is time to finish the wall, stop the relocating of illegal migrants across the country, and we must empower our law enforcement at the border to uphold the rule of law.
If not, we will lose our America that we love.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, strong words on a very important set of issues.
I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).
Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for hosting this Special Order tonight and continuing to keep the effort up to put this in front of the American people and the Congress and the White House.
We have talked a couple times here this evening so far, and this is a statistic that I don't know if it is reaching across to enough people. The leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45 is fentanyl. It isn't car wrecks, it is not gun violence--which is usually people violence it takes people to run a gun, to clear up a term--it is not cancer, not some other form, it is a drug.
So what is this? It really boils down to it is a border problem.
So when the Biden administration decided to have a much more open, hands-off policy on our borders, the opposite of what the Trump Administration had been attempting to do, this problem has been exacerbated. The number of people coming across, some for asylum reasons, others for economic reasons, but the ones that are mixing in, that are coming with them are bringing this stuff with them.
Now, as a Californian we have prime examples of what that looks like on our streets, what it looks like for homelessness and for people literally dying on the street; San Francisco being a shining example of what most cities don't want to be with the problems they have on their streets with homelessness, with drug use, people dying on our streets.
Needle programs. We call it clean needle exchange programs. They are not even exchange programs. Even one of my district towns, Chico, California, a nice town, people bring these needles in. And they don't exchange them, as I mentioned, they just give them out until finally the city council changed, and they have moved in a direction to try and stop this sort of thing. It was killing a small valley town like Chico. And yet our administration is promoting an open border policy that is allowing in this fentanyl.
You heard some of my colleagues tonight talking about how small of an amount it takes to not only negatively affect people, but kill them. It is extremely potent. It doesn't take much of this stuff to cause a death. And it is coming across, pounds and pounds at a time, over our border.
Why are we allowing this to happen? It's coming freely over our borders, distributors without consequence putting it out, harming our people, harming this country.
If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, if the Democrats, if the White House really cared about the health and safety of the American citizens, they would implement commonsense policies to combat this epidemic, increasing search and seizures at our border, prosecuting traffickers instead of letting them go.
It is just so unbelievable. People come up to me all the time as their Representative ``We just can't believe what is going on in our country lately.'' The prosecution letting people out of prison, right back to offend once again.
And this wide-open border that is just an open conduit to so much harm from terrorism. They picked up five Syrians the other day. It isn't just people coming from Central America wanting a better life or reuniting families when you have single young men coming across the border. This is a fraud that is being committed against the American people here, and fentanyl is just one example of harming not just economically but our open border, and so many people with an illegal drug because we have a terrible policy.
Our border control folks are so demoralized by what is going on here, and so are the people of this country. We have many crises these days, but this is one of the worst because we are losing the identity of our country with what has been going on.
President Biden's team needs to get on the job here and enforce our border and not allow this poison to keep coming across.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
The Border Patrol agents are as frustrated as we are. Demoralized is exactly right. We have met with them and heard their stories. And the reason they are so frustrated, Mr. Speaker, is because all of this crisis is completely avoidable. These are the results of bad policy choices, and that is what is so outrageous.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman).
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am going to try to add a few additional things about fentanyl.
I first got here about 7 years ago, and at the time there were 47,000 deaths caused by illegal drugs a year. By comparison, there were 57,000 people who died in Vietnam, but that was over a 10-year period, a 12-
year period. This is over 1 year, 47,000 people. And it was a national crisis. And every politician had to address that crisis.
Well, 7 years later what became of that statistic, 47,000 deaths a year from fentanyl? It went up to 100,000 deaths a year.
Now, I have been at the border five times. Every time I am down there the Border Patrol, again and again, emphasizes that with this open flow of people coming into this country, you're getting unlimited fentanyl.
So we have to do two obvious things to address the problem. We just passed a continuing resolution today with some increases in there, but the budget proposed by our President doesn't increase funding for the Border Patrol at all. You go through that budget, 12 percent over here, 18 percent over here, 7 percent over here. Border Patrol, nothing. Like these lives don't matter at all. We have got to spend more money at the border.
Secondly, when it comes down to penalties for people who are selling this fentanyl or trafficking in fentanyl, they are not great enough.
Right now, your penalties for heroin, which is a fraction as lethal as fentanyl, are much higher, the mandatory minimums, than the cutoff for fentanyl.
I have introduced a bill that is going to deal with that called the Fentanyl Penalties Parity Act, which adjusts the mandatory minimum to be the same as heroin.
So we have got to throw more people in prison. That 100,000 deaths, by the way, that is not what we call nonviolent. Ask the parents of the people who died of these fentanyl overdoses whether that is just a nonviolent crime, and we will slap somebody on the wrist and who cares? We have got to up the penalties on people who are selling that fentanyl. We had 560 people die in Milwaukee County alone last year, and Milwaukee County is not that big.
And secondly, we have got to do something at that border. The idea that these fentanyl drugs continue to flow across the southern border, and we can pretend there is nothing we can do, that we can continue to allow Kamala Harris to look out at the border, which is just like a joke on the American people. It is a joke on anybody who has had a loved one die of this fentanyl. That has got to end.
I hope everybody in this building, those people fortunate enough to meet the President tell him, Get Kamala Harris off that border and get us some more Border Patrol agents down there so it shows that we are taking the lives of these 100,000 people a year a little more seriously.
{time} 1900
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that forceful message.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 32 minutes remaining.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield next to a gentleman who has been on the front lines of all this as a retired police lieutenant. He is also a former professional hockey player, and that is pretty cool, too. He is a tough guy, but he knows the issue.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).
Mr. STAUBER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the congressman for this Special Order. It is needed and I appreciate the time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the devastating fentanyl crisis that is wreaking havoc on our communities and our families. The hardest thing I ever had to do during my 23 years as a law enforcement officer was tell an unsuspecting mother that her child had died due to a drug overdose.
The opioid crisis has ravaged our communities for years, and when people were forced inside during this pandemic, things only got worse. For the first time ever, in 2021, drug overdoses in the United States topped 100,000. Overdose deaths are now claiming a new victim every 5 minutes.
As stated earlier, fentanyl overdoses were the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45 just last year. That is more than the COVID-19 deaths, car crashes, or suicides put together for that age group.
The American people are suffering. We have a moral obligation to do everything we can to prevent another addiction, to prevent another death, to prevent another heartbroken family. The DEA revealed in December that criminal drug networks in Mexico, using resources from China, are trafficking fentanyl over Biden's open southern border at a rate that could provide a lethal dose to every American over seven times.
Cartels and their drug runners are exploiting open border policies of Joe Biden and this administration, and the American people are literally paying the price with their lives. Without serious action, this fentanyl will continue to flow across our border and affect our families and communities.
Joe Biden must secure our border by finishing the wall, fully reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy and send the clear message: Don't come to the United States illegally.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. I appreciate his words and his expertise on the issue.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin), who I think will address some of the other crises we are facing as well.
Mr. BABIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Louisiana for having this Special Order.
Mr. Speaker, there are multiple crises. That is exactly right. It is nearly impossible to discuss President Biden's self-inflicted economic crisis without mentioning his excessive spending. I am not talking about money to strengthen our military or to make America more competitive in the world. Biden and the Democrats have no interest in that. This out-of-control spending is necessary only to appease the radical Democrat base who prioritize radical climate change policies without a care in the world for their consequences.
As a result, inflation sits at a 40-year high and our national debt has increased by trillions of dollars. For years, my colleagues across the aisle have worked tirelessly to desensitize Americans to the word
``trillion,'' and they have succeeded for the most part because a trillion of anything is such a mind-boggling figure for the average human to wrap his mind around it.
When I was elected to Congress in 2014, our national debt was $17 trillion. Fast-forward 8 years later, our national debt has topped $30 trillion. This should shock every American taxpayer, but it doesn't seem to. Allow me to put this into perspective.
If you owed $1 trillion, and you decided to pay $1 per second until your debt was paid off, it would take you around 31,700 years to become debt-free. Now, multiply that by 30, for $30 trillion of our national debt. I am no mathematician, but this amounts to approximately 951,000 years. So if we paid $1 per second until our $30 trillion national debt is paid off, it would take us just shy of a million years to become debt-free.
President Biden and the Democrats must be stopped. American solvency must be preserved. Generations of future Americans are counting on us to regain control of Washington's unsustainable spending. We literally cannot afford to fail.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, that debt is so staggering. And Dr. Babin is right, so many people don't stop to think about the magnitude of it and what we are doing to our children, our grandchildren, every future generation of Americans. We better get control of it. Thank you for that insight tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter), another gentleman with a lot of expertise, who will address some of the crime crises that we are facing.
Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and I thank him for hosting this night.
Mr. Speaker, for years, Democrats have been pushing this ``defund the police'' rhetoric that has demonized our law enforcement officers and left them unequipped and abandoned by their government. Now, we are paying the price.
In the year 2021, 73 of our bravest police officers lost their lives in defense of their country and their communities. This is a 59 percent increase from 2020 and the most that we have had since 1995. This is utterly unacceptable. The language from top Democrats empowers those that wish to do harm upon others and leaves our law enforcement stranded with nowhere to look for aid.
After an entire year of this detrimental rhetoric, at least 16 U.S. cities have set new homicide records in 2021, 346 officers were shot, and we saw 115 percent increase in ambush-style attacks on law enforcement from 2020. Democrats aren't just downplaying the impacts of their soft-on-crime rhetoric, they are completely ignoring it.
Shoplifting in California and New York has gotten so bad that it is now mocked on social media and offenders simply walk into a store, grab what they want, and walk out. The First Congressional District of Georgia is unfortunately no exception to this current trend.
In the first half of 2021, violent increased 7 percent, property crimes rose 10 percent, and shoplifting has risen 9 percent, all in Savannah alone.
Folks, this rhetoric is harmful. It hurts our communities, it hurts our law enforcement, and it hurts our constituents. We must put a stop to this and reinforce the fact that we have the backs of our police officers. This issue is of the utmost importance, and I call upon President Biden to say, unequivocally, that he supports our men and women in blue.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his insights there.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rose).
Mr. ROSE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Vice Chairman Johnson for organizing this Special Order hour tonight and for yielding me time to speak.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to ring the alarm bell regarding the United States' current financial crisis caused by the Biden administration and Democrats' far-left policies and out-of-control spending. Just last week, the national debt eclipsed $30 trillion.
As our national debt balloons, American taxpayers will be left to foot the bill, not only for the billions and trillions of dollars we are spending annually but also on a dramatically increasing cost--
interest on the debt.
The Federal Government has continued to kick the can down the road, ignoring the explosive problems caused by our out-of-control spending and greatly diminishing our future generation's quality of life through no fault of their own. What a gutless and inexcusable thing to do.
Well, our time is running out, as we expect interest rates to rise in the immediate future. If interest rates rise to just 5.1 percent, as was the case in 2021, American taxpayers would suddenly be burdened with an annual interest payment on the national debt of $1.5 trillion, twice the budget for the Department of Defense, or almost 75 percent of all income taxes collected in fiscal year 2021.
Put another way, three-quarters of the income taxes Americans pay would go toward nothing more than paying interest on the national debt, while only a quarter would be left to pay for much-needed programs and expenditures like the Justice Department, infrastructure, and defense.
Americans' pocketbooks are hurting. Whether at the gas pump, at the grocery store, or for the energy that heats your homes, prices are going up everywhere due to President Biden and Democrats' far-left policies and out-of-control spending.
Just last week, House Democrats doubled down on these disastrous decisions by ramming through their $325 billion America COMPETES Act--
more like America concedes to China act, if you ask me--which only will worsen America's economic crisis.
How can anyone sit here today and encourage this reckless and irresponsible behavior? I have two sons; Guy, who is 4 years old, and Sam, who is 10 months. They will have to make payments on this massive debt for their entire lives, and the generations that follow will do the same unless we act. We must rein in Washington's out-of-control government spending to prevent future generations from paying the price for our financial mistakes.
This ticking time bomb, otherwise known as our national debt, has been ignored for far too long. With rising interest rates on the horizon, now is the last time and the best time for President Biden and Members of Congress to take a serious look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we really think the American people are okay with our country being steered off this fiscal cliff.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. I think about the same thing, our children and what we are doing to them and their future. They will have less security, less financial stability, less opportunity. They won't have the great fortune that we have because we are making bad policy decisions right now. We are adding to the debt. We are compounding the problem day by day, and we just can't get anyone here to pay any attention to it.
The Democrats in charge refuse to address the issue. In fact, they just continue to double down on bad policy, and it is just so frustrating.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde) to talk about this energy crisis more.
Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Vice Chairman Johnson for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that President Biden's slew of crises are self-inflicted wounds that have devastated American workers, their families, and small businesses across this great Nation. The ongoing energy crisis is no exception.
President Biden's destructive energy agenda has created skyrocketing gas prices, forced burdensome home heating bills on Americans already struggling with record-high inflation, destroyed thousands of energy jobs, and canceled American energy independence.
The energy crisis has been fueled by the Biden Administration's failed policy decisions, starting with canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, which eliminated over 11,000 American jobs.
Infamously, President Biden also greenlit Russian President Putin's Nord Stream II pipeline. He begged OPEC to produce more oil, and released three days' worth of oil from our own Strategic Petroleum Reserve ahead of last Thanksgiving.
Unfortunately, the ramifications of President Biden's ill-advised policies extend far beyond the gas pump and now into matters of national security. President Biden surrendered American energy independence to benefit our adversaries, including Russia. By handing Russian President Vladimir Putin the Nord Stream II Pipeline, Biden abandoned vital leverage, leverage that could be used right now as tensions rise between Russia and Ukraine.
Yet, after conceding this opportunity many months ago, the President now claims he will bring an end to the Nord Stream II Pipeline if Russia actually invades Ukraine. Really? So do you think this new claim is going to make Russia tremble in their boots?
Following a year of embarrassing weakness on the world stage, this empty threat means nothing to Vladimir Putin. But energy independence means everything to Americans struggling to fill their gas tanks and to keep their families warm this winter, as they wonder why President Biden prioritized Russian energy above their own.
Mr. Speaker, we must always put Americans first, yet the Biden administration and their self-inflicted energy crisis have again failed America.
{time} 1915
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, as we have illustrated tonight with so many Members coming in from all over the country to express our concerns about all of these crises--and we genuinely could go for hours upon hours. But the hour is getting late tonight, and our Special Order hour is running out.
I just want to reiterate again some of the things we highlighted in this last hour on the floor here in the people's House tonight.
We addressed this economic crisis. It is just staggering. A $30 trillion Federal debt is a number that previous generations of Americans couldn't even have imagined.
We talked about the crime crisis and the utter lack of responsibility that Democrats in charge have shown and that the White House has shown to address this issue.
The border crisis and now the fentanyl crisis that is directly related to that. It has become the number one killer of Americans aged 18 to 45 in this country.
The energy crisis--because I come from an energy state, the State of Louisiana, I just want to conclude with a couple of remarks to put a fine point on that latter issue before we close this evening.
Mr. Speaker, the problem here is that, as with all of these crises, all this is totally avoidable. All of this is the result of policy choices. It is bad decisions, bad policy by the White House and by the Democrats in charge.
Mr. Speaker, on the energy crisis, President Biden's anti-energy agenda has caused the price of a gallon of gas to skyrocket to $3.42 nationally. Last week, oil prices hit $90 a barrel. Mr. Speaker, $90 is a 7-year high. In just the last month, oil prices have surged 37 percent. That is in 1 month, and it has been on a steady and rapid increase.
Given this agenda and the rapid rise in prices, it is not surprising that, according to a recent Gallup poll, American satisfaction with our energy policies is the lowest in two decades. That is because Americans have paid at the pump more now than they paid since the Obama-Biden administration.
U.S. households will also pay between $700 and $1,700 more for heat this winter, depending on where they live and what type of fuel they use. More than one in four Americans report now that they skipped basic expenses to pay their energy bill in the past year. One in five Americans report they could not pay their full energy bill. This is a crisis.
Let me just tell you, and break it down in layman's terms, why this is happening.
From the very beginning of the Biden administration, the first couple of weeks, as soon as he took office, he issued that slew of executive orders, a record number of executive orders. Among those early executive orders were his directions on energy policy.
He reflexively did exactly the opposite of what President Trump had done and accomplished. We were energy dominant, not just energy independent. We were energy dominant because of the Trump-era policies.
What does President Biden do? He does exactly the opposite, reflexively almost. President Trump moved us to domestic oil and gas production to increase that to make us energy dominant, to make us a net exporter. What does President Biden do? The opposite.
He shuts down and puts a moratorium on drilling and exploration on Federal lands, including offshore, off the coast of States like mine, Louisiana. That was a killer for the national economy. It is a direct contributor to driving the costs up.
He also killed the Keystone pipeline, of course. That was a big source, an artery, as it were, for domestic production and supply in our country. Here is the great irony. Ostensibly, the reason for doing all those things is he wanted to help the environment, I guess. I guess he owed it to some interest groups or something. They claim that that would be better for the environment if we moved away from fossil fuels, as we always hear.
But here is the great irony--and I will close with this. When President Biden shut down domestic production, not only did he drive up the cost of all the fuel that we need to heat our homes and to fill up our gas tanks and all the rest, not only did he increase the pain on American consumers, but here is the irony. When they shut down domestic production, the demand for fossil fuels, oil and gas, in this country didn't go down. The demand didn't change nationally just because the President decided he didn't want to supply it anymore. In fact, the demand is at least stabilized and, in some cases, has gone up.
So, what does that mean? Well, Americans have to get their supply from somewhere else. If we are not going to produce it here, the bountiful resources that God has given us beneath our own feet, if we are not going to do it here, we have to get it from somewhere else.
The Biden administration turns to OPEC. They turn to Russia, Saudi Arabia, begging for more production and begging for our supply to be met from these overseas parties.
Do you know what the greatest irony about all of this is? Ostensibly, they wanted to help the environment, but do you know what they do when we get more of our oil and gas from Russia and Saudi Arabia? We do exponentially more harm to the environment.
If you believe their metrics, this is a terrible policy solution because--guess what?--we produce oil and gas in a much cleaner fashion in the United States than they do in those other countries.
So, the great irony is not only do they drive up costs for American consumers, not only do they increase the pain for everybody; they are actually doing more harm to the world that they claim they want to help.
It is truly unbelievable, not to mention it has destabilized us and put Russia in a better position. Now, we see the results of that on a whole different crisis that we didn't even have time to address tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I am out of time. I would just close by saying that the American people cannot tolerate this for much longer, and they won't tolerate it for much longer. We cannot wait for this election cycle that comes up later this year when we get an opportunity to be returned to the majority to govern this place again and bring some sanity back to Washington.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 25
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