House Committee on Rules Discusses Geothermal Energy, Critical Minerals, and Federal Student Aid

Left even went as far as questioning their sanity and the sitting president branding them as garbage. Across the aisle, House Republicans begged for our colleagues to truly listen to all Americans, including those left behind by this administration. Those cries fell on deaf ears. It's no wonder last Tuesday was a reckoning. The results can't be interpreted as anything other than a clear mandate to right the wrongs of the Biden-Harris administration. The bottom line, Americans have placed their faith in Republicans, and that faith is not something that we take lightly. As we look to the years ahead, House Republicans will still use the time before us to improve and right-size the federal government. With that in mind, the Rules Committee will consider three measures meant to cut red tape and to make our government work for all Americans. The Biden-Harris administration has spent more time pursuing an illegal student loan scheme than adhering to critical, congressionally mandated, free application for federal student aid deadlines. As the White House delays, prospective students and their families are left in the dark with a looming financial decision. H.R. 8932, the FAFSA Deadline Act, delivers much-needed clarity to this process. Additionally, the committee will take up two measures meant to harness American resources. Amidst the left's keep-it-on-the-ground agenda and corresponding regulatory labyrinth, H.R. 7409, the Harnessing Energy and Thermal Sources Act, streamlines the regulatory requirements of geothermal energy infrastructure exploration and development. Furthermore, H.R. 8446, the Critical Mineral Consistency Act of 2024, ensures parity between the two bureaucratic processes of deeming our natural resources as critical. With that said, it's good to be back. Welcome back, everyone. Now it's time to get back to work. I now want to yield to our Ranking Member, Mr. McGovern, for any remarks he chooses to make. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wasn't going to talk about the election, but since you brought it up, let me first of all say that at least you're acknowledging the results of this election. The last election, four years ago, so many of you refused to acknowledge the results of a free and fair election. Maybe we're making a little bit of progress. I feel good about that. As far as the Republicans maintaining control of the Congress, well, let me just say if the next two years are just as effective as the last two years have been under Republican rule, I'm not worried at all, because you've accomplished nothing, and yet you're in charge. So I'm ready to move forward and fight the battles that lie ahead. But let me just say this about what we're dealing with here in the Rules Committee. These first two bills are terrible, and I don't have much to say about them. H.R. 8446 politically interferes in a science-driven process and potentially siphons needed resources away from at-risk supply chains. H.R. 7409 undermines our environmental laws and blocks public input in the permitting process, which could lead to irreparable damage to our lands. And while H.R. 8932 offers a pragmatic solution to ensure student aid reaches those who need it, let us pray that, despite Trump's promise to dismantle the Department of Education, that the agency that oversees FAFSA survives the next four years so that this measure can actually benefit families. And with that, I yield back my time. Chairman, I yield back the chair. Thanks, gentlemen. Without objections, any prepared statements that our witnesses may have will be included in the record. I now want to welcome our first panel, Chairwoman Fox and Ranking Member Scott, from the Committee on Education and the Workforce, to the witness table. Chairwoman Fox, I welcome your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the members of the Rules Committee for having us here today. FAFSA simplification has been the law for the entirety of the Biden-Harris administration, but for two years now, the FAFSA has been plagued with delays and excuses. In March of 2023, after months of refusing to communicate a FAFSA release date, the Education Department announced that it would push the release of the FAFSA back from October 1st to what ended up being December 30, 2023. The October deadline should have come as no surprise. Congress had already granted the Education Department an additional year, and the administration still couldn't get the job done. Then the December 30 soft launch was filled with glitches. The Government Accountability Office found that the FAFSA application took a student with a two-parent household an average of nine and a half days to complete, in contrast to the administration's claim of 15 to 20 minutes. The Education Department refused to provide students information on the status of their applications or solutions to technical problems for months, telling many to just try again later. The GAO found that during the application cycle for the 2024-2025 school year, the Education Department let four million calls for help go completely unanswered. For the applications that did make it through, large percentages contained errors, many of which were unable to be corrected. In some cases, these errors took months to be fixed. Other FAFSA components, such as allowing schools to issue batch corrections, are still incomplete and unavailable to this day. This year, the Education Department refused to commit to an October 1 release date, and this August announced the FAFSA would be delayed until December 1, setting a new precedent of delaying the FAFSA for a second straight year. The delays and uncertainty have crushed students and schools. Additionally, states and non-profits have been hamstrung in their efforts to process aid packages or award scholarships. What's worse, when the Education Department should have been pouring time and resources into FAFSA, it was pouring time and resources into the latest student loan debt scheme. As a result, hundreds of thousands of students may never enter post-secondary education. The GAO found that roughly 430,000 fewer students submitted a FAFSA for the 2024-2025 award year, with the decline most pronounced among low-income students. This fall semester, universities experienced the steepest drop in first-year enrollment since the pandemic. Attending college is one of the most consequential choices that some may ever make. For many students with very limited means who depend on the FAFSA, that choice has been denied to them. Some will inevitably put education on the back burner for life. That's what troubles me the most about this. H.R. 8932, the FAFSA Deadline Act, authored by Representative Houchen, would give students, families, and schools much-needed clarity by ensuring the FAFSA is released and fully operational by October 1 each year. The current, quote, flexibility, unquote, in statute allows the Education Department to release the FAFSA as late as January 1, causing confusion for schools and families. By creating a hard deadline of October 1, this bill will end that confusion and prevent this administration's pattern of botched FAFSA rollouts from becoming the norm. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McGovern, members of the committee. Mr. Chairman, in response to your comments about the election, I look forward to engaging. The wrongs are corrected. Wrongs like the Biden administration created too many jobs, more jobs in four years than any other president on record. Wrongs, I guess you're talking about, to reduce health care premiums and reducing drug prices and the highest portion of American public covered with health insurance in the history of the United States, and fighting climate change. I look forward to engaging all of those wrongs that somebody is going to try to correct. But I'm here today to speak in support of H.R. 8932, a bill that would set a firm October 1 deadline for the Department of Education to roll out the free application for student, the federal student aid or the FAFSA form. Let me just say that I think it's fair to say that nothing good can be said about the rollout this year. So I won't comment. But looking forward to the future, I believe this bill, since it will take effect in 2025, addresses key concerns and strikes a balanced approach that will ensure the department will be able to meet the needs of students and families across the country next year. The FAFSA is an essential tool for millions of students seeking access to higher education. It's a gateway for receiving federal student aid, such as Pell Grants and student loans. Federal student aid is becoming increasingly important to access higher education as college continues, college costs continue to rise. For years, we've made progress in simplifying the form and expanding access to financial aid, especially the Pell Grant. But since the fall of last year, we've seen persistent technical issues that have prevented students and their families from completing their FAFSA applications, which has delayed access to financial support for far too many. As members of this committee have heard from students who were unable to submit the forms, these glitches and due to these glitches and struggle to receive timely, adequate support from the Department of Education, we, I think on a bipartisan basis, know this is unacceptable. And so when HR 8932 was considered by the committee in July, I did have concerns with the implementation deadline. The bill would have forced the department to launch a potentially incomplete form on October 1, without consideration for improvements. Ever since the bill is now being considered after October 1 of this year, it means the department, the deadline really applies for next year. And due to this change, I believe HR 8932 provides the department an appropriate amount of time to fix any lingering issues with the FAFSA form. This bill sets a clear deadline, October 1, for the FAFSA rollout, but also provides necessary flexibility to ensure the department can roll out this year's FAFSA form without completing, without compromising the quality or effectiveness of the form. The problem we're trying to solve here is not just the deadline itself, but how we can make sure that the FAFSA is a tool that works for families and students. And we must ensure that students get the aid they deserve in a timely manner without technical failures or unnecessary delays. HR 8932 is a step in the right direction to fixing that process, ensuring that students have the financial resources they need to succeed in college. And so I support the bill and look forward to a productive discussion on how we can continue addressing challenges of college they need to complete the FAFSA. You know, this Department of Education has been so incompetent. It's really hard for me to talk more about that without getting really bothered. It's just everything they've touched, they've done wrong. And it's a real shame. It's just a real shame because the people of this country are not being well served. No, they're not. I mean, that's an astonishing number. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Scott? I'm not sure there's much constructive process to be served by discussing the failure and rolling out this year's form. It was a mess. I think we all agree on that. We're trying to fix it for next year. Well, I pray that we can. Thank you for your testimony today, Mr. McGovern. I just pray we still have a Department of Education next year. But anyway, I have no questions. Gentleman has no questions. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized. I don't have any questions, Mr. Chairman. Gentleman from Georgia has no questions. The gentlelady from Pennsylvania is recognized. Thank you. I do appreciate the work that the committee has been doing on this, because it has been a matter of top concern that I've heard from the guidance counselors and the students in our district. And we definitely need to get it straightened out. So thank you for your work. Well, thank you for appearing before us today, seeing no other members wishing to ask questions. This panel is excused. Thank you for your gift of time. Thank you. who is still pending, and Representative Huffman from the Committee on Natural Resources. Thank you both for being here. Mr. Huffman, in the interest of time, why don't we let you go ahead with your testimony, and then we'll catch Representative Westerman when he arrives. Sounds great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McGovern, members of the committee. I am here to testify against the two Natural Resource Committee bills that House Republicans are scheduling for the floor this week. There are obviously precious few days left in the 118th Congress. And even though it's been a historically unproductive Congress, there's still time to do some serious work. These two bills are not serious. They have no chance of being approved by the Senate and becoming law and should not be coming to the floor. The first one, H.R. 7409, the HEATS Act, would carve out certain geothermal drilling projects from all federal permits. That means no NEPA review, no Endangered Species Act review, no National Historic Preservation Act review, no consultation of any kind, and no consideration of how these projects could impact our public lands, including federal lands that would be right next to and right underneath, in some cases, these projects. Most of us support geothermal energy. It's a great source of clean power, a reliable baseload power source. We should develop more of it. But that should happen thoughtfully, not through a massive loophole that the industry doesn't even need. As clean and beneficial as geothermal energy is, these projects, if they're done improperly, can still significantly impact water, endangered species, and surrounding communities. We need to make the permitting process faster and more efficient, but it's a bridge too far to throw it out altogether for projects right next to federal public lands with direct impacts on federal subsurface resources. Under this extreme waiver, the Secretary of Interior would be prevented from ensuring that geothermal operations are conducted safely, following all applicable environmental laws, there would be no opportunities for public comment or tribal consultation. There's a more responsible way to advance geothermal energy. Thankfully, in this Congress, there has been bipartisan progress on bills and strategies to safely promote efficient geothermal permitting and deployment. The House recently passed a package of geothermal permitting bills on suspension. The Senate is considering a bipartisan package to promote responsible and streamlined geothermal development. This bill has not been part of those discussions, and it's glaringly out of step with those efforts. In addition to the suite of bills that's already passed the House, the Department of Interior has been busy. They recently finalized new categorical exclusions that streamline reviews to promote responsible geothermal development for projects where the environmental impacts are well understood. All of these efforts will improve geothermal permitting without sacrificing public input, tribal consultation, and appropriate environmental reviews. So we simply do not need H.R. 7409. Moving to the second bill, H.R. 8446, the Critical Mineral Consistency Act. This is, quite frankly, a naked giveaway to the copper mining industry. It would amend the of critical minerals in the Energy Act of 2020, essentially amending USGS's critical minerals list to include critical materials as designated by the Department of Energy. Now, these two lists may sound similar and have some overlap, but they're two very distinct lists maintained by different agencies for distinctly different purposes. And that's why we should let agency experts, not politicians, decide what goes on each list. In the case of copper, DOE classifies it on the critical materials list as near critical. But copper is not on USGS's 2022 critical minerals list, largely because, as DOE itself acknowledges, there is no immediate supply risk for copper. H.R. 8446 is an attempt to hand the copper industry a gift by allowing it to benefit from being on the USGS list when copper does not actually belong on that list. Manipulating the critical minerals list by adding a non-critical mineral, like copper, enables the industry to siphon resources away from much more at-risk and fragile mineral supply chains, the minerals that actually are critical and at-risk today. USGS's last assessment of copper concluded that the supply chain was not considered vulnerable because of relatively low imports and the diversity of foreign sources that are available. Most American imports of copper come from Chile, Canada, and Mexico, all very reliable trading partners, as long as we don't start an irresponsible trade war with them. Copper is a highly recyclable material. We're very good at recycling it. In fact, the United States supplied about a third of domestic copper through recycling in 2022. And we also produce a significant amount of copper right here in the United States. We are already a top five producer of copper globally and a top ten exporter of copper. Not to mention that copper mining can have significant adverse impacts on nearby communities, including high water use in arid environments, air and water pollution, hazardous waste, and impacts to sacred sites. Eighty-nine percent of copper resources in the U.S. are within 35 miles of tribal land. And many of the top companies producing copper are foreign-owned, extracting federally owned minerals without committing to supporting the domestic clean energy economy. And thanks to our antiquated mining laws, they don't pay royalties. It is a total giveaway. Not even oil and gas gets a deal this good. And now we get to probably the most outrageous part of the bill. It's not just a giveaway to the copper industry. It's a gift to the Chinese Communist Party. One of the bill's primary beneficiaries would be Resolution Copper, a proposed copper mine in ranking member Grijalva's home state that threatens the sacred site of Oak Flat. The project is owned by two multinational companies, BHP and Rio Tinto. Both have terrible track records of displacing indigenous people around the globe and destroying sacred sites. And guess who owns the largest stake in Rio Tinto? The Chinese government. Resolution Copper has not committed to keeping the copper from this project in the United States. So I guess it's the honor system. We'll just trust a company owned by our biggest foreign adversary to do the right thing with our copper. With this bill, Rio Tinto's Chinese government owners can access federal tax credits, subsidies, and other goodies without even guaranteeing that Americans see benefits of keeping the copper here. But we will be stuck with the damage from this massive mining project. Environmental damage, public health impacts, desecration of sacred sites, and the diverting of federal support away from minerals that are actually critical today and belong on that list. This is a stunningly reckless bill. I urge my colleagues to vote no on both H.R. 7409 and H.R. 8446 and yield back. Thank you very much. Chairman Westerman. Thank you, Chair Fischbach, and I appreciate the opportunity to testify today in support of two bills, H.R. 7409, the Harnessing Energy at Thermal Sources Act, or the HEAT Act, and H.R. 8446, the Critical Mineral Consistency Act. Our nation possesses abundant natural resources which we can develop more safely and cleaner than anywhere else in the world. Both bills under consideration today would cut red tape to promote the development of American resources, improving our energy and our national security. H.R. 7409, introduced by Representative Kim from California, would expedite geothermal energy development on non-federal lands where federal minerals are involved. Currently, geothermal operators working on non-federal lands must comply with federal regulations, including NEPA, and obtain federal permits even if the share of federal minerals implicated is minor. This bill takes a common-sense approach to fix this problem by deferring to state regulatory frameworks when the share of federal mineral resources is less than 50%. Notably, H.R. 7409 would not impact royalties paid to the federal government, so the bill would not reduce the federal revenues created by geothermal energy production. Enhanced geothermal systems, or EGS, use proven technologies to stimulate geothermal reservoirs. The DOE predicts that EGS could provide 60 gigawatts of electricity by 2050, which is 8.5% of U.S. generation capacity. To realize this potential, federal streamlining efforts like this bill will be necessary. Geothermal reservoirs most suitable for EGS are in states with federal minerals, including Colorado, California, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, New Mexico, and Oregon. The Department of Energy has also identified West Virginia and Pennsylvania as highly feasible EGS locations, and small EGS pilot projects have already been constructed in Massachusetts and Maryland. Federal minerals come with red tape. H.R. 7409 provides a rational approach to streamlining renewable geothermal energy resource development. The next piece of legislation up for discussion is H.R. 8446, the Critical Mineral Consistency Act, sponsored by Arizona. This bill would amend the Energy Act of 2020 to include critical minerals or critical materials from the Department of Energy's critical materials list in the United States Geological Survey's critical minerals list. The definition of critical mineral is already included in the definition of critical material. This means that every mineral on USGS's critical minerals list is automatically placed on DOE's critical materials list. H.R. 8446 would create a symbiotic relationship between the list by placing critical materials on the critical minerals list. When compiling their list, each department considers slightly different yet complementary criteria. The USGS list focuses on non-fuel minerals essential to U.S. economic and national security vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. The DOE list uses a forward-looking methodology that accounts for international demand scenarios and growth trajectories specifically for energy technologies. For example, copper is on DOE's list but not USGS's list because DOE considered projections that forecast increased copper demand to fulfill the needs of the renewable and conventional energy sectors. The criteria are established in complementary and it stands to reason that just as DOE includes all minerals from the USGS in their list, USGS should also include all materials from the DOE on their critical minerals list. The bottom line is that these lists were created to help the U.S. identify where our mineral supply risk lies so that we can shore up our supply chains to provide for the U.S. energy economic and national security needs. H.R. 8446 is an elegant solution to the common issue of critical mineral or critical material confusion that recognizes each agency's autonomy and expertise. The committee on natural resources passed this bill with bipartisan support in June of this year. Both H.R. 7409 and H.R. 8446 have had hearings and a markup in committee. They have been thoroughly vetted and have regular order behind them. I urge the rules committee to report out an appropriate rule to provide for their consideration in the house and urge my colleagues to support their passage on the floor. Thank you and I'm willing to answer any questions you may have. Thank you Mr. Chair and I just I have just a quick question. Does the USGS geological survey the department responsible for issuing the DOI critical mineral list support this bill? Yes. Thank you very much and with that Mr. McGovern. Yeah I said in my opening statement that I think these are both bad bills and I hope that they get defeated and so I have no questions. Thank you. My friend from North Carolina, South Carolina, sorry I was real close. We're cousins. It's often you say they're not critical. I'm in the construction business. Copper goes into every wire that goes into houses and commercial. Copper goes into the coals of HVAC and the defense I mean I can't part of the frustration America has had is the bottleneck on all of this aside from the cost going up so this is very critical. Copper is not a real complicated thing to mine. To my knowledge how many plants have been shut down Bruce? Well my understanding is we have two refined copper refineries in the United States now and China has about 50 of them. Go back to 1995 and we produced about three times more copper than China and today they produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 times more copper than we do. The world bank put out an estimate a couple of years ago that said by 2045 we need to mine more copper than has been mined in the history of the world. We need to double the copper availability by 2045 to meet the demand so I think DOE has a forward-looking analysis that says yeah obviously copper is critical. USGS doesn't have copper as a critical mineral but I think anybody that sees what's happening realizes copper is very critical and we should take what's on DOE's list and put that on USGS's list. You shouldn't have some bureaucrat saying what's critical and what's not. So goes housing so goes the economy and it is critical I can tell you firsthand it's critical. So you know again this is a frustration you can't get a permit in this country over the last four years and that's why people did what they did. So I just said I would if you ask the man on the street buying copper he will tell you not only is the price quadruple but it's the time to get it and it's holding up a tremendous amount of good projects that help this country. I yield back. Thank you. We yield Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. I think we all know that we're in desperate need of comprehensive permitting reform. I wish these bills were part of that but because I think a comprehensive balanced well written bill would get the support of bipartisan majorities in both the house and senate and that would boost domestic investment etc but this legislation doesn't seem to do that. It carves out some special corporate interests and doesn't strike an appropriate balance for public health, the environment etc. Could you ranking member could you address this issue of critical minerals? I mean I think it's a lot of things are critical if we're just using a dictionary definition but doesn't critical minerals have a specific definition in this context? It does and USGS is the agency with the expertise and the training to identify for its discrete list and the purposes for which it maintains that list what goes on it. Members of congress you know have our own compromised views on some of these projects and this particular bill is a really troubling precedent because it's handing the gift of everything that goes with being on that list. Streamlined permitting federal subsidies to a Chinese state-owned company that has a terrible record around the world without any sideboards to even guarantee that this copper which we can all agree is important we need it no guarantees that it even stays in our supply chain at all. So that's why this this bill would need a lot of work if it were to move forward. My understanding is that our colleague congresswoman Ledger Fernandez has offered an amendment that would put some of those sideboards in place. Right thank you nothing further. Thank you Mr. Scott. Mr. Scott thank you very much and the witnesses are excused. Is there anyone else seeking to testify on HR 7409, HR 8446 and HR 8932? Without objection this closes the hearing portion of our meeting. Without objection the committee stands in recess subject to the call of the chair but hopefully before votes before 6 30 votes that help. Yeah it does I didn't think this was very complicated but okay that'd be great. I would suspect that folks are still on their way into town since it's a land but thank you. Thank you. Committee will come to order. The chair will be in receipt of a motion from the gentleman from Thank you Mr. Chairman. I move the committee grant HR 8932 the FAFSA deadline act a closed rule. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill. The rule provides that the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the committee on education and workforce now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted in the bill as amended shall be considered as read. The rule waives all points of order against provisions in the bill as amended. The rule provides one hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on education workforce or the respective designees. The rule provides one motion to recommit. The rule further provides for consideration of HR 7409 the harnessing energy at thermal sources act under a closed rule. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill. The rule provides that the bill shall be considered as read. The rule waives all points of order against provisions in the bill. The rule provides one hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair of the committee on natural resources or the respective designees. The rule provides one motion to recommit. The rule further provides for consideration of HR 8446 the critical mineral consistency act of 2024 under a closed rule. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill. The rule provides that the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the committee on natural resources now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted in the bill as amended shall be considered as read. The rule waives all points of order against provisions in the bill as amended. The rule provides one hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on natural resources or the respective designee. Finally the rule provides one motion to recommit. Thanks very much. You've now heard the motion. Is there any discussion or amendment to the rule? I have an amendment to the rule Mr. Chairman. I move the committee make an order amendment number one to HR 8446 offered by representative Ledger Fernandez which prohibits foreign entities of concern or their subsidiaries from receiving critical mineral federal benefits. So this bill that we're talking about here is a transparent attempt to politically influence the USGS critical minerals list to include copper all to the benefit of the well-resourced copper industry. But as Mr. Huffman brought up one of the main beneficiaries of this bill is a company that is not committed to keeping their mined copper in the United States and is partly owned by the Chinese government. So this amendment is simple. My colleagues are so concerned about Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Here is our opportunity to make sure that these entities as well as foreign terrorist organizations are not able to receive these federal benefits. I urge adoption of this amendment and I yield back my time. The gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion on the amendment? Hearing no further discussion the question is on the amendment. Those in favor signify by saying aye. Those opposed say no. Opinion of the chair of the noes have it. The amendment is not passed. Roll call vote has been requested. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Rushenthaler no. Mr. Rushenthaler no. Mrs. Fischbach no. Mrs. Fischbach no. Mr. Massey no. Mr. Massey no. Mr. Norman no. Mr. Norman no. Mr. Roy no. Mr. Roy no. Mrs. Houchin no. Mr. Langworthy no. Mr. Scott no. Mr. Scott no. Mr. McGovern aye. Mr. McGovern aye. Ms. Scanlon aye. Ms. Scanlon aye. Mr. Neguse. Ms. Lizard-Fernandez. Mr. Chairman. Chair votes no. Mr. Chairman no. Clerk will report. Two yays, seven nays. Two yays, seven nays. The noes have it. The amendment is not agreed to. Further discussion or amendment on the rule? Seeing no further discussion, no further request for amendments. The question is on the motion from the gentleman from Pennsylvania. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed no. No. Opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. Motion is agreed to. As for a roll call, Mr. Chairman? Recorded vote has been requested. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Rushenthaler aye. Mr. Rushenthaler aye. Mrs. Fischbach aye. Mrs. Fischbach aye. Mr. Massey aye. Mr. Massey aye. Mr. Norman aye. Mr. Norman aye. Mr. Roy aye. Mr. Roy aye. Mrs. Houchin aye. Mr. Langworthy aye. Mr. Scott aye. Mr. Scott aye. Mr. McGovern no. Mr. McGovern no. Mrs. Scanlon. Mrs. Scanlon no. Mr. Neguse. Mrs. Leger-Fernandez. Mr. Chairman. Chair votes aye. Mr. Chairman aye. Clerk will report the total. Seven yays, two nays. And the ayes have it. The motion to report is agreed to. Accordingly, I will be managing this rule for the majority. And I'll do it for the minority. And a good time will be had by all. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned.