During consideration of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 8070), Representative Chip Roy (R-Texas) offered an amendment to prohibit funds authorized by this bill from being used to implement President Joe Biden’s climate-change executive orders, which focused on tackling “climate change,” promoting “clean energy,” “conserving” natural resources, “improving” refugee programs, boosting domestic semiconductor production, and ensuring “environmental justice” for “underserved communities.” Biden’s key goals with his executive orders included net-zero emissions by 2050, renewable-energy expansion, and stronger protections for “vulnerable populations.”

The House adopted Roy’s amendment on June 12, 2024 by a vote of 215 to 210 (Roll Call 256). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because Biden’s climate orders exceed the president’s constitutional authority, reduce U.S. energy independence, violate free-market principles, and promote global environmental policies that undermine U.S. sovereignty, such as the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

During consideration of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 8070), Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) offered an amendment specifying that “none of the funds made available by this Act may be used for assistance to Ukraine.” She noted on the House floor, “To date, Congress has appropriated $174.2 billion in emergency supplemental funding [for Ukraine].” That “is a lot of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars going to support security for another country’s border while our border is being invaded every single day.”

The House rejected Greene’s amendment on June 13, 2024 by a vote of 74 to 343 (Roll Call 261). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the United States should not interject itself into the Russia-Ukraine war by providing aid to one of the combatants, and should instead follow a noninterventionist foreign policy that puts America first. Moreover, Congress has not declared war as required by the Constitution for military activity.

During consideration of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 8070), Representative Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) offered an amendment to prohibit the secretary of defense from paying for or reimbursing expenses relating to abortion services.

The House adopted Van Duyne’s amendment on June 13, 2024 by a vote of 214 to 207 (Roll Call 263). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because abortion is not healthcare but the killing of innocent human life. The U.S. government should not fund baby-killing and has no constitutional authority to do so.

During consideration of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 8070), Representative Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) offered an amendment to eliminate any offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the armed forces and Department of Defense, along with the personnel in those offices.

The House adopted Norman’s amendment on June 13, 2024 by a vote of 211 to 208 (Roll Call 267). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because neither Congress nor the president has any business promoting “woke” DEI policies to socially engineer an effeminate, egalitarian, and/or insubordinate culture in the armed forces. Since the Obama administration, DEI-related changes have resulted in not only homosexuals serving openly within the ranks, but women in combat and “transgendered” troops. This subverts order, discipline, and the very existence of the military itself, which is to be provided for by Congress, according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Federal lawmakers and the commander in chief should, in a manner worthy of self-government, “bear true faith and allegiance” to the same constitutional principles that our nation’s service members also take an oath to “support and defend.”

During consideration of the fiscal 2025 homeland-security appropriations bill (H.R. 8752), Representative Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) offered an amendment to prohibit funds in the bill from being used for the “Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans” (CHNV) parole program that incentivizes illegal mass migration from those four countries. The program grants work-authorization permits for CHNV parolees despite them lacking visas or a legal right to enter the country. As Grothman noted in support of his amendment, the number of illegal entrants from those four countries apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol agents increased from 17,500 in fiscal 2020 to more than 600,000 in fiscal 2022 under President Biden, who greatly expanded the program. Additionally, the United States does not receive criminal background checks for CHNV parolees from the four countries.

The House rejected Grothman’s amendment on June 26, 2024 by a vote of 193 to 218 (Roll Call 288). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the CHNV parole process is an illegally created program, and incentivizes mass migration into the country.

During consideration of the fiscal 2025 State Department and foreign operations appropriations bill (H.R. 8771), Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) offered an amendment to prohibit funds in the bill from being used for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), completely defunding it. In fiscal 2023, USAID’s budget was more than $50 billion. The agency is primarily responsible for sending billions of taxpayer dollars to foreign governments each year in the form of foreign civilian aid, development assistance, and myriad other relief programs.

The House rejected Greene’s amendment on June 27, 2024 by a vote of 81 to 331 (Roll Call 308). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because USAID is an unconstitutional agency. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution neither grants Congress the power to send financial aid to foreign countries nor empowers the president to do so.

During consideration of the fiscal 2025 State Department and foreign operations appropriations bill (H.R. 8771), Representative Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) offered an amendment to prohibit funds in the bill from being “used to pay any United States contribution to the United Nations or any affiliated agency of the United Nations.” This would have eliminated all U.S. contributions to the UN and its affiliate agencies.

The House rejected Tiffany’s amendment on June 27, 2024 by a vote of 149 to 259 (Roll Call 320). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the Constitution does not authorize Congress or the president to enter the United States into global-governance bodies such as the United Nations, which undermines U.S. independence. Short of terminating U.S. membership in the UN — which Congress ought to do — Congress should not send a single penny to the nascent world-government body.

House Joint Resolution 165 would block a Department of Education rule that expands the federal government’s interpretation of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections for sexual harassment, assault, pregnancy-related conditions, and LGBTQ+ status at colleges and universities. The rule would impose ideological mandates that undermine privacy, parental authority, and fairness — particularly in women’s sports, where biological males would be allowed to compete. They would also have access to women’s bathrooms and locker rooms.

The House passed H. J. Res. 165 on July 11, 2024 by a vote of 210 to 205 (Roll Call 354). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in education or to prohibit discrimination — real or perceived.

Representative Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) made a motion to suspend the rules and pass S. 3791, the “America’s Conservation Enhancement Reauthorization Act of 2024,” which would reauthorize multiple conservation and wildlife programs through fiscal 2030. These include the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Chesapeake Bay Program, and programs to conserve North American wetlands and fish habitats. The bill also would increase the authority of the National Fish Habitat Board, and create and reauthorize programs mitigating or providing compensation for depredation by federally protected species.

The House agreed to Westerman’s motion on December 3, 2024 by a vote of 366 to 21 (Roll Call 479). We have assigned pluses to the nays because Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution does not authorize Congress to establish conservation or wildlife programs. The 10th Amendment reserves any such powers to “the States respectively, or to the people.”

H.R. 10545, also dubbed the “American Relief Act,” would extend funding for federal-government operations at current levels through March 14, 2025, thereby averting a partial government shutdown that would otherwise have begun on December 21, 2024. The bill would also provide $110 billion for disaster aid, including $30.8 billion for farm losses, among other provisions. It does not include, however, a two-year suspension of the debt limit that was in an earlier version under a different bill number (H.R. 10515). Ironically, President-elect Donald Trump wanted the debt-limit suspension in the bill, but Democrats did not — the latter preferring to raise or suspend the debt limit under Trump’s (not Biden’s) watch.

Representative Tom Cole (R-Okla.) moved to suspend the rules and pass the stop-gap funding bill. His motion was agreed to on December 20, 2024 by a vote of 366 to 34 (Roll Call 517). We have assigned pluses to the nays because the misnamed American Relief Act will continue the Washington spendathon, thereby continuing to run up government debt without providing any relief. Instead of kicking the can further down the road, Congress must cut spending now, not later.