LIVE: House Rules Committee Meeting on H.R. 115 'Midnight Rules Relief Act'

I call the Rules Committee to order. I do need to start off by saying thank you to everyone who prayed for our family, sent flowers, letters, and wishes our way. The loss of a child is something that I couldn't have comprehended how absolutely bad it is. But your thoughts and prayers have helped our family as we've dealt with this new reality. And we appreciate all of you more than you know. Tonight is the last time, or maybe the penultimate last time that I will chair the House Rules Committee. And I do want to begin the hearing by sharing a couple of words of appreciation and expressing my gratitude for the opportunity of a lifetime to serve as chairman of this exceptional committee. Being appointed to the role of chairman by Speaker Johnson has not been an easy ride, but I'm forever grateful that I've experienced this. Throughout my career, I've always made a point to say yes to a challenge. So when Speaker Johnson called me, I knew the right thing to do was to accept. I do want to take a moment and thank the Rules Committee staff who've worked so hard to ensure that I and other members of this committee are prepared and that good rules pass out of committee and get to the floor. Jennifer and Steve, our staff directors, staff assistants, you've all been loyal, confident, and I thank you all for your hard work and long nights. For the past 22 years, I've been blessed. I've made a point to be surrounded by amazing, smart, and talented staff. Without each of them, I would not have gotten to where I am today. I would also like to, of course, thank each of our fellow members on the committee. Thank you for the hard work. Thank you for the time that each of you has put in. Starting the week off by sitting in this committee, sometimes late into the night, is not for the faint of heart. I appreciate each of you, and I appreciate your input. But thank you to my Republican colleagues for your continued commitment to prioritizing legislation that's in the best interest of Americans. And of course, I want to thank my ranking member, Mr. McGovern. You've challenged me in every single hearing. And there will come a time when I will look back fondly. It's not yet. But our time together, and from time to time, I may even miss our heated arguments. Look, this has been a phenomenal 22 years, and I don't need to take up any more time tonight talking about that because we do have work to do. Speaking of work to do, I want to address the elephant in the room. Obviously, with the federal government funding expiring at the end of this week, we are all anticipating an agreement on government funding. I think that everyone in this room, and I know the Speaker and the Appropriations Committee members, had hoped we'd be considering such an agreement today, but discussions remain ongoing. As soon as we receive word on an agreement and how to execute its passage, Ranking Member McGovern, members of the committee, you will be the first to know. But for now, this committee will remain on hold until we know what comes next. Today, the Rules Committee is convening to consider legislation that deals with the balance of power as a presidential administration ends. Current law, the Congressional Review Act, provides the primary check on regulatory overreach by allowing Congress to reverse a rule by resolution. However, that is a single rule. Any additional rule requires its own separate resolution. Administrations of both parties tend to overwhelm Congress at the end of their term with hundreds of new rules. These are known as midnight rules, representing billions of dollars of new regulatory burden. For example, each of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations submitted over twice the amount of rules in the final year of their administration compared with the previous three combined. The executive branch has exploited the inefficiency of the CRA, leaving our constituents to bear the burden. H.R. 115 makes the needed improvement to existing law to allow Congress to catch up on this expected onslaught of new regulations that predictably will happen as the Biden and Harris administrations leave office. This bill allows Congress to consider multiple rules at once, streamlining the process that Congress already employs with respect to the executive rulemaking. Doing so will allow Congress to keep up with the rapid pace of midnight rules, reigning in federal bureaucracy at a time that it is most active. I certainly look forward to the discussions surrounding this bill, and I do want to yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. McGovern, for the comments he wishes to make. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we're glad you're back, and again, our prayers are with you and your family. And as you mentioned, this may very well be the last rules meeting of this Congress, and I want to thank you for your work leading the Rules Committee this year. I also want to thank the incredible staff, the majority and the minority, who work incredibly hard, harder than most people can appreciate, for all their work as well. You and I are as far apart as anyone can get politically, but I've been honored to work with you, and I wish you well in your next steps. As you reminded me, your portrait is hanging on this side of the committee room, so I will look at you often, because I can't avoid that, right? But frankly, even though we have a lot of differences politically, we do have stuff in common, and we both love this country, we both care deeply about this institution, and we both fight hard for the people we represent. And it has been an honor sharing this dais with you, Mr. Chairman, and on behalf of everyone on our side, we're going to miss you. But this is what you won't miss, what I'm about to say about what we're doing here today. Let me also begin by sharing our prayers for the folks out in Madison, Wisconsin, where there's been yet another school shooting, this time the Abundant Life Christian School. Reports are saying that several innocent children have been injured. We know of at least two deaths that have been confirmed, a teacher and a student. And it is really quite tragic. And I guess the question we need to ask ourselves is, when is enough finally enough? When are my colleagues going to stand up and give a damn about the gun violence in this country? It is insane, it is totally nuts that we are wasting more time here in the Rules Committee on bad legislation that will go nowhere, instead of actually doing something about issues like gun violence. If Republicans work with us, we could be passing the Assault Weapons Ban Act, we could be passing the Closing the Bump Stock Loophole Act, we could be passing the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, but we're not. Because they refuse to lift a finger, they refuse to stand up to the NRA, they refuse to reject those donations that keep rolling in from the gun lobby. And so they do nothing to address the shootings in our schools and the violence on our streets. They won't lift a finger, even though most gun owners want them to. And instead, they bring up absolutely pointless, absurd bills like the ones we're meeting on today. Does anyone really think we have to pass the Midnight Rules Relief Act? I mean, this was copied right off the pages of Project 2025. It's a deliberate attempt to overturn important federal protections that help consumers and everyday people. And make no mistake, this is about handing over the keys to special interests, corporate donors, billionaires, and Wall Street. And this bill is about guiding protections that safeguard our health, safety, and environment. It puts polluters, corporate monopolies, and fraudsters ahead of working families and children. This bill won't even pass the Senate, and certainly won't get signed into law. It's another waste of time. I had hoped that we would have passed ACR by now to avoid a government shutdown, but we haven't. Speaker Johnson vowed to pass all 12 appropriations bills separately, without resorting to continuing resolutions. He even promised that he wouldn't send us home until after we had all of our appropriations work done. And then what did he do? He sent us home for six weeks. Which is why we are here again, scrambling to pass a funding bill four days before money runs out. We didn't have to be in this position. All Republicans had to do was work with the Senate and work with the White House on a bipartisan plan. Instead, they wasted time talking about culture wars and washing machines. And so we are left with another broken promise. And we're kicking the can down the road. Because Republicans choose dysfunction over compromise every single time. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Chairman yields back. Chair, thanks. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your kind observations as well. Without objection, the prepared statements that our witnesses have will be included in the record. And I want to welcome our panel of Representative Biggs and Ranking Member Nadler from the Committee on the Judiciary to the witness table. And Representative Biggs, I welcome your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank the committee and express my condolences to you and your family as well. And glad to see you here today with us. And I would just point out that the Midnight Rules Relief Act of 2016, which looks a lot like the Midnight Rules Relief Act that I'm introducing, well, that was in the 114th Congress. And it's been pretty consistent. People have tried to effectuate that change repeatedly. And H.R. 115 is the Midnight Rules Relief Act, which will allow Congress to more effectively and efficiently oversee federal agency rulemaking. Under the Congressional Review Act, known as the CRA, executive agencies must report all promulgated rules to Congress. This reporting requirement allows Congress to properly consider federal regulations before they take effect. If Congress disapproves of a submitted rule, the CRA gives Congress the ability to pass a joint resolution to prevent an agency's rule from taking effect. This joint resolution receives procedural advantages during consideration, making the CRA an important tool for agency oversight. However, the CRA has a flaw that becomes apparent in the final year of every president's term, regardless of party. Currently, the CRA allows for only one rule to be included in a joint resolution. This means that Congress must consider a single, separate joint resolution for each agency rule it seeks to render unenforceable. This one-by-one limit to joint resolutions under the CRA slows Congress's oversight of agency rulemaking to a standstill. Its inefficiency is most clear during the midnight rulemaking period. This period occurs during the last year of a president's term when executive agencies have historically issued regulations at an increased pace. In fact, during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, agencies issued roughly two-and-a-half times more regulations during this period than in the other years of those presidents' terms. H.R. 115 would make Congress's oversight of federal agencies more efficient during the midnight rulemaking period. The Midnight Rules Relief Act will allow Congress to consider joint resolutions covering multiple agency rules if those rules have been issued during the final year of a president's term. This change would allow Congress to efficiently respond to the influx in agency regulations during the midnight hours of a president's term. This bill does not change how the CRA would function during the other years of a president's term, and it does not alter the substantive requirements for Congress to disapprove of agency rules. It simply allows us to better oversee agency rules issued during the midnight rulemaking period. I look forward to answering any questions you may have and urge your passage of this bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, let me begin by offering my condolences to you, first of all. And second of all, by offering condolences to the people in Madison, Wisconsin, and by offering the observation that the United States is the only country in the world which has school shootings. The only one. The only time students in other countries may die or be wounded is because of bombings and war. We are the only country that has peacetime school shootings, and that is because of the obsequious nature of the relationship of the Republican Party in this country to the NRA. It is entirely the fault of the NRA and the Republican Party, which has refused to let us pass effective gun control legislation such as is in effect in other countries. Mr. Chairman, despite the bill's title, H.R. 115 is not really intended to address midnight rules. But rather is an effort by our Republican colleagues to advance their anti-government deregulatory agenda under cover of darkness. This legislation may appear to be a modest change to the Congressional Review Act, but do not be fooled. It would enable the Republican-controlled 119th Congress to use a turbocharged CRA to nullify every rule issued by public agencies under the Biden administration since early August 2024 in a single party-line vote. Not only would rules be reversed, but also agencies would be forever prohibited from considering a substantially similar rule forever, an unreviewable, vague, and harmful standard that would undermine agencies' statutory missions. While historically the CRA has been used sparingly, after Donald Trump's first inauguration in 2017, the Republican-controlled Congress used the CRA to repeal 16 rules issued by the Obama administration in all-time high. Critical rules on teacher training, Internet privacy protection, and the prevention of water pollution from coal mines, among many others, were all repealed over a few short weeks. But it seems that Republicans have even bigger ambitions for their next deregulatory spree as they pursue their unabashedly anti-government agenda. Rather than consider agency rules on their individual merits, they want to package as many rules as possible into a single resolution to eliminate them all at once with little debate or deliberation over the merits of each individual rule. The results of this single vote—in fact, there could be no deliberation over particular rules. The results of this single vote could be catastrophic. Right now, there are dozens of regulations at risk of summary execution, including rules that ensure the safety of bath seats for infants, implement the National Suicide Hotline Act, create dust, lead, and lead pipe safety standards, update chemicals listed under the Toxic Substances Control Act, update heavy vehicle automatic emergency braking standards, and ensure all cell phones are hearing aid compatible, among others. Why do Republicans feel they even need this power? Maybe it's because they realize that many of the agency rules that they constantly rail against are actually popular with the American people. Taking a series of votes making it easier for corporations to pollute the environment or to take advantage of the most vulnerable would likely not be well received. Better to overturn as many rules as possible in a single vote, reducing transparency and obscuring the consequences. But make no mistake, whether those votes are held individually or in block, the American people will be the ones to bear the consequences. With Republicans in charge of the House, Senate, and White House, it is likely that every rule the Biden administration has issued since August will be on the chopping block, along with the protections those rules provide to our constituents' health, safety, and economic well-being. In addition, striking down a bundle of rules at once means not only that each rule will not be considered on its own merits, but also that months and years of agency time and taxpayer dollars, along with the expert analysis and public comments from industry, nonprofit groups, and individual Americans, all will have been wasted. Mr. Chairman, members on both sides of the aisle have recognized that midnight rulemaking, if left completely unchecked, can lead to abuses by the executive branch. But true midnight rules are rarely issued, and there is already a look-back period under the CRA to address rules promulgated at the end of any congressional term. If we are truly concerned about so-called midnight rules, we have other options to check. For example, at the end of President George W. Bush's administration, I authored a bill that would delay implementation of rules issued near the end of a president's term, giving his or her successor the chance to review such rules and determine if they should go forward. I believe there are ways we could work together in a bipartisan manner to address this issue. But where past efforts tried using a scalpel to address the problems associated with midnight rulemaking, today's Republicans would instead use a machete, hacking away at the Biden administration's regulatory agenda and furthering their ideological goal of radically transforming our government. None of this should be a surprise. H.R. 115 is a key plank of Project 2025, the blueprint for the incoming Trump administration. Project 2025 calls for, quote, dismantling the administrative state and argues that doing so, quote, must be a top priority for the next conservative president, unquote. That is because, according to the document, quote, the only real solution is for the national government to do less, close quote. And to be clear, the less that they want to do refers to the important and expert work undertaken by the country's federal agencies protecting consumers, workers, and the public from corporations and people that break the law. We should reject any backdoor effort that would eviscerate vital regulations, would open rules and protections to even more political interference, and could prevent agencies from ever working on similar issues again, all with just the most cursory examination by Congress and with one vote. I urge all members to oppose the Midnight Rules Relief Act, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Sure, thanks, gentlemen. General Neal's back. I really have no questions, just an observation that there's a lot of healing that's got to happen after the last 40 years. And this appears to me as something that will allow that healing to happen a little more rapidly and perhaps a little more completely. But there's no question the American people have suffered the last 40 years. I see this as an important first step toward resolving that. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. I'll just say I agree with you and I appreciate your comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, I agree with Mr. Nadler, and I want to associate myself with his thoughtful comments. And I also want to take this moment to say that his tenure as top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee over the years has been marked by your unwavering leadership in the fight for what is right, by your commitment to uphold the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans, by your respect for the rule of law and equal protection of the laws, and by your steadfast dedication to protecting the Constitution, and also by your work to ensure that we live up to the promise in this country of liberty and justice for all. So I want to thank you for your tireless dedication over the past few years heading up the Judiciary Committee. It's been an honor working with you, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate and work with you in the years to come. I also just want to say, it's kind of pointless to ask questions, but I don't know what my Republican friends are thinking by bringing this legislation to the floor. I mean, in what universe would this bill be brought up in the Senate? I mean, it's December 16th, and the Congress is almost over. And I can't believe anybody has any reason to believe that this bill would even get noticed by the Senate, much less be considered by the Senate, because it won't. The Senate doesn't have time to take up the bill, even if they wanted to, which they don't. So we're wasting our time here when there are a lot of other things that we could get done, or we should be doing, and I regret that this is what we're meeting about. I was hoping our last Rules Committee meeting would be more substantive than this, but then again, we might meet again. So, we'll wait and see. I yield back. True enough, we might meet again. The gentlelady from Minnesota is ready to ask her question. I just lost mine. Well, you guys know who I am, right? But thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank you for bringing this forward, because the opposition just really thinks that this provides all kinds of power, and the sky is falling kind of thing. And so I just want to make sure that we're clear. This bill does nothing to impact the first three years of a president's rulemaking authority, nor does it circumvent the legislative process requiring a vote in the House, Senate, and the President's signature, correct? That's correct. Thank you. That's correct. Thank you very much, Mr. Biggs. I think things were getting out of control like the sky was falling, and this is a very simple bill that will deal with just a limited amount of rules. So thank you for being here, and I yield back. Chair, thanks. The gentlelady yields back. Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina. Mr. Chairman, too, I want to thank you for your service. And your picture really hasn't changed much. I think he's getting in age today. No, Andy, thank you for bringing this up. There's one thing that I've heard, and one thing that's a big factor in the people speaking in this election are being overrun with regulations and rules. CFPB being the prime example on financial services, people are sick and tired. Banks have to report on their carbon footprint, and you can just multiply that on. And I don't think my friends on the other side understand it, why Americans are sick of it, and all the other things that are hitting them in the pocketbook, not drilling our own oil from the invasion at the border. This is just a small thing that we can do and have impact. Like Michelle said, it doesn't affect it until the last 60 days of the administration. Do you have anything to add to that? Yes. No, I was going to ask – I'll get to you. Thank you. No, I'll just say I agree with you. Okay. Mr. Nye. Well, I just wanted to say that whatever one may say about midnight rules and appealing them, this bill is radically different from all other CRA bills because not only would the rules be reversed, which is what a CRA bill normally does, but agencies would be forever prohibited from considering a substantially similar, unquote, rule, whatever that means. So if you had a rule on the percentage of lead in fish that are caught, or whatever, and you turned it back on the CRA, 25 years from now, with science knowing more about the effects, a future administration could not promulgate a rule on that. That's what makes this particularly radical. Mr. Biggs, do you have a – Yeah, what he's referring to is actually in current law as well, so we're not changing that aspect of the law, number one. Number two, apparently he forgets that this is the legislative body and that any time this legislative body can say, we want you to go ahead and promulgate a rule, you're guilty. Well, thanks for bringing it up. Unelected bureaucrats enforcing rules, fines attached to it, people are sick of it, and they spoke in November. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. The gentleman yields back, Chair. Thanks, gentlemen. The gentleman from Texas is recognized. Thank you, Chairman. I do want to add our prayers for you and your family, Mr. Chairman, and how honored we've been to serve with you in this committee and, of course, those of us in the Texas delegation. And, you know, we had a great celebration of you last week, but, you know, the biggest testament that I've seen to your character was your public sentiments expressed this past weekend about your faith. And I'm deeply appreciative of that. I know we want to move along. I would just simply say a couple of things on this point about the bill. We should all be deeply concerned about asserting Article I congressional power, all of us, on both sides of the aisle. We have for too long been allowing the executive branch in both parties to exercise significant amounts of administrative power. The court's decision in Chevron is at least a move in a direction that hopefully would give us more power. But both parties need to look in the mirror and understand if we're going to sit around and, you know, we're going to have some of my conservative brothers and sisters walk away from legislative appropriations, if we're going to want to take away tools that we have, we've got to actually have a strong Congress, a strong Congress to check what is often an out-of-control executive branch, again, under both parties. This is a statement about the administrative state, the last-minute rulemaking. It gets done in both parties. But we should be concerned about this. I appreciate it. And the answer to the ranking member's question about why it's coming up now is because it's front of mind now. I mean, no, but in all honesty, I mean, that's to a fault, I would say, right? Because it's not easy for us to work on long-term policy fixes in March, you know, next year, in the Trump administration, or whether it was four years ago under the Biden administration, when everybody's coming out with a 100-day agenda and everybody's doing their stuff. And now we've got this going well, there's a bunch of last-minute rulemaking, and we all observe it and we see what's going on. And you want to do something about it. You want to assert congressional power. I applaud my friend from Arizona. I think you pointed out that this is modeled almost very similarly to the 115th Congress version of the bill. Project 25 was a big deal in the 115th Congress, I assume. Is that right, Mr. Biggs? Is that where you copied it? It was in the 115th Congress? But the only final point I'll make on this is I wish we could have, like, this is like a reverse rulemaking power in omnibus form. I wish we could have a reverse omnibus legislation, you know, because of what we're facing this week, which is going to be essentially a massive 2,000-page omnibus bill that's being negotiated, that frankly gives me real concern. And we've got to get out of this. We've got to get out of this mode of legislating and this mode of doing things this way. And, you know, we didn't do what we should have done with respect to open rules and structured rules this year the way that we should have done it. We didn't. We have got to find a way to get this place to function again. And I hope that we can, with a renewed sense of spirit in January, figure out how we can do that. But, you know, four-quarters negotiations of 2,000-page bills that are probably going to spend $150 billion-plus, maybe $200 billion without being paid for with massive policy implications across the spectrum is no way to do business. And it's germane to this point because rulemaking like this is no way to do business. Omnibus bills is no way to do business. And we've got to change it or we'll all own it. So I appreciate the gentleman. I yield back. Chair, thanks to the gentleman. Thanks for your comments. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized. The gentleman has no questions. The gentleman from Indiana is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to express our condolences from our family for your loss and also to thank you for your leadership of this committee. It's been a pleasure to serve with you in this Congress. I did think, Mr. Biggs, that this bill might be a bill that would prevent the Rules Committee from having to come back in and vote on rules after midnight, but I'm told that that's not the case, that this will not keep that from happening. But I do appreciate you bringing this. I was just looking at a chart and the number of lame-duck rules and the frequency with which they increase toward the end of a president's term. I see those lines going straight up. And, in fact, if we did not unblock some of these rules or some of this under a Congressional Review Act, if we did not unblock them, then we might run out of time to deal with the wave of expected rules that might happen during a lame-duck in the last part of this year. So I thank you for bringing it. I don't have any questions. I just appreciate it, and you'll have my support. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for his questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with what Mr. Roy said about the administrative state that we currently live in, and I intend to support the bill. I do have a question, Mr. Biggs. It is not 60 days pre-inauguration. It would be from January 20th of 2024 that we have 60 days to unblock, right? So it's a full 365 days of rules, not 60 days. Is that correct, the way I read it? It doesn't. Since the last year. Yeah, it doesn't amend the underlying bill in that area. So the last year of the presidential term, which would, depending on the way you want to count the days, be January 20th or 21st of the election year. 60 days from when Congress receives the bill. Is that right? Say that again? 60 days from when Congress receives the reported bill. That's the rule. I'm sorry, the reported rule. That's the rule. In the last year. So the way it's structured right now is within the last year of a presidential term. That's 12 months. So, yes, it would be from the way I read it is January 20th, 2024, January 20th, 2025. But the triggering date is the date the rule has been reported to Congress, and then you've got a 60-day period. So it's not 60 days from the inauguration of the new president. It's 60 days from... So you're going to have... So the rules are not going to all be reported on the same day, though. Yeah, so the 60 days triggered by when the rule is reported to that Congress or when it's reported in the Federal Register, whichever is later. Okay, so you're going to have multiple days. Right. You're going to have multiple end dates. That's correct. Okay. And I'm sorry for the confusion. Okay, I just want to make sure I was understanding it correctly. I would suggest this, and this is for all of us as members of the House. When an agency passes a rule, the authorizing committee should have the authority to reject that rule. Because there are a lot of rules passed that both Democrats and Republicans did not agree to and think are not in compliance with the law the way it was written. And I can tell you, in a lot of the states, the authorizing committees have the ability to reject a rule from the agency. So as we go into the next cycle, I think that would be something for us to discuss, is allowing the authorizing committees to reject the rule. I'm going to vote for it. Obviously, it's going to go to the Senate and probably not be signed into law. But I do think that we need to have further discussion about how we restrict the regulatory authority. They are not supposed to have as much power as they have. Obviously, when there's a Republican president, we cede congressional power to the administrative branch. Then when the Democrats have it, then they cede the power. The executive branch of the United States was never supposed to be as powerful as it is. With that said, Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you that I am glad that I got to know you over the last 14 years. You are one of the better people that I have ever met that is willing to set aside their personal life and serve in this institution. This institution and this country are better because you have been willing to give as much of your time as you have. And your family, given their time, because you've been away from them a lot. So I appreciate you and I want to thank you for your service. You're very kind. I was going to have your words taken down, but then I just thought better of it. Mr. Chair, after hearing Mr. Scott, maybe we can move your portrait over to his side. Does the gentleman from New York have questions? I have no questions. I want to thank the witnesses for being here. I also want to echo, just as a freshman that came out of this committee, thank you for your leadership, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for your dedication to our country. And I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Langford. Is there anyone else seeking to testify on H.R. 115? Without objection, this closes the hearing portion of our meeting. And the witnesses are excused. And the chair will be in receipt of a motion from the gentleman from Minnesota, Ms. Fischbach. Mr. Chair, I move the committee grant H.R. 115, the Midnight Rules Relief 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 the judiciary, now printed in the bill, shall be considered as adopted and 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 judiciary or their respective designees. Finally, the rule provides one motion to recommit. Thank you very much. You've heard the motion. Is there any discussion or amendment to the rule? We don't have any amendments, but it kind of seems fitting that the final rule of the session is another closed rule, but I just wanted to make that point for the record. Hearing no requests for further amendments, the question is on the motion from the gentleman from Minnesota. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. No. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. That's for a roll call, Mr. Chairman. Roll call has been requested. Clerk will call the roll. Mr. Reschenthaler, Mrs. Fischbach. 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. Houchen. Aye. Mrs. Houchen, aye. Mr. Langworthy. Aye. Mr. Langworthy, aye. Mr. Scott. Aye. Mr. Scott, aye. Mr. McGovern. No. Mr. McGovern, no. Ms. Scanlon. Aye. Mr. Neguse. Aye. Ms. Leger-Fernandez. No. Ms. Leger-Fernandez, no. Mr. Chairman. Aye. Mr. Chairman, aye. Clerk will report the total. Eight yays, two nays. And the ayes have it. The motion to report is agreed to. Accordingly, I will be benching for the majority. And I'll do it with the minority. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned.