[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 201 (Wednesday, December 6, 2023)] [House] [Pages H6200-H6201] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] ISSUES OF THE DAY The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 9, 2023, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Mann) is recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader. Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin), who represents the 36th District of Texas. Congressman Babin serves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with me. I am grateful for his presence here tonight and for his friendship. Mr. BABIN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my good friend, the gentleman from Kansas, for yielding and for this Special Order. Mr. Speaker, it is hard to imagine an administration that goes out of its way to increase our dependency on an adversarial nation hell-bent on our demise here in the United States of America. That is precisely what is happening--all because the left hates oil and gas and fossil fuels. I represent a district that is the epicenter of energy in east Texas in the greater Houston region. Communist China wishes nothing more than to see America burn to the ground, and Joe Biden's reckless demand for electric vehicles continues to give Beijing an ever-increasing advantage in seeing this quest through. Let's look at some of the facts. Nearly 80 percent of the world's cell manufacturing capacity for EV batteries is controlled by none other than Beijing, the People's Republic of China. Mr. Speaker, 75 percent of the world's lithium-ion battery megafactories are in the People's Republic of China. Mr. Speaker, 90 percent of graphite, the single largest mineral component of EV batteries, electric vehicle batteries, is refined in the People's Republic of China. Yet, if increased reliance on China isn't alarming enough, let's look at how electric vehicles are faring on the home front. Just a few weeks ago, in my own office, I had a number of car dealers from my great State of Texas visit to share the latest on EV--electric vehicle--sales. Given how much the Biden administration talks about EVs, you would think that they are selling like hotcakes. Big surprise, or maybe not, they are actually selling like $50,000 paperweights. I recently saw a great line in The Wall Street Journal: ``You can subsidize a buyer into the auto showroom, but you can't make him buy.'' The truth is that dealers can't get EVs off their lots. Texans don't want vehicles that they can't rely on. While I am a huge supporter of innovation, fully electric vehicles aren't ready for prime time, and forcing them on the American people will not change that reality. By unilaterally mandating unrealistic emission standards for vehicles in an effort to shift markets, this administration has dealt serious damage to the entire automotive sector. Unfortunately, even with this information, the White House would still force Americans to buy electric vehicles. Out of concerns for our manufacturers, dealers, national security, and, more importantly, American families, it is time for this administration to return to reality. Fossil fuels are the only reliable energy source that we have. If we stop producing and using them, we will soon be bowing the knee to the demands of Communist China. Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his very true remarks. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Spartz). Mrs. SPARTZ. Mr. Speaker, I think we have had a lot of important discussions this Congress, but there is one important discussion that I truly believe we need to take very seriously. It is section 702 of the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I want to remind us that our main job as Representatives of the people is to protect people's rights to life, liberty, and property. We will never have equal opportunities and will always want to have equal outcomes, but the equality of rights is the job of Congress and the legislature. We know very well that the constitutional rights of Americans have been violated. I am going to cite some excerpts from the report that the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board just issued recently. That board was created to oversee due processes, and the issue in line was the reauthorization. It is actually run by Democrats, and the chair is appointed by President Biden. This is from the report: ``The board finds that section 702 poses significant privacy and civil liberties risks, most notably from U.S. person queries and batch queries. Significant privacy and civil liberties risks also include the scope of permissible targeting.'' It also talks about new types of procedures that have been recently authorized, in 2022, and we had challenges about collection that some thought Congress would put a stop to. However, it says that the new procedures that we just authorized were used in a widespread fashion. It could be extraordinarily intrusive. It also says the board finding a risk of overboard government collection of communications is very real and can cause harm with no individualized judicial review of targeting decisions. We had an almost 300 percent increase in surveillance since 2013, double in the last 5 years. This search is very concerning since there is no specific review of that. Also, it says that a lot of things that are collected could be political, religious, and social advocacy. There are significant concerns about this program overall. The changes that the FBI has done, they say, have not been sufficient to protect privacy and civil liberties. It is also actually confirmed by the internal audit of a recent report--the most recent was in May 2023 when the internal audits of the FBI was talking pretty much about over 90 percent of queries not having any evidence of justification for these queries. It is like the FBI is very good. They don't record and don't recall, so they want all the liability. It is a serious issue. We had some discussions, and I think the Judiciary Committee bill is somewhat bad. At least it requires a warrant for queries of a U.S. person. Still, both the bills that the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee are proposing lack some very serious consideration. There is no outside review of what data is collected, and this is something the board pretty much recognizes. As an agency, they collect information on Americans, but they cannot assess how much. At the least, there needs to be some sampling by a FISA court when they do certification to start figuring it out because, ultimately, there is a potential that our agencies have access to be able to collect without warrant and surveil many Americans. We don't know how many Americans they are surveilling and what the NSA is doing when they do filtering procedures. There is no ability for us to even know what is going in the review of that. The board brings these concerns, but also there are concerns with documentation. I think Congress should have for us--we do it in other areas, and in accounting, we do it, too--where, through evidence and documentation, we can have preventative controls in systems. When queries are run, there is evidence of review and evidence of approval and justification by the FBI as to why they are using this loophole in the law that potentially violates the rights of U.S. citizens and many Americans. I think the magnitude of this problem is significant, and the magnitude of violations could be very material. I think Congress needs to be much more serious in its consideration before we reauthorize the section. The other thing the board talks about is national security. It is an important section, but actually, the agency didn't prove that queries that they are doing actually give justification to what they are doing to provide them more expansion on that. [[Page H6201]] I think we need to put up more guardrails, and I hope we will have more discussions on this issue and this bill if they are going to move forward in the way they are because I want to remind us that if we are not willing to stand up for the rights of Americans here, then I don't know why we are even in Congress. This Fourth Amendment right is a significant right, and it is a bipartisan issue. I hope we will take a more serious look at how we can improve this FISA reauthorization before it is reauthorized and have better legislation. {time} 1930 Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, I thank all the Members for participating tonight. When government grows, freedom shrinks. As conservatives in Congress, we must not compromise on freedom. Our sworn duty is to uphold the constitutional rights of all Americans, and I encourage all of my colleagues to remember the solemn oath that we all took to do so and support legislation that will aid us in that effort. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Moore), from the First Congressional District and the cohost of this Special Order, for his closing remarks. Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, President Biden is once again circumventing the rule of law and leaving hardworking Americans who never went to college with a $559 billion bill to cover unpaid student loans. House Republicans will bring to the floor H.J. Res. 88 expressing our disapproval of President Biden's Saving on a Valuable Education, SAVE, plan which would drastically alter the Income-Driven Repayment program and make America's student loan program even more expensive for taxpayers. Let's be clear: This sets the precedent that Federal education loans do not need to be repaid. Using American tax dollars to give a blanket subsidy to those who earn disproportionately more money than others is government at its worst. For those who never went to college, for those who are struggling with inflation and don't need more money flooding into a broken system, and for those who already paid off their loans, any effort to wipe the slate clean is completely unfair. I, along with many other House Republicans, support universities focusing on a strong ROI to keep costs down. We support Federal student loan reforms. We do not support blanket student loan forgiveness for political pandering in an election year. Even though the system has plenty of room to improve, it is my job to highlight ways the State of Utah is getting it right. Utah has the lowest average student loan debt per borrower in the country and the lowest percentage of graduates leaving campus with student debt. The University of Utah's medical school and nursing program at Weber State University work to hold down student debt by designing instructional schedules to allow students to work while attending college. I have had to apologize multiple times to constituents in the First District who built businesses after paying their way through school or other programming and paid their taxes, only to have their hard-earned dollars transferred to folks who have chosen a career and a different approach that required carrying some debt that they planned for. Now, with the government saying they don't need to plan for it, we are teaching our children the exact wrong thing that made our country so great. I am deeply frustrated that I am going to have to continue to apologize. Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. ____________________