(CNSNews.com) - House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called on House Republicans on Thursday to bring a universal background check legislation and an assault weapons ban to the House floor for debate.

He accused the GOP of prioritizing “polluters over people” by bringing their energy bill HR 1 to the House floor instead.

Jeffries said the bill subsidizes the oil companies and pollutes the environment.

We have a gun violence epidemic in America that is unacceptable, unconscionable, and un-American. Children being slaughtered in schools [is] becoming a way of life in the United States. That can’t be. It’s time that this Congress put kids over guns. That’s what House Democrats want to do with the fierce urgency of now. 

Extreme MAGA Republicans should bring the bipartisan universal criminal background check legislation to the floor and should also bring to the floor an assault weapons ban so we can have a debate out in open in front of the American people as to whether weapons of war have any place in a civilized society.

House Democrats believe that weapons of war, which are not used to hunt deer but are used to hunt human beings and slaughter innocent children do not belong in our communities across this country. Republicans have a different view. Then air that out on the House floor in front of the American people.

We’re confident in our position. Stop hiding your position. Let’s debate this issue of gun safety in front of the American people. Instead, what extreme MAGA Republicans are doing is bringing their signature piece of legislation H.R. 1 to the House floor that puts polluters over people.

It will blow up the deficit even further in order to subsidize Big Oil, which is already making record profits, pollute our environment, undermine clean water, clean air and clean energy and exacerbate, make worse the climate crisis, which Democrats were able to responsibly address in the previous Congress.

You can’t ask for a clearer contrast between House Democrats - kids over guns - and extreme MAGA Republicans - polluters over people.