House Republicans' Legislative Efforts This Week

Floor Speech

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Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Moore of Utah for leading us once again at this important time to get the message out in front of the American people that wish to pay attention.

Just following up a little bit on what Mr. Grothman was talking about on the border and the horrific illegal immigration and how many are coming into this country is just overwhelming.

I had an experience last week in Tucson, myself and Mr. Tom Tiffany from Wisconsin. We both, after a border tour, attempted to stop in at an illegal--well, they call them migrants. That is a euphemism. They say we are migrants. It drives me crazy listening to that--an intake area that had been a Ramada Hotel there run under the guise of a group called Casa Alitas.

It is run not with a whole lot of daylight on how they operate there. Again, we have many NGOs, nongovernment organizations, that are making a lot of money that are incentivized to move a lot of illegal immigrants into this country and place them where have you.

They have busloads going here and there and everywhere and plane rides. My understanding is there have been approximately 5,000 plane rides, with planes full, since the start of the Biden administration, moving people around the country.

We attempted to meet with people there and see. It was quiet. They weren't intaking anybody at the time, and they would not see us. They would not see us, even though we had our IDs.

Two Members of the U.S. House of Representatives wanted to sit down with somebody and see what they are doing and have them at least give us a few minutes, an overview.

They refused to do that. They basically kept us outside in the parking lot and called the sheriff's office in case we decided to try and go knock on the door and talk to somebody in charge.

It was amazing that the people that are in charge of the U.S. House, those that are elected to make taxpayer expenditures, taxpayer appropriations, were shut out of being able to ask questions about how the tax dollars are being used on the intake of these illegal immigrants in Tucson. Folks, obviously we have a giant problem. The numbers are horrendous.

Mr. Grothman was talking about the fentanyl. What is interesting about that, there is so much fentanyl coming into this country and it is so negatively affecting and taking lives so much is coming in.

He talked about the market price; the price is so low. The price of actually buying it is really low now because there is so much of it.

Price and demand. When a high volume comes in, they have to cut their prices. It is such a high volume now, the price of it is getting dirt cheap, they are saying.

It is just another example of the Biden administration working against the people and working against American values.

There is no reason it needs to be this way. They say: Oh, you guys, the Republicans, aren't passing a law in Congress. No bills.

Biden has the tools. He could do eight executive orders that are perfectly legal, perfectly constitutional.

There is the remain in Mexico policy and several others he could do without us even passing a bill. There are plenty of laws to already enforce that that they are not doing.

Yes, we added H.R. 2 to that to help define better asylum because asylum is being abused and other good aspects, beefing up the personnel at the border, finishing the fence.

They don't want to do any of that. That is all double talk. That is a bit of my experience at the border just the other day.

Another thing that President Biden has done that has caused unnecessary harm to our country is our energy policy or lack of.

The core of so many of our problems with the cost of inflation and hiked prices of everything starts with the cost of energy.

Whether it is electricity that is generated--and they are tearing out hydroelectric dams in my district--as green renewable power, electricity generated by nuclear power. We need to do a lot more on that.

For years and years, that has been held down by permitting and the inability for government to move on that.

Also, natural gas is a very important component for heating homes as well as operating electricity generation.

Biden has stepped forward to make it almost impossible to explore for oil and gas in this country, and there was also a recent decision to slash all pending and future liquefied natural gas export permits.

This is important because we were exporting this to Europe, for example, to Germany or others. Instead of them relying on Russian gas coming in in that big pipeline, we could be helping because we have such an abundance.

The Biden administration has another wrongheaded approach on energy, harming Americans and harming our allies around the world.

He systematically destroyed key energy initiatives, canceling the Keystone pipeline, shutting down already authorized oil and gas programs in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a really tiny part of a 1.3 million acre refuge in Alaska. It has been approved. They are shutting it down.

The high prices of everything start with the cost of energy. Americans suffer from the high price of food, transportation, and everything else because energy costs way more than it needs to.

We lay that at President Biden's feet. We have the ability to be energy independent like we were under President Trump, an energy exporter helping our allies. Yet, what we have is a ban on being an exporter and a ban on new exploration to make us energy independent.

The Biden administration is way out of whack on this, and we need to do something. The American people need to let them hear about it. The American people need to make themselves heard on that as we try here in this time here in Congress with speeches like this tonight to do so.

I appreciate the time, and I appreciate Mr. Moore leading us on this Special Order to talk about these important topics of energy independence and controlling our border--two of the most important components to a more orderly society in this country.

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