[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 63 (Tuesday, April 8, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H1494-H1499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    REFLECTING ON AMERICA'S HISTORY

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms. Stevens 
of Michigan was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.)
  Ms. STEVENS. Mr. Speaker, it is a profound and humbling honor, as 
always, to address the Congress, the House of Representatives here in 
our Nation's Capitol. Of course, I am doing so on behalf of my 
incredible constituents in southeast Michigan, but also for all the 
residents of Michigan and this great Nation for, you see, the exercise 
of our democracy is ensconced and inscribed here in our House Chamber 
and on our House floor. We use both our voice and our vote to move our 
Nation forward.
  As you so declared, Mr. Speaker, I am, indeed, in the minority party, 
and so to gather time on the House floor is sometimes a struggle. To 
gather time in a committee is sometimes a struggle. You push for your 1 
minute, your 5 minutes, your maybe 15 minutes if you get it. Well, 
today I asked for an hour.
  I asked for an hour because last week we had an hour booked and, of 
course, the House adjourned early. We all paid witness to the 
incredible history that a Senator from New Jersey gave to this country 
by breaking the largest filibuster on record. Senator Cory Booker spoke 
for over 25 hours in the Senate Chamber on behalf of the voices of this 
Nation who have questions.
  Of course, we know there are 435 Members in the House Chamber, with 
each of us representing about 800,000 people. My colleagues from Rhode 
Island represent just shy of half a million people. In Michigan, I 
represent just about 800,000 people. We are the tenth largest State in 
the Union, with 13 House Members and 2 Senators here to move the will 
of our Nation and to pass the Nation's laws.
  It is an interesting thing to do so when the size of the institution 
is remaining as it has been described somewhat by laws. They said in 
1913, we would have 435 Members, and we haven't added new Members to 
the body since.
  I am not addressing you, Mr. Speaker, to propose controversy, but I 
am here to speak on behalf of the people of Michigan, who deserve fair 
and equal representation for the taxpayer dollars that they provide to 
the Nation's Treasury.
  When you look at the largest freshwater basins of our Great Lakes, 
when you look at the arsenal of democracy, when you see our incredible 
trade unions from Saginaw up to Iron Mountain working and making and 
delivering--the only polysilicon manufacturing in the Nation exists in 
Michigan, in a place called Hemlock by a company called Hemlock--you 
want to make sure that Michigan has its fair and equal representation.
  However, Mr. Speaker, it has been a point of frustration for my State 
of Michigan that in my 41, nearly 42 years

[[Page H1495]]

of existence on this Earth, that my State is always losing 
representation every time we dare to reapportion the size of the 
Chamber.
  Now, we are a close-knit group, the Michigan delegation. The dean of 
the Democrats is a woman named Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. Take a 
minute and understand who that is. Deborah Insley Dingell is the dean 
of the House Democrats of Michigan, the wife of John Dingell, the 
daughter-in-law of John Dingell, Sr., people who stood in this Chamber 
and passed things of historical importance.
  John Dingell was the last World War II veteran to serve in this very 
Chamber, Mr. Speaker. He was a respected individual and is still 
referenced often by colleagues from both sides of the aisle. In fact, I 
will never forget coming to Congress in 2019 in the 116th session of 
Congress. It was my first term. I got sworn in on January 3, as we do.
  Mr. Speaker, I said to my good colleague, Congresswoman Dingell: I 
would very much like to sit down with your husband because I knew there 
was a tradition where he would sit down with all new Members. Of 
course, I wasn't just asking personally. I was asking because we had 
four new Members of Congress from Michigan: Mr. Levin, Ms. Tlaib, Ms. 
Slotkin, and myself. I thought it would be nice for all of us to maybe 
meet with the Dingells.
  It was winter, and we knew Mr. Dingell's health was failing or shaky. 
It started to fail, and we were supporting Mrs. Dingell as a 
delegation. Dan Kildee of Flint was our dean then, and we rallied to 
show our love and our support. Tragically, we lost Mr. Dingell on an 
early February day.
  Mr. Speaker, it was really quite surreal to be in this very Chamber 
in my first couple of weeks, in this Congress and in the House of 
Representatives, paying tribute not only to a Michigan legend but an 
American legend.

                              {time}  1700

  We recognized Mr. Dingell in so many ways. We recognized Mr. Dingell 
in speeches on the House floor from the Democratic leadership under Ms. 
Pelosi and Mr. Hoyer. If we remember him, even Mr. McCarthy gave some 
nice words for Mr. Dingell. I was so surprised that a Member of the 
opposing party would have such kind and inspirational things to say 
about the former dean of the House of Representatives, 59 long years.
  Of course, Mr. Kildee booked one of these hours with his colleagues 
from Michigan to recognize Mr. Dingell. We each got some time to do so 
as Members. I used that time to share my reflections about Mr. Dingell, 
and it was so very humbling. It was never anything I expected to do in 
my second month in this Chamber, but I did it.
  The very next day, a sacred and incredible man, Mr. John Lewis, came 
up to me on the House floor. It is very crowded on the House floor, Mr. 
Speaker. You notice this when we are voting. It is 435 people packed 
here on the House floor. There is staff. It is sometimes hard to move 
around. You have to get your vote in, Mr. Speaker. You can't get too 
entranced in the conversation, or you miss a vote.
  Mr. Lewis came up to me, and he tapped me on the shoulder. He said to 
me that he heard my words about his friend, John Dingell, and that he 
appreciated them.
  I have shared that story on a few occasions but not necessarily 
publicly. I have shared it back in my district and with friends and in 
memory of both Johns, both legends, both titans of the 20th century. I 
have shared it with our Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries in 
recognition of the moments of passing the torch that we find ourselves 
in, in American Government and as we push for American change.
  It was really something else that Mr. Lewis and I had that exchange. 
It caught me by surprise. Sharing it right now is incredibly humbling, 
and I appreciate and am grateful for the time to be able to do so, Mr. 
Speaker, on this House floor.
  We know that we are a Nation of great passion, of great debate, and 
of people who come from all over to pay witness to our lawmaking. 
People come from all over to get their ideas and their thoughts across. 
They look up at a Capitol that inspires them, that moves them, and that 
brings together our democracy.
  Next year, we will celebrate 250 years of America's very existence as 
a Nation. It is really quite something. In some ways it seems like a 
long time, and it also seems like a short time. We know we are still 
writing America's story. We know that we don't engage in politics on 
the House floor such as campaigning.
  I would like to make an ethical reflection about our politics which 
is that at some point an election is had. An election is had. An 
election happens, and we have to govern. We are governing. We have to 
govern. We are always thinking about the last election and then the 
next election. We also have to think about governing. We have to look 
at it responsibly and reasonably.
  Of course, we recognize that it can feel right now in this moment 
frustrating for people, for Members, for the passions that so many have 
if you are not in the governing seat of authority.
  Of course, I remember that quite well in the 117th session of 
Congress. If it is okay, Mr. Speaker, to recognize what the makeup of 
that session was, we had a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and a 
Democratic President.
  Of course, we had a country in the early days of 2021 that was still 
reeling from the effects and the implications of a pandemic that wasn't 
yet over. In fact, people, if we recall correctly, Mr. Speaker, were 
just beginning to take that vaccine. We were just beginning to push for 
people to get vaccinated, not forced. I don't think people want to be 
forced to do anything, but we wanted to put an end to the pandemic.
  A colleague, of course, through the great tradition of our Michigan 
delegation, a gentleman by the name of Congressman Walberg, a longtime 
serving Member of this institution and now the chairman of the 
Education and Workforce Committee that I sit on, he and I had been 
working on a resolution together. We had actually introduced it in the 
116th Congress at the very end of the session.
  With the introduction of this resolution, we said to ourselves and to 
the Nation that we wanted the American people to get vaccinated. We 
also really wanted to make sure that our teachers could get vaccinated 
because people, Mr. Speaker, wanted to get their kids back in the 
classroom. They wanted to get them back in the classroom safely and 
soundly.
  I know we don't like to dwell on this pandemic period, but I share 
that because we reintroduced that resolution early into the 117th 
Congress. I know we don't--well, maybe we do. Maybe we don't want to 
dwell on some of the actions that occurred in the early days of the 
117th Congress. There was an attempt to certify the election that is 
usually pretty standard. We saw that happen this term. It was, again, 
pretty standard.
  On that day, January 6--I know people hear that day a lot--it was not 
so standard. It was kind of frenzied to say the least. It was very 
divisive for this Nation. It was very divisive for this Chamber. I 
think it is fair to say that people are still not over it, and we need 
to be honest about that. Of course, we have taken thousands of votes 
since then.
  I thought it was responsible to continue to encourage and support our 
educators, the great educators, the great Michigan Education 
Association, the AFT, the American Federation of Teachers. These are 
incredible unions that protect their members and want to make sure they 
are getting, at the very least, fair pay, raises, pensions, and the 
like because, gosh knows, it is not easy to be a teacher. It is 
certainly easier to be a teacher when you are safe from a deadly and 
lethal virus that killed a million Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, to reflect on our present time and the moment we find 
ourselves in, it is right and fair for us, and for me as a Member of 
Congress, who is the co-chair of the House Manufacturing Caucus and is 
a ranking member on the Research and Technology Subcommittee for 
the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, to make some notes and 
snapshots of what is taking place right now.

  It is not to accept that we have a lot of actions going on right now 
that are somewhat challenging to our Constitution. Article I is 
important to read and remember and to recognize about how

[[Page H1496]]

the Nation's laws get passed, how the dollars get appropriated, and how 
the governing of our Nation is authorized. It is authorized through the 
Congress, through the House and the Senate.
  Of course, it has been somewhat jaw-dropping to see the frontward 
leading of this Nation by executive order. This is not to break the 
rules of House and pass insult. It is just a reflection because, of 
course, all of these reciprocal tariffs were announced.
  Mr. Speaker, I am just pulling up my note on these reciprocal tariffs 
because it was an executive office announcement to do reciprocal 
tariffs.
  On April 2, a 25 percent tariff on all auto imports went into effect. 
Of course, I hail from Michigan. I am well-versed, alongside Mrs. 
Dingell, in the functionality and the drivers of our American auto 
industry. That largely comes from the fact that I was born in Metro 
Detroit, and I grew up around the car industry.
  My grandfather came to Michigan by way of Buffalo to work in a Ford 
plant. He was a UAW member and raised three children and had a big 
family. He made a good life and got a good wage and moved to a bigger 
house in Warren.
  Mr. Speaker, why I had booked the Special Order Hour last week was 
because my father was visiting. My father, Jim Stevens, James R. 
Stevens, of Shelby Township, he now resides in Shelby Township. He has 
always been a hybrid Macomb, Wayne, and Oakland Counties man.
  My father, Jim Stevens, was visiting. It was the first time he had 
visited Washington since I was sworn in, in 2019. We had talked about 
this trip for a long time. I wanted my dad to come and be a part of 
Congress. He got here on Tuesday; and then, boom, the votes were closed 
for the week. They ended votes.
  Dad didn't get to come to the committee hearings or watch the floor. 
I thought it would be neat to have him see me give an address for this 
length of time by watching in the gallery. Of course, he can always 
watch on C-SPAN; but I thought it would be nice to have him watch in 
the gallery.
  I thought it would be nice to share a little bit about his life and 
his journey. I mentioned his father who worked for the Fords. That is 
how they call it back home. The Fords is a family business. My father 
was born January 3, 1945.
  It would be interesting to look at what session of Congress was 
getting sworn in then during such a different time in this Nation's 
history. Yet it is history, and it is air that my father was breathing 
even as an infant. It was America at the beginning of 1945, when a war 
was still being waged around this world. The real threat of tyranny and 
some, rightfully--and I join in this--say evil was taking place.
  America helped end a world war in Asia and in Europe. That war gave 
us the word ``Holocaust,'' the murder of over 6 million Jews whose 
names we can't in days even share because it is that many names.
  My father grew up in this post-World War II industrial world order 
that was being led by the United States of America. So many remarkable 
things came about within our own country and around the world from 
American leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, think about what we were able to do with the auto 
industry, that arsenal of democracy, that engine of our military might, 
the Rosies who filled in because the men were away, fighting and 
serving in battle. These are unbelievable and historic tales of bravery 
that we should continue to share for a very, very long time to come.

                              {time}  1715

  Of course, this period of time was also met with some social change, 
progress, and pushing. Not all the Rosies went back to the home. My 
mother's aunt, my great-aunt Ada, was in Cleveland. I guess you could 
say she was a Rosie, Mr. Speaker. She was in a factory. She was tough. 
She never married. She worked so hard, and they kept her on in that 
factory after the war ended.
  I really believe, Mr. Speaker, that this is a history that was shared 
and has been shared, not my family's history, but, of course, for our 
Nation, it has been shared in so many brilliant and beautiful ways. 
Some people know about this movie ``Forest Gump.'' It kind of captures 
in a lot of beautiful ways this plight of the 20th century America.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I am a millennial. I was born in 1983, not 40 years 
after the conclusion of World War II but almost. Of course, the 
millennials, as we were closing out the 1900s, really felt as though 
America was at the top of the world. We were unstoppable. We invented 
the internet. Our auto industry was booming. The sport utility vehicle, 
Oakland County, Michigan, being really one of the most wealthy, if not 
the wealthiest county in America, and that is to say that our auto 
industry really had continued into the late 1900s to propel the 
economic engine of this Nation.
  It is a thing of beauty because it wasn't the haves and have-nots. 
People were making money, not just the executives. Of course, we have a 
very strong, vibrant, and incredible UAW, United Auto Workers union. At 
the end of the 1900s it was very large in number, very powerful, and 
very right to stand up for hardworking men and women like my 
grandfather.
  So as we think about the 20th century and we look at where we are 
now, the quarter 21st century, I say this so much it might drive some 
people crazy, but it is important to realize where we are standing and 
what moment we are in because it is the mid-2020s.
  It is a really exciting and inspiring time. I remember getting into 
Congress in the year 2019, and, of course, I was on the Science, Space, 
and Technology Committee. We were recognizing in a committee hearing 
the 50-year anniversary of the Moon landing. Some of my colleagues were 
alive and remembered when we landed on the Moon. Of course, they 
remembered when they landed on the Moon. My father remembers it, and my 
mother does too, somewhat, that we sent people to the Moon.
  My contribution to that committee hearing, Mr. Speaker, was 
reflecting on that history is so deeply important, but articulating the 
moonshot of the next 50 years remains our imperative. Of course, being 
the good Representative I am of the State of Michigan, I believed that 
the moonshot of the next 50 years, and I still do, is hailing from the 
place that I call home, the advancements in mobility, where are our 
auto industry is innovating, growing, and moving towards.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I came to Congress by way of an advanced 
manufacturing research lab, and I was working with a lot of incredible 
small manufacturers, mid-size manufacturers, and even large-scale 
manufacturers in this space that the acronym IIoT captures, Industrial 
Internet of Things. In short and simply, it is the digitization of our 
manufacturing process.
  Now a lot of people are calling it artificial intelligence, how we 
design, produce, manufacture, and ship capital-intensive, large-scale 
equipment made of steel. Now, I happen to know enough about the auto 
industry and how complex and interconnected it is that in Michigan we 
have this rich, unbelievable concentration of suppliers. We call them 
suppliers. These are really unbelievable enterprises that put so much 
into making door panels, making interiors, and making sure that we have 
got the full sweep of mobility opportunities from, of course, the 
engines, and we have got companies like Allison Transmission that is 
working on electric engines. They are still, of course, doing the 
internal combustion engine, Mr. Speaker.
  We have original equipment manufacturers who have been aggressive in 
ushering in their vision of a mobility future. It is no surprise for me 
to share in this House Chamber what we have heard from the chief 
executive officer of General Motors, Mary Barra, that 6 years ago she 
wanted to see a fully zero emission General Motors. I was surprised to 
hear the vision in some respects but also I wanted to recognize that 
she had a vision.
  She came to the bipartisan delegation of Michigan and said such a 
thing, and they are working on implementing new mobility.
  I haven't had a chance to ask her. Of course, I am not a board member 
of General Motors. I have not had a chance to ask her at the one-half 
decade mark where we are to becoming fully zero emission in the 2030s, 
2030, but I know that they are selling more and more of these electric 
vehicles, as well as internal combustion vehicles.

[[Page H1497]]

  Of course, Mr. Speaker, I find this exciting and thrilling as a 
steward of Michigan and Michigan's economy, as a younger individual who 
had worked in a political atmosphere on the Presidential campaigns of 
2008, and got to go work in the administration of Barack Obama in the 
Treasury Department. I was in the Treasury Department.
  Mr. Speaker, I know we don't hail from the same party. Of course, you 
are sitting in the Speaker's chair. What was so remarkable about the 
start of the Obama Administration and the Treasury Department right 
there on East Executive Avenue is that it is basically a part of the 
White House campus. The Obama administration officials came in and were 
met by Bush administration officials. We tangoed. We worked together. 
We danced together on behalf of a nation in an economic recession. We 
called it a GR, capital G capital R, Great Recession this Nation was 
in.
  A lot of unbelievable and painful things were happening, of course, 
Mr. Speaker. First of all, the housing industry was going kaput to say 
it lightly. There was a massive foreclosure crisis. There was a run on 
banks like in equity firms like Lehman Brothers. They had this whole 
Wall Street endeavor that the Bush administration alongside the House 
of Representatives had to engage in.

  There was this hanging issue around our auto industry and the fact 
that the capital markets and the lack of sound healthcare policy in 
this Nation, our companies were shouldering every burden, not burden, 
but responsibility of healthcare. People need healthcare, Mr. Speaker, 
we know that.
  Aging is real. I talk to my dad about it. I said: Dad, let's do the 
doctor checklist. He has got hearing, he has got throat, and he has got 
mobility, his physical mobility, and on and on and on. His mental 
faculties are incredible, yea for that, but there is a need for medical 
attention as people get older, and the UAW rightfully protects their 
retirees. We are proud of what they are able to do for the retirees.
  However, the country pre-ACA, Affordable Care Act, ran into some 
severe challenges. Ford had gotten its loan before the recession hit, 
and General Motors and Chrysler hadn't done that. They were tragically 
and frighteningly staring bankruptcy in the face. So, Mr. Speaker, what 
I was able to do was, being the passionate 20-something-year-old I was 
for my State grappling with this Presidential election that I was a 
part of and saw go to victory, I thought: Should I go back to Michigan 
or should I maybe work in a car dealership or something?
  It was not my degree, but I thought maybe I could help. Then I heard 
they were going to do an auto initiative, an auto rescue. So I put up 
my hand to work on that auto rescue. By fate and chance I met a man 
named Steve Rattner in the halls of President Barack Obama's transition 
office. I am nearly convinced, Mr. Speaker, that as he heard my thick 
Midwestern accent, he decided to bring me on as his Chief of Staff 
needing someone from Michigan who didn't have ethical conflicts with a 
managed industrial bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler. We didn't 
hire anyone in the auto industry. We didn't want to have conflicts. We 
brought together this amazing team. It didn't matter who voted for 
what, we just got the best talent in and put forward an initiative, an 
industrial initiative, the likes that this Nation had never seen.
  Yes, Mr. Speaker, it was money, the taxpayer money out of the 
Troubled Asset Relief Program. GM, General Motors, left the stock 
market.
  I reflected on the 15-year anniversary of this auto rescue last year 
in this Chamber during another one of these addresses.
  Mr. Speaker, it was really quite remarkable because GM left the stock 
market. They did a new initial public offering, an IPO. It got back on 
the stock market. They repaid the government. The government actually 
made some money off of the investment that they made in the companies.
  We had an old company. We had a brownfield initiative for some of the 
stuff that was going by the wayside. Of course, my friends at the UAW 
reminded me that too many plants have shuttered this century. In the 
year 2025, when you look at the last 25 years, Mr. Speaker, too many 
plants have shuttered. It is really quite outrageous, Mr. Speaker, to 
hold up this article from The Detroit News that was written on April 4 
of this year, that a stunning number of battery factories are being 
canceled.
  Why are factories being canceled in the year 2025, Mr. Speaker?
  Are we supposed to call the Chinese Communist Party and ask them to 
go and get these batteries and start making these batteries?
  Are we just not going to have batteries made in the United States of 
America?
  Why would it be acceptable to have battery plants shutter in the 
United States of America?
  This isn't an exercise of ego or id or personhood. This is about 
persons' lives. This is about how we manufacture and produce in the 
United States of America.
  I don't like reading that factories are being closed, Mr. Speaker. I 
don't like reading another headline written by Patricia Cohen on April 
3 that says that the trade war that we are in risks forfeiting 
America's economic primacy.
  Now, this is just one article. There is another one by Oren Cass. He 
is the chief economist at American Compass. I guess that is a 
conservative think tank. That is what the printout says.
  He writes a newsletter on Understanding America.
  Mr. Cass says: Stop freaking out. Tariffs can still work.
  I guess that is the debate that we are in.
  What I don't like, though, Mr. Speaker, was the tariff proposal that 
was so aggressive and coming down at us so fast and hard. I value so 
much my relationship and the leadership of Shawn Fain at the UAW, the 
United Auto Workers union. I was looking at this and saying: Maybe we 
can finally start to get our fair share. Maybe we can have a little 
reciprocity. Maybe the industrial world order that we brought together 
in 1945 and beyond is a time that we, of course, need to honor, 
recognize, and appreciate, but for 2025, we do need to look at who is 
buying American cars and how we are setting the rules of the road.

                              {time}  1730

  I had the privilege as a Member of Congress last term to go to a NATO 
meeting. I was invited to a NATO meeting over in Portugal. It was very 
exciting to be with a bipartisan delegation of Members of Congress for 
a few days. It was during a recess period. I thought it was worthwhile 
to do it.
  I was actually shocked that there were not American cars in Portugal. 
I thought, my goodness gracious, where are your Fords? Where are your 
General Motors? Where are your Chevys? Anything?
  My goodness gracious, we boast and love making vehicles in Michigan 
and selling to the world. I do this program called Manufacturing 
Monday. There are hundreds of parts, components, that get made in any 
car. I visited hundreds of manufacturers, Mr. Speaker, and I mean, 
really, I go onto their factory floors. It is not a showboat thing. It 
is a geek-out.
  It is really exciting to geek out with these makers and innovators. 
It really is an amazing thing to go to see this stuff in action. They 
are selling all over the world, and they are employing people in 
Michigan and all over our country. It is a really a delightful thing.
  It is important to our economy. We want to keep doing that, and we 
want to sell our nameplates.
  Jeep is a fantastic brand. I am not pushing, and I am not trying to 
sell cars on the House floor. I am just mentioning that we are not 
seeing a lot of them overseas, Mr. Speaker.
  When we have this approach, what was called liberation day, and we 
will see what unfolds from it, where we have been grappling and 
frustrated and watching as Michiganders is this tariff policy on 
Canada. I have this other article here that someone sent me: ``Using 
Tariffs to Make Canada a State? It's Been Tried Before,'' by Joseph 
Thorndike.
  Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 21 minutes remaining.
  Ms. STEVENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read Thorndike's words. 
Again, I am not using a name. We are musing.

[[Page H1498]]

We are hearing in the zeitgeist musings about plans to annex Canada. I 
am not musing that. I am a Member of Congress. I don't think we need to 
annex Canada. Personally, I love the relationship that the United 
States has with Canada.
  I am in a border State. We have a lot of Canadians who immigrate to 
the United States. They marry Michiganders. They live in our 
neighborhoods.
  Some of their workers come in to work in our hospitals. We have these 
great nurses.
  Of course, we have a phenomenal manufacturing partnership with 
Canada. We have a lot of shared memberships with the union. Remember, 
it is an international union, so the UAW has members in Canada. The 
trades have members in Canada, including the Steelworkers, who are very 
important to all of this as well and who know very much what good 
tariff policy could mean for them.
  I support them in that, but we don't need to be bullying Canada to 
become an annexed State. We need to make sure that we have strengthened 
security and good trade.
  When we hear, Mr. Speaker, oh, my goodness gracious, about blanket 
tariffs on our neighbors from the north, all aluminum imports face a 25 
percent tariff, well, that is coming from Canada.
  I am the co-chair of the Aluminum Caucus, Mr. Speaker. It is a 
bipartisan caucus. I have these relationships in the aluminum sector, 
and they are telling me that they have these smelters that American 
companies have in Canada that are making the aluminum.
  I don't know if you have ever seen aluminum get made, but it is 
really like baking a cake, and steel and all of that. The steel, oh, my 
gosh, when I was working for the President in 2009 and '10, we spent 
time with the Steelworkers and the steelmaking process.
  These smelters are $6 billion. It confuses me how we are going to get 
a $6 billion smelter in the United States of America. Maybe we should 
do that. It would be nice to do, but where are you going to get the $6 
billion? You know, these Wall Street people are all upset about the 
market right now.
  We had a really great industrial policy in '22, a bill I helped 
author, the CHIPS and Science Act, Mr. Speaker. It was a very 
bipartisan initiative, and it was money that we put out into the 
marketplace to say we will have chip manufacturing in the United States 
of America. It was a sizable amount of taxpayer dollars to say that we 
would have chip manufacturing, but what was even more incredible, Mr. 
Speaker, is that, yes, it was sizable dollars, but it was quadruple 
matched by the private sector, a public-private partnership.
  The initiative actually paid for itself four times over by the 
conclusion of the previous President's term.
  I think we need a very comprehensive industrial policy that matches 
the moment of time that we are in, Mr. Speaker. Of course, strategic 
tariffs that the previous President and the President before did have 
helped, but we are feeling the squeeze in Michigan, and it is news 
unfolding before our eyes.
  Again, I reference the article here: ``A stunning number of electric 
vehicle, battery factories are being canceled.'' We just read about 
another Intel factory in Ohio.
  I met with these remarkable people at the Laborers' International 
Union this morning, or just as it was heading into afternoon time, 
rather. I met with the Laborers' International Union, and the members 
from Michigan who hail from all over the State were sharing with me 
some of their concerns.
  They were saying to me, Mr. Speaker, that there are projects that are 
going to shutter. There is a bridge in Bay City that has been 
demolished and has had concrete set. We have a good Congresswoman from 
Bay City who is aware of that project, of course. They are saying if 
the dollars get canceled, we are not going to have a bridge. They are 
not going to be able to complete it. It is an insult to their work. It 
is an insult to their labor.
  Then, of course, Mr. Speaker, we have another concern of our 
laborers, which is an enterprise that I had mentioned, the largest 
polysilicon manufacturer in the country, actually the only one, and one 
of three in the world. It is this very remarkable enterprise called 
Hemlock. They received some tax credits from industrial policy 
legislation that we passed in the 117th session of the Congress.
  This is so very essential to our country and our world's 
manufacturing prowess. I really, Mr. Speaker, do not want to go 
overseas for that polysilicon. I want to see the work of polysilicon 
manufacturing in the United States of America expand and grow. I would 
like to see it expand and grow.
  What my friends at the Laborers' Union shared with me, Mr. Speaker, 
is that if we cancel the credits, if we squeeze out the money, the work 
will stop.
  Why would we hand that gift to our competitor? I say this from this 
Chamber as one vote and one voice to just continue to push for sound 
and reasoned industrial policy. Not everything needs to be a reaction 
to who is in charge.
  Mr. Speaker, today, I have put forward an announcement from my office 
about bills to lower costs, reintroducing four bills that I wrote last 
term in the Congress: the Healthy Affordable Housing Act that I have 
reintroduced with my colleague Congressman Ritchie Torres; the Fix 
Moldy Housing Act; the First Time Homeowner Savings Plan Act; and the 
Home Accessibility Tax Credit Act. These are all bills I just 
introduced today. Some of them had Republicans on them last term.
  The Home Accessibility Tax Credit Act is a great bill, and I am proud 
to have Senator Angus King as my companion on this bill. It is a 
refundable tax credit to help seniors and Americans with disabilities, 
including our veterans, retrofit their homes to meet their 
accessibility needs.
  In the United States of America, Mr. Speaker, we want everyone to 
succeed. We want everyone who can work to have access to a good job.
  In 2023, Detroit reached its highest level of jobs in over 50 years, 
Mr. Speaker. People were moving into the city of Detroit. It was really 
something else to see that happen.
  That is not to ignore the frustration and the pain of high costs. I 
am not here and not standing here, in part because the rules don't 
allow it, but it is appropriate to not play the blame game. It is 
important to play the solution game for the United States of America.
  As somebody who served in a bipartisan way--yes, I was an appointee 
of the administration of the two-term President Barack Obama. I served 
in his first term on the U.S. auto rescue, the initiative responsible 
for saving General Motors and Chrysler and hundreds of thousands of 
Michigan jobs and very clearly saved millions of jobs across this great 
Nation.
  It was really something else. I mean, they were saying don't let them 
liquidate. We didn't let them liquidate. We went forward, and we did 
the right thing.
  I came into Congress and started the Democratic Manufacturing Working 
Group, became the co-chair of the Manufacturing Caucus, started the 
Women in STEM Caucus, became a co-chair of the Robotics Caucus and 
passed things like the American Manufacturing Leadership Act, making 
sure we had an Export-Import Bank that was reauthorized. We did that in 
the 116th session of the Congress so that we can export, so that we can 
sell American-made goods.
  The question really is, Mr. Speaker, as we look out to the mid-
century mark, waving maybe frantically good-bye as much as we want to 
cling to the great half-century of America in the 20th century, we know 
that competition is ripe, that we cannot rest. When you talk to 
autoworkers and auto executives, they know how ferocious that 
competition is with the Chinese Communist Party.
  It is a competition, but they are a different system of government 
and business. Our preference is to say that we certainly would like to 
do business how we do business, but they are a different society. They 
somehow got into the WTO and didn't really adopt some of the ways that 
we do business.
  We want to make sure that the economic might of the United States of 
America continues to lead the free world.
  While this Chamber may be largely empty because we remain very busy 
in the Nation's Capital, and I do not expect my colleagues to listen to 
me deliver such an address, Mr. Speaker, I do

[[Page H1499]]

dare say, Mr. Speaker, that this is something that we can all agree on, 
that we can all work on, and that approaches, sentiments, and certainly 
emotions that run high in politics, of course, might differ.

                              {time}  1745

  The idea that America should and must win and must continue to propel 
and to inspire as a vibrant, growing economy and democracy is what 
should win the day.
  Mr. Speaker, in speaking from my humble perch as a Representative of 
the great State of Michigan, that is my contribution to the Halls of 
this Chamber this afternoon.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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