Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. 8, North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015, and Providing for Consideration of the Conference Report on S. 1177, Student Success Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 542 provides for a rule to continue consideration of the comprehensive energy legislation on which the House began its work yesterday.

The rule makes in order 38 amendments to be considered on the House floor, 22 of which are sponsored by Democratic Members of the House, 12 of which are sponsored by Republicans, and 4 of which were submitted as bipartisan amendments.

Further, the minority will be afforded the standard motion to recommit--a final opportunity to amend the bill prior to its passage.

H. Res. 542 further provides for a rule to consider the conference report to S. 1177, the Student Success Act, which will move the country's education system beyond No Child Left Behind and return the responsibility of educating our children to local and State authorities, where it appropriately belongs.

As with all conference reports brought before the House, the rule provides that debate on the measure will be conducted under the standing rules of the House and will further provide for a motion to recommit, allowing the minority yet another opportunity to amend the legislation before its final passage.

The amendments that the Rules Committee made in order allow the House to weigh in on a number of important issues within the sphere of energy policy, from crude oil exports, to the Federal Government's policy on fossil fuel usage, to siting and regulatory reforms at the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

I do wish to highlight an amendment that unfortunately was not made in order, one that I submitted to the Rules Committee, as well, during the markup of H.R. 8 in Energy and Commerce.

It has become clear to me, having worked on the Energy and Commerce Committee over the past 10 years, that the authority given to the Department of Energy to regulate and mandate efficiency standards in consumer products was both initially misguided and ultimately has proven to be cumbersome and unworkable.

Mr. Speaker, I have always been a strong believer in energy efficiency. However, government-mandated efficiency standards have proven to be the wrong approach.

For this reason, I submitted an amendment to repeal the Federal energy conservation standards, which dictate how energy efficient consumer products must be before they can be sold in the United States.

These mandates cover products from light bulbs--and, on this, we have successfully blocked it due to overwhelming public outrage--to ceiling fans, to air conditioners, to heaters, to furnaces. The list goes on and on.

The Federal Government should not be setting these standards. Companies and, more importantly, their customers should be the driving force in this decision. This is about letting the free market drive innovation and technological advances. The government should trust the people to make the right decisions when it comes to the products that they buy.

When the government sets the efficiency standard for a product, that often becomes the ceiling. When the market drives the standard, there is no limit to how fast and how aggressive manufacturers will ultimately be when consumers demand more efficient and better products.

Mr. Speaker, government standards have proven to be unworkable. Every single time the Department of Energy proposes to set a new efficiency standard for any product, manufacturers run to their Members of Congress, asking us to sign letters to the Department of Energy to implore them not to set unworkable standards. It is a predictable occurrence for every rule.

Even in H.R. 8, we are conceding that the Department of Energy is moving in the wrong direction with furnace standards, and Congress has to step in and mitigate. In fact, Congress should be getting out of the way of the relationship between companies and their customers.

How many times during the appropriations process are we asked to vote on amendments blocking the Department of Energy from regulating consumer products because the Federal Government does not understand how to run a business? Instead of that approach, we should be removing the Department of Energy's authority altogether.

The Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution was meant as a limitation on Federal power. The Framers intended that clause to be used to ensure that commerce could flow freely among the several States. It was never intended to allow the Federal Government to micromanage everyday consumer products.

If the clause were truly meant to be that expansive, then the 10th Amendment would be meaningless. There would be no authority left to reserve to the States. This view of the Commerce Clause was reaffirmed most recently by the Supreme Court in the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.

The Commerce Clause does not and cannot extend so far as to allow the Federal Government to regulate products that do not pose a risk to health or safety. There is a place for the FDA to regulate safe food and drugs and for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to regulate the safety of cars on the roads, but to give the Federal Government the authority to regulate how efficient a product should be really seems to cross a constitutional line.

Congress has already stepped in to block the Department of Energy from setting efficiency standards for light bulbs--not because Congress gained wisdom. It was because the American people understood clearly that this was government overreach at its worst, and they demanded it be fixed.

But the same can and should be said about every consumer product that the Department of Energy has been given the authority to regulate in the efficiency space. From light bulbs, to furnaces, to air conditioners, to ceiling fans, the Department of Energy should not be telling manufacturers how to make their products.

I also want to say one thing about the amendment to H.R. 8 that was submitted by the Representative from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis), which was also, unfortunately, not made in order.

This amendment was based, in part, on a series of GAO studies that I and Senator Markey had commissioned to study the Department of Energy's management of uranium issues and its impact on the domestic uranium mining industry.

It is a critical issue for those of us from Western States. And it is my hope, as this body continues to work to protect that industry from further legally suspect actions by the Department of Energy, that Mrs. Lummis' wishes will be achieved.

The education conference report, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act, is a bipartisan compromise to reauthorize and reform our education system.

For the past 13 years, our students and our schools have been struggling to meet the rigorous and often unrealistic demands of No Child Left Behind.

No Child Left Behind attempted to improve school accountability by conditioning increased funding on annual testing requirements and pass rates. One hundred percent of students were supposed to be proficient by 2014, with failing schools being required to restructure under Federal guidelines.

A vote against the Every Student Succeeds Act today is a vote to keep No Child Left Behind in place, to keep the onerous average yearly progress standards in place, and to keep the high-stakes testing in place that so many of our constituents deplore.

This compromise, which was worked out in committee, is a vast improvement. It is not a perfect bill by any stretch, but it is a vast improvement. And, really, for the first time, it moves control back into the hands of States and local districts, where it belongs.

It eliminates the waiver process by repealing the adequate yearly progress Federal accountability system. For years, school boards in my district have been requesting relief from having to obtain waivers from the Department of Education.

This bill will allow local districts to set their own testing requirements and standards to determine whether a student or a school is struggling as well as how to improve.

Common Core incentives are eliminated. Let me repeat that. Common Core incentives are eliminated.

The Federal Government created the Federal education regulations and mandated their adoption by withholding funds from schools. This intervention is another example of the Federal Government's prescribing its best practices over those schools and teachers who, every day, get up and go to work to do their best. They know their students. They know how best to teach them. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, this stops.

This bill also provides States with new funding flexibility by allowing States to determine how to spend their Federal dollars--on average, 7 percent per year. In my State, this is more than $225 million annually that the State will be able to allocate in the most effective and the most efficient way possible.

This bill is a 4-year authorization. That is an important point. Regardless of how you feel about the current administration, it will not be the current administration in 4 years' time. That will allow the next administration, whoever he or she may be, the opportunity to better evaluate education programs and, my hope is, to continue to reduce the Federal role for our students, schools, and teachers in Texas and throughout the country.

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Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for further consideration of two important bills affecting the future of this country: the country's energy future and the future of education. They are important bills.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question, vote ``yes'' on the rule, and vote ``yes'' on the underlying bills.

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