Providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 20) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 116, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 20) making further continuing appropriations for the fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I move to table the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply note that on page H988 of the Congressional Record there is listed the following statement:

Under clause 9(a) of rule XXI, lists or statements on congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits or limited tariff benefits are submitted as follows offered by myself: H.J. Res. 20 making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes, does not contain any congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, or limited tariff benefits as defined in clause 9(d), 9(e), or 9(f) of rule XXI.

No.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I move to table the appeal.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for the yeas and nays.

I thank the Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I simply want to thank Janet Airis and her staff at the CBO scoring unit; Ira Forstater and Nadia Soree and the entire staff at the Legislative Council; and certainly, most of all, the staff of the Appropriations Committee, both majority and minority, both Senate and House, especially Rob Nabors and David Reich.

This is a bill that needs to pass so that everyone who is reliant upon programs contained therein understands what the rules of the game will be for the remainder of the fiscal year. I urge passage.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) for a unanimous consent request.

(Mr. LAMPSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 12 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the President will submit to the Congress his new budget. It would be kind of nice if we had disposed of his last year's budget request before the President brings

his new budget forward, because I believe that he is entitled to start the year with a clean slate, and I think we are entitled to start the year with a clean slate as well.

Unfortunately, we cannot do that because of the failures of the last Congress. This resolution represents the last remaining legislation that must be passed in order to clean up the mess left to us by the last Congress.

Now, we all know the story. Last year, the House debated and passed every single appropriation bill except the Labor, Health, Education bill. That was held up because of the now-well-known division between the two parties on the minimum wage and also because moderate Republicans in this House, led by people like Mr. Castle and others, were demanding that the Republican leadership add at least $3 billion to the Labor, Health, Education appropriation bill in order to get their votes on the Republican budget resolution.

The then chairman, Mr. Lewis from California, my good friend, specifically said on the House floor that the reason the Congress was not allowed to finish its work is because the Senate majority leader, Senator Frist, shielded the Senate from any painful votes on appropriations before the election. Then, after the election, the majority party walked away from their responsibility to finish the budget, and they left us to clean up the mess as they walked out the door.

When we considered the CR under which we are now operating, I specifically said from this place on the House floor that I would make any substantive compromise that was necessary and I would make any procedural compromise that was necessary in order to enable the then majority Republicans to finish the bills on their watch, on their terms. I said I was willing to recognize that they still controlled the Congress and so they had a right to have Republican priorities reflected in those bills, even if I disagreed with those priorities.

But I also warned that if they did not live up to their responsibilities to pass the budget, then they would forfeit their right to complain and whine about how we went about cleaning up their leftover jobs.

So when it became apparent that they would not meet their responsibilities, Senator Byrd and I announced that we would proceed by doing two things. We announced, first of all, that we would provide no congressional earmarks. We told anybody who had an earmark in a 2007 bill that if they wanted it considered in the following fiscal year they would need to present it under the reform process, which we were in the process of putting together; and we announced at that time that we intended to cut earmarks by 50 percent in comparison to the 2007 bill.

The second thing that we announced is that we would take the 2006 continuing resolution and make whatever adjustments were necessary in order to avoid shutdowns of agencies or layoffs or furloughs and in order to recognize priorities that we thought people had on both sides of the aisle. That is what we did.

In this bill, we started with the fiscal 2006 base. We then cut or rescinded $9- to $10 billion, almost $10 billion, in items that we thought could be cut or rescinded. We cut over 60 programs. We generated $10 billion or so in savings, and we added that to the $7 billion that still remained within the Republican budget resolution cap, and then we allocated that money on the basis of what we thought were better priorities.

Now, the gentleman from California says we should have just stuck with the existing 2006 continuing resolution. We could have done that. If we had, we would not have been able to add $3.6 billion in veterans' health care, which we have done in this bill, which is our number one priority. We would not have been able to add $1.2 billion in defense health, which we add in this bill. We would not have been able to add $500 million for basic housing allowances for our military, and we would not have been able to add the $1 billion that we added for BRAC, the base closing operations. We would also not have been able to add the $216 million that we added to the FBI budget at the request of the administration.

In education, two weeks ago, when the Democratic Party brought to this House floor a proposition to lower interest rates on student loans, we were told, ``oh, that is just tokenism. What you ought to do is add to the Pell Grants.''

That is what we have done. We added enough to the Pell Grant program to allow an increase in the maximum grant of $260. We wouldn't have been able to do that either if we had followed Mr. Lewis' suggestion and simply stuck to the CR under which we are now operating.

In addition to that, we added $250 million to Title I and $100 million to Head Start so we could end the decline in enrollment in that program.

In the area of science, we were asked by a number of Members on the Republican side of the aisle in this House, and on our side, plus the Senate on both sides, to add money for NIH. Members did not like the fact that, under the alternative, we were going to lose at least 500 medical grants in cancer research, heart disease, Alzheimer's and the rest.

I have not met a single constituent who said, ``Hey, Obey, I think you ought to save money by cutting cancer research grants.'' We added $620 million to reverse the decline in the number of research grants at NIH, and we added some additional funds to the National Science Foundation.

We added some additional money to energy conservation and energy research programs, in addition to which we provided a $200 million add- on for the Clean Water Revolving Fund. There isn't a small community in this country that doesn't need some help with clean water.

We added $100 million for park maintenance, and we added $90 million for firefighting.

We also were requested by the administration to provide at least the amount that they asked for the global AIDS program and to combat malaria and TB. So we added $1.4 billion to do that, and we added $146 million to prevent the Social Security Administration from having a 10- day furlough for their employees. That is what we did.

We also provided a suspension of all earmarks.

Now, I want to make clear a lot of the earmarks that we suspended are perfectly defensible. They accomplish laudatory public purposes. I think it is sad that we haven't been able to fund them. But the fact is that it became apparent to me that the earmarking process had been so discredited by the Cunningham case and by other cases that we have no choice but to start over. So we wanted to clear the decks, clean up the process, and start over.

Ninety-nine percent of the Members of this House on both sides of the aisle have immense integrity. They don't ask the Congress for things that are illegitimate, but it is that 1 percent that has fouled the nest for everybody else. So we are trying to clean up the nest so that we can approach next year with a clean start and so that we will have a process so that both parties will know what earmarks the other party is putting into the bills.

I want the minority to be fully cognizant of whatever earmarks the majority puts in the bills, and I want us to be fully cognizant of the other earmarks you put in the bills. That is the only way we can protect the integrity of this institution.

So we are being criticized in some quarters because we are being told, ``Well, when you eliminated the earmarks, you should also have eliminated the money in those programs.'' We didn't do that for one very simple reason. We didn't want to reduce the amount of money in the COPS program, for instance.

What we are doing, by eliminating earmarks, and let's be clear about it, we are not saving a dime by eliminating earmarks. But what we are doing is transferring the power to decide where that money goes from the congressional branch to the executive branch. I don't like that, but it is a price I am willing to pay to clean up the system. What that means is that the administration will have much more authority than normal to decide where money goes, whether it is in the Army Corps of Engineers program or COPS or you name it.

I would simply say, we may have made some wrong choices. Undoubtedly, we did. But the process was this.

For 3\1/2\ weeks our staffs worked 7 days a week round the clock, and they negotiated with the Senate, Republican

and Democratic staff alike. The Republican staff was invited to every meeting that took place. If they attended or didn't, that was up to them.

Whenever the staff could not reach agreement, the Members were brought in order to argue it up. If you don't think that occurred, talk to Mr. Visclosky, talk to Senator Domenici, talk about the arguments they had on the Energy and Water bill, and there are countless other examples.

We are now in a situation in which we have to move on. We may have made some wrong choices, but at least, in contrast to last year, we made those choices, we made them. They may not be popular, but they were necessary so that we can turn the page, get on the next year.

This bill is the functional equivalent of a conference report. All of the appropriation bills that were not completed action on last year, this is what they look like. This is what they look like. This is a continuing resolution that we are producing today in order to direct where the spending in these bills ought to go.

Now, you may say you don't think it fits the traditional definition of a continuing resolution. Either you can have an automatic continuing resolution, or you can have a thinking man's continuing resolution. I don't think that we were obligated to lock ourselves into the 2006 numbers, because that would have prevented us from providing the initiatives that I talked about for veterans, for education and the like.

This is a responsible document. Nothing was sneaked in. Everybody knows what is in this package. All the staff knows.

I would urge an ``aye'' vote for the bill so that, come Monday, we can deal with the President's new budget, rather than continuing to deal with the spilt milk of yesterday's majority.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman talks about how we should have stuck with the bills that they produced last year. There is only one problem. They couldn't convince their Republican brethren in the Senate to buy them. And so we had to try something else.

I can't help it that the majority party did not meet its responsibilities to pass these appropriations because you had an internal fight within the Republican Party. But now the responsibility is passed to us, and at least we are producing a proposal which can pass both Houses. That is more than can be said for the work product of the last Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time remains on both sides.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee (Mr. Frank).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, it is not correct that we are cutting BRAC. We are increasing BRAC $1 billion above the existing levels in the continuing resolution under which we are operating today. We will deal with the additional requests for BRAC in the supplemental, and you can bet that they will get all of their money. But we are adding $1 billion to BRAC. We are not cutting.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, we have just heard it.

The gentleman is objecting because we were not able to go back 2 years to excise from a previous appropriation the rain forest project which was put into your bill when you were chairman. We have eliminated all earmarks for today and tomorrow. We cannot be expected to correct all of your mistakes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky), the chairman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee.

(Mr. VISCLOSKY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

The answer is that there is money, there is adequate money to provide for that committee, if, in fact, it is created. But the formal action on creation has not yet taken place.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) for a colloquy.

My preference is that additional funding would be available for enhancement grants which can be used for hiring. But that final decision will be up to the administration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.

I, once again, repeat, this bill does not cut BRAC. It adds $1 billion to BRAC. The fiscal 2006 level was $1.5 billion. This bill will have $2.5 billion, and we will be adding more in the emergency supplemental.

With whatever time I have remaining of the 15 seconds.

With all due respect, I don't live in the world of newspaper articles. We produced this bill. I know what is in it. I would hope the gentlewoman would also learn what is in it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Hoyer.

I yield the gentleman (Mr. Hoyer) another minute.

How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I won't take the full 4 minutes. Let me simply say that it is necessary for the House to move forward with this legislation. It is easy to nitpick. It is interesting to me that the minority today has chosen to chastise us for decisions that we made not to go back 2 years and repeal some of the mistakes that the minority made when they were in the majority. They argue that we should have done that; they argue that we should have lived with a simple continuing resolution at '06 levels. If we do that, that would mean we would not have the added funding for veterans health care, we would not have the added funding for BRAC, we would not have the added funding for the National Institutes of Health; we would not be able to raise the Pell grant by $260 for the maximum grant; we would not have the extra funding for energy research.

I would ask Members to recognize that after a full year of the Republican minority not being able to produce and finish their work, it is time for us to finish their work so we can move on. The President is producing his new budget on February 5, which is next Monday. We need to clear the decks so we can deal with that afresh.

I ask for an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.J. Res. 20, which among other things avert the impeding budgetary train wreck left by the Republican-controlled 109th Congress. I want to pay particular tribute to Mr. Obey, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee for his incredible work in fashioning this legislation that will enable us to put behind us the mess left by last Congress and get on to the important business of addressing the real and pressing needs of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, last November millions of Americans went to the polls to register the strong disgust with the Republican dominated control of the legislative and executive branches of our Federal Government. Americans were fed up with a Republican Congress and its legacy of a culture of corruption, its failure to address the pressing needs of the American people, its unwillingness to provide effective oversight of the executive branch, its fiscal irresponsibility that resulted in record budget deficits and added trillions to the national debt, and its ability to complete one of the most basic tasks of the legislative branch: to pass the appropriations bills needed to fund the government. Is it any wonder that Americans were voting for a new way of doing the people's business when they elected the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate? I think not. We Democrats promised a new and better direction for America. And we have been delivering.

Mr. Speaker, behold what we accomplished in less than the first 100 legislative hours of our majority. We passed H.R. 1, which implements the recommendations of the 911 Commission; we passed H.R. 2, raising the minimum wage by $2.10 an hour over three years and providing a much needed raise to nearly 5 million workers; we passed H.R. 3, which will provide funding for embryonic stem cell research and provide hope for millions of Americans suffering from some of the most debilitating illnesses.

But we did not stop there. We passed H.R. 4, which requires Medicaid to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for our seniors and disabled citizens; we passed H.R. 5, which will make college more affordable to middle and working class Americans by cutting the interest rate on federally insured student loans in half; and we passed H.R. 6, which is a substantial start in making this country more energy independent.

And we accomplished all this, Mr. Speaker, after draining the swamp and ending the culture of corruption by adopting the strongest, toughest ethics and lobbying rules in history.

Today, we clean up the fiscal mess left by the Republican-led 109th Congress. The last Congress abdicated its duty to be a faithful and responsible steward of the public fisc. They shirked their responsibility to establish the right priorities and make the right choices to serve the American people. They failed to pass nine of the eleven appropriations bills needed to sustain the operations of government for Fiscal Year 2007.

Mr. Speaker, thanks to your superb leadership, and especially the extraordinary legislative craftsmanship of our remarkable Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, we rectify these Republican failures today. The Continuing Resolution we take up today, H.J. Res. 20, is not the ideal manner to fund the government and contains some provisions that each of us might not like, unlike the President's decision to escalate the war in Iraq, the choices reflected in H.J. Res. 20 represent the best available alternatives out of a universe of worst choices. That is why, Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer my support for the Fiscal Year 2007 Continuing Resolution, and my appreciation to the leadership, the Chairman and members of the Committee, and for all my colleagues who join me in voting for H.J. Res. 20.

Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res. 20, totals $463.5 billion, the amount remaining under the Republican budget resolution for the current fiscal year. Most programs are funded at FY 2006 levels with increases to cover the cost of pay increases. Of course, it was also necessary to make additions to maintain staffing levels, avoid furloughs, and generally meet increased costs or workloads for agencies, particularly the Department of Justice, the federal judiciary, the Social Security Administration, the FAA (including air traffic control), international peacekeeping operations, the Indian Health Service, the Food and Drug Administration, and the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service.

But Mr. Speaker, because the new Democratic majority knows how to, and does not shirk from, choosing wisely and setting the right priorities, in this continuing resolution we were also able to provide significant new investments for high priority needs in many areas, including veterans healthcare and assistance, law enforcement, public health, housing and education, scientific research, energy independence, transportation, and the environment. Let me discuss briefly some of the more important and beneficial provisions.

veterans Affairs

In the area of veterans healthcare, the resolution provides $32.3 billion, an increase of $3.6 billion above the FY 2006 funding levels to provide service for the anticipated increase of at least 325,000 veteran patients and to meet rising healthcare costs', especially of our returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan. As President Lincoln reminded us 142 years ago, we have a moral obligation to care for him whom has born the battle, and for his widow and orphan. We are going to keep that commitment.

We also provide $21.2 billion, an increase of $1.2 billion to provide care for service members and their families, including treating service members wounded in action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, we will never neglect the needs of those who proudly don the uniform in the defense of the United States. That is why the resolution provides $13.4 billion to fund the Basic Allowance for Housing, an increase of $500 million. This increased funding is

needed to provide a down payment towards the funding shortfall caused by higher housing rates.

Public Safety and Law Enforcement

In the vitally important area of public safety, law enforcement, and crime prevention, the resolution increases the funding for the Federal Bureau of Investigation by $216.6 million to fully fund 31,359 positions, including 12,213 agents and 2,577 Intelligence Analysts-- doubling the number of Intelligence Analysts since September 11th. This amount also includes $100 million to proceed the FBI's plan to move from paper-based case management to electronic data sharing. The resolution also includes $147.4 million for counter-terrorism and intelligence infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, I know that investing in crime prevention programs is an effective use of the taxpayers' precious dollars. That is why I am pleased that the resolution provides $520 million for Byrne Justice Assistance Formula Grants, an increase of $109 million, and $542 million for Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), an increase of $70 million. Together these increases are the first step in reversing the drastic cuts to State and local law enforcement programs made since the Bush administration came into office in 2001. I will immediately make the request for the U.S. Justice Department to fund the new crime-prevention needs of Houston.

Mr. Speaker, as we all know, education is destiny. The surest and most certain path to continued American prosperity lies in an educated citizenry. That is why I am especially pleased that for the first time in 4 years, the maximum Pell Grant has been increased, by $260 to $4,310. This long-overdue increase will help over 5.3 million students pay rising college expenses.

The resolution also provides $10.7 billion for IDEA Part B State grants, an increase of $200 million to help school districts serve 6.9 million children with disabilities and special needs. If we are going to be serious about leaving no child behind, then we must make sure to adequately fund special education.

But there is more, Mr. Speaker. The resolution increases Title I K-12 Grants by $125 million and provides more than 38,000 additional low- income children performing below grade level with intensive reading and math instruction. Thus, we have begun to reverse the decline since 2005 in Title 1 support for elementary and secondary schools at a time of record enrollments (55 million students in 2006) and pressures for more accountability from No Child Left Behind requirements.

The resolution also contains $125 million targeted to the 6,700 schools that failed to meet No Child Left Behind requirements in the 2005-2006 school year, enabling them to implement improvement activities, such as teacher training, tutoring programs, and curriculum upgrades. According to the Department of Education, without this funding more than 80 percent of high-poverty districts would be unable to afford these improvements.

The value and efficacy of Head Start is well known and long established. That is why it is so scandalous that the Bush Administration has cut this program by 11 percent in real dollars since 2002. The resolution increases funding by $103.7 million to help prevent a drop in Head Start enrollments. The money the Department of Education will have will still allow for teacher incentive pay for Houston.

Public Health Programs

The resolution provides $1.9 billion, an increase of $206.9 million to finance more than 300 critically need new or expanded health centers, serving an estimated 1.2 million new patients. We also increase Ryan White CARE Grants by $75.8 million to bring it to its authorized funding level of $1.2 billion.

Scientific Research

One of the most important investments this nation can make to secure its long-term future is in the area of scientific research. As a long- term member of the Science Committee, I am keenly aware that to keep ahead of our international competitors we cannot scrimp when it comes to expanding the Nation's intellectual capital and knowledge base. That is why the resolution wisely funds the National Institutes of Health at $28.9 billion, an increase of $619.5 million. This level of funding reverses a projected decline in new NIH research project awards and supports an additional 500 research project grants, 1,500 first time investigators, and expands funding for high risk and high impact research.

The resolution also provides an additional $50 million in new funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) innovation programs for physical science research and lab support for nanotechnology and neutron research. Equally important, the resolution increases provides funding for the National Science Foundation in the amount of $4.7 billion, an increase of $335 million. This increase is a down-payment towards enhancing U.S. global competitiveness by investing in basic science research.

Mr. Speaker, in an area close to my heart and important to my district, which is often referred to as the Energy Capital of the nation, the resolution increases funding to the Department of Energy's Office of Science by $200 million to support cutting edge research, including new energy technologies such as improved conversion of cellulosic biomass to biofuels. I also appreciate that the resolution increases funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy resources by $300 million which will enable us to accelerate research and development activities for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. NASA and in particular the Johnson Space Center can be funded by redisbursing funds in the Agency to avoid lost jobs and the stopping of important work. I will work for the continued work of NASA.

Housing and urban development

Mr. Speaker, as Hurricane Katrina laid bare for all the world to see, affordable housing has for too long been a neglected priority in this country. The resolution makes a modest but useful stab at correcting this woeful situation. The Section 8 Tenant-Based Program is funded at $15.9 billion, an increase of $502 million, which will enable the Department of Housing and Urban Development to renew 70,000 housing vouchers currently in use by individuals and families. The Section 8 Project-Based Program is budgeted at $5.9 billion, an increase of $939 million. This much needed increase will help HUD renew 157,000 housing vouchers currently in use by individuals and families.

Although no one likes to live in public housing, we must remember that for millions of our fellow citizens they are their home and sanctuary. For too long they have been neglected, which has led to an accelerated state of disrepair. That is why it is encouraging to see that the resolution provides an extra increase $300 million to enable Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) to address critical operating needs after last year's energy hikes saddled them with $287 million in unexpected utility costs. Although this increase is still $672 million short of the total estimated need of $4.5 billion, it will help to restore staff levels, maintenance activities, elderly service coordinators, security officers and equipment.

Also Mr. Speaker, the resolution contains language changing the funding formula for the Section 8 Tenant-Based Program. The current formula is based on information from 2004 that is out of date and results in some Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) getting more money then they can spend while others have less than they need. The resolution corrects this problem by directing HUD to use the most recent 12-month leasing and cost data. Last week HUD announced that a similar provision would be included in their 2008 budget request to be implemented in 2009. By including the language now, 2007 funds will be put to their intended use--funding housing units for low-income families and individuals rather than sitting unspent.

Transportation Guarantees

Next to human capital, few things are as important to the nation's economic future as is its physical infrastructure, especially its roads and bridges. That is why it is very good news that the federal aid highway program is fully funded at the level guaranteed in the SAFETEA- LU Act by providing an obligation limitation of $39.1 billion for FY 2007, $3.5 billion over the FY 2006 enacted level; and funding for Federal mass transit programs is increased by $470 million to $8.97 billion to meet the transit funding guarantees as required by SAFETEA-

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 116 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

(Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 116 provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 20, the continuing resolution for fiscal year 2007. It may seem strange that we are doing that at this late date.

The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member on the Committee on Appropriations. The rule also provides one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, every Congress has a constitutional responsibility to be good stewards of the money given to it by the American people, but the last Congress failed to live up to this duty. Of the 11 appropriations bills it was supposed to pass in 2006, only two were completed. The others were abandoned, left for the incoming Democratic Congress to deal with.

My fellow Democrats and I could have approached this responsibility in the way it was approached last year, but we promised to run the House differently, to run it responsibly, and that is exactly what we intend to do.

We had a mess to clean up, Mr. Speaker. The budget failures of the past Republican Congress have vastly increased our national debt, but they did more than that. They left agencies, States and localities in limbo for months concerning their future funding. What is more, we have seen an explosion in earmarks over the last 12 years in Washington, earmarks that had greased the wheels of an out-of-control congressional machinery.

The number of earmarks approved by the House had, according to estimates by even the most conservative of groups, doubled and tripled in recent Congresses, and for every shameful, unjustifiable bridge to nowhere that was exposed and shouted down by the public, many more questionable earmarks slipped through undetected, a few lines here or there in a large bill, misspending the people's money and taking advantage of their trust.

The Democrats have pledged to fundamentally reform the way earmarks are passed into law by this body, to bring transparency to a process that until recently had been deliberately shrouded in darkness.

The Rules reform package that we enacted on the first day of this Congress will shed new and much-needed light on the earmarking process. It will require the full disclosure of all earmarks proposed by Members of the House. If a project is worth funding, then the Representative requesting it should have no qualms with standing up publicly on its behalf.

But the earmarks in the budget bills left undone by Republicans last Congress did not have any such standards applied to them, and so Democrats have decided to rid this CR of all earmarks. It was a difficult decision and one which we all had to justify to our constituents back home. But in the end, it was a necessary step to bring forth a new day in the people's House.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is not perfect, and cleaning up the mess we inherited required difficult choices between bad alternatives.

But I am very pleased that despite it all the legislation does contain increases in funding for critical programs affecting the lives of millions of people at home and around the world.

Spending on veterans health care is increased by $3.6 billion above the 2006 spending level. Spending on Pell Grants for the first time in 5 years is increased by $615.4 million. The NIH is going to receive an additional $619.6 million.

Other increases are going to support public housing, crime and law enforcement, and domestic transportation needs.

The bill even has a global focus, granting an additional $1.3 million to expand the efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis internationally.

Mr. Speaker, the minority, I predict, will claim that the closed rule under which we are debating this bill is a violation of the spirit of the House and a rejection of the promises Democrats made last year to open up the legislative process.

Let me be very clear, extremely clear about the past record of the House. Since 1997, the House has voted on 75 continuing resolutions, and all of them, 100 percent, were considered under a closed rule process with no amendments allowed. What is more, a third of those continuing resolutions contained substantive policy changes.

In addition to that extensive precedent, the House has already fully debated and considered eight of the appropriations measures contained here. To do so again would take us all year, and we do not have that luxury, not with the many challenges that confront our Nation at this moment in history.

Under the circumstances left for us by the former majority, we have done the best we could. We have produced a bill that will keep the government functioning and a bill that, despite its flaws, is a breath of fresh air compared with how appropriations legislation used to be handled in this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are ready for a new direction. They have proved that in this country, and that is why they put a new kind of Congress in power. This Congress is going to be defined not just by the way it does business, but by the kind of business it conducts.

This Congress is not going to pass the buck, leaving unfinished business for others to handle and leaving problems for others to fix. Democrats are making the tough choices the American people expect us to make and that they elected us to make.

At the end of the day, that is what real leadership is all about.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Just as a response to my colleague from Washington to remind him that, just a month ago, the minority was the majority. If he thinks the things he points out today were serious problems, he should have fixed them then.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. Speaker, I want to yield 1 minute to Mr. Obey from Wisconsin for whatever he wants to do with it.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

(Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my colleague how many speakers he has remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to Mr. Obey of Wisconsin.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make certain that everybody understands that the money we are operating under is the money that the Republicans voted last year to spend. We are under their spending levels, not ours, so the complaints ring hollow.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Washington is as follows:

Amendment in the nature of a substitute:

Strike all after the resolved clause and insert:

``That upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in

order to consider in the House the joint resolution (H. J.

Res. 20) making further continuing appropriations for the

fiscal year 2007, and for other purposes. All points of order

against the joint resolution and against its consideration

are waived except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule

XXI. The joint resolution shall be considered as read. The

previous question shall be considered as ordered on the joint

resolution and on any amendment thereto to final passage

without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate on

the joint resolution equally divided and controlled by the

chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on

Appropriations; (2) the amendment in section 2 of this

resolution if offered by Representative Walden of Oregon or

his designee, which shall be in order without intervention of

any point of order, shall be considered as read, and shall be

separately debatable for one hour equally divided and

controlled by the proponent and an opponent; and (3) one

motion to recommit with or without instructions.

``Sec. 2. The amendment referred to in section 1 is as

follows:

Page 39, after line 24, insert the following:

``Sec. 20327. Of the uncosted balances available from funds

appropriated under Section 130 of Division H of the

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2004 (Public Law 108-199)

under the heading `Department of Energy, Energy Programs,

Science', as amended by Section 315 of the Energy and Water

Development Appropriations Act, 2006 (Public Law 109-103),

for the Iowa Environmental and Education project in

Coralville, Iowa, $44,569,000 is rescinded.''.

Page 87, line 6, strike ``$25,423,250,000'' and insert

``$25,467,819,000''.

At the end of chapter 5 of title II of the division B being

added by section 2, add the following new section:

``Sec. 20522. (a) In addition to amounts otherwise

appropriated or made available by this division, $400,000,000

is appropriated for the purpose of making payments for fiscal

year 2007 under sections 102 and 103 of the Secure Rural

Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (Public

Law 106-393; 16 U.S.C. 500 note). The Secretary of the

Treasury shall use such funds to make such payments in lieu

of using funds in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, as

otherwise authorized by sections 102(b)(3) and 103(b)(2) of

such Act.

``(b) There is hereby rescinded an amount equal to .00086

percent of the budget authority provided (or obligation limit

imposed) for fiscal year 2007 for any discretionary account

pursuant to this division.''.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Washington State for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I am here today to talk about the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, H.R. 17, of which the chairman of the Rules Committee is a cosponsor.

I went before the Rules Committee yesterday with an amendment cosponsored by my colleague from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) to reauthorize, or to appropriate, I should say, not reauthorize, for 1 year, just 1 year, funds for our schools and roads in our communities, $400 million.

To meet the PAYGO test, we provided a mechanism. It is not the most elegant mechanism out there, but it was an across-the-board reduction in all spending by .00086 percent, or 1 penny out of $11.59 spent in this bill.

Today, across America, in more than 4,400 school districts in 600 counties, layoff notices are going out for teachers, for sheriffs' deputies, for search-and-rescue patrols, for essential services in our counties. Libraries in Jackson County, Oregon, will close in April, all 15 of them, because the last Congress and now this Congress has failed to take action, failed.

The distinguished gentleman who chairs the Appropriations Committee says, this is mandatory spending; we can't touch it in our bill. You can't authorize in this bill, oh, unless you got a waiver from the Rules Committee, because you cannot stand here and tell me there aren't programs being funded in this bill that have fully been authorized. I don't believe it is the case. This is one such program, and you made the choice not to do it here.

Now, many of you have indicated that you will work with us to fund this somewhere else, and I am deeply appreciative of that. The chairwoman of the Rules Committee, a cosponsor of this reauthorization legislation, made that commitment yesterday, I believe, to work with us on some other vehicle.

But I just have to tell you how dramatic this is in my district and in districts across this country where school board administrators are having to tell their teachers, next year I can't guarantee you will have a contract, and I have to be able to do that by March 1. They are putting out the layoff notices. They are looking at shutting down vital services. All because this Federal Government made a decision at some point to stop harvesting timber on Federal forest land in a significant measure, an 80 to 85 percent reduction, that this Congress, through its actions in the past and lawsuits and everything else, brought to a dramatic halt, active management of our Federal force.

Last year in America, 9 million acres burned, and this Congress had to appropriate $1.5 billion to put out forest fires and grassland fires, the most in the history of our country, following another year that was the most.

We will not change the policy so we get commonsense management of our forests. Now, for the first time in nearly 100 years you break the commitment that the Federal Government has had since Teddy Roosevelt was President and created the great forest reserves, to be a good neighbor to the counties where up to 70 or 80 percent of the Federal lands in their counties are owned and managed or mismanaged, in some of our opinions, by the Federal Government.

School kids in my district out in Grant County boarding this bus are going to be traveling on roads where the road department is basically being eliminated.

I want to share with you a letter from a fifth grader in Ashland, Oregon. A fifth grader in Ashland, Oregon, gets it and understands that this Congress ought to be able to understand it and get it. She wrote to me after going to a Martin Luther King event and decided she ought to get involved in public service. Her mother is a school teacher; her father is a professor.

``I live in Ashland and go to Bellview School. I am in fifth grade. I use our library a lot. We always borrow books on tape for car trips. My New Year's resolution is to read all the `Hank the Cowdog' books, and the library has them all. I need the library to stay open so I can finish my resolution. I also use a lot of books there for school reports.

``Please help to keep our library system open!

``Sincerely, Alice.''

I appreciate your willingness to work with us in the future. I wish we could have had the amendment made in order in this resolution so that Alice could get her school books and the layoff notices wouldn't go out.

The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (H.R. 17 a.k.a. County Payments), in both this Congress and the last, has been a strongly bipartisan issue.

The DeFazio-Walden legislation to reauthorize and fund the County Payments program for seven years enjoys the support of 98 Members of their House.

I would like to thank the members of the Rules Committee who heard me out yesterday on a DeFazio-Walden amendment which would have restored funding for this vital program. I would like to thank Congressmen McGovern, Alcee Hastings (FL) and Cardoza, who following my remarks in Committee, joined Chairwoman Slaughter and Congressman Doc Hastings (WA) as cosponsors of H.R. 17.

As I have said in eight of 18 one-minute Floor speeches, the failure of Congress to reauthorize the County Payments program is a breach of faith to more than 600 forested counties and 4,400 school districts across America.

The DeFazio-Walden amendment offered in the Rules Committee yesterday would have provided the vital $400 million to fund this program for one year as we work to fully reauthorize and fund the program. The amendment would have met the PAYGO rule by providing a .00086 percent across-the-board reduction in the [$463 billion] CR we are considering today. This fraction of a percent reduction amounts to one penny out of every $11.59 which will be appropriated in this CR.

One penny is all that rural counties and school districts across this country need.

Without this penny, what will happen to rural America's forested counties and school districts? Severe cuts in funding for jail beds, sheriff's patrols, and criminal prosecutions, and the pursuit of meth cooks. Rural school districts will forego overdue repairs, not buy textbooks, or face significant challenges bussing kids to school.

Libraries will close in places like Jackson County, Oregon. In fact, during the Rules Committee discussion yesterday, Chairwoman Slaughter commented that ``even during the Depression we didn't close libraries.'' I would like to draw your attention to a letter I received from Alice, a fifth-grader from Ashland, Oregon who utilizes one of the 15 Jackson County libraries scheduled to close in April if this vital funding is not restored.

There are further impacts. Surely you remember the searches for the Kim Family in southern Oregon and the mountain climbers on Mt. Hood? Both Jackson and Hood River Counties used equipment and personnel paid for in part by the County Payments program in those searches. The Klamath County, Oregon sheriff's force of 35 officers will be cut by one-third. They patrol an area 100 times the size of the District of Columbia.

These vital county services and rural school programs were once funded by timber receipts. The virtual elimination of timber harvest in our Federal forests prompted Congress to provide payments to develop forest health improvement projects on public lands and simultaneously stimulate job development and community economic stability.

Consider that Oregon's Second District, which I represent, is 60 percent public land; 78 percent of Harney County is public land; 79 percent of Deschutes County is public land; 72 percent of Hood River County is public land.

While these forest and range lands are America's treasures, these vast tracts of land do not provide a tax base for communities, greatly reducing the amount of revenue that can be generated for services like schools, libraries, and law enforcement.

I appreciate the kind words from the Rules Committee members and their commitment to work with Congressman DeFazio and myself to find the appropriate legislative vehicle to deal with this rural Federal funding crisis.

We must not wait any longer--pink slips are being sent to county employees, rural school programs are being cut, and Alice, the fifth- grader from Ashland, Oregon is losing her library--time is running out.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think I can clarify it, although I am on the minority side.

Mr. Speaker, the bill, I think, has been referred to both the Natural Resources Committee and the Agriculture Committee. In the last Congress, my subcommittee and the full Resources Committee passed the bill out to the Agriculture Committee, where no further action was taken, nor was there any action taken by the United States Senate, which was no great surprise.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and the chairwoman of the Rules Committee for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself as much time as may I consume.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Rules Committee held a 3-hour hearing and took testimony from the appropriations chairman Mr. Obey and Members that brought forth amendments to the committee in hopes of having them debated and considered on the floor here today.

Many good ideas were presented to the committee. These ideas ranged from considering a true, clean continuing resolution to restoring the lapse Federal Government safety net for 4,400 schools and 780 counties in rural America, from helping farmers with natural disaster relief, to increasing funding for local housing authorities, to taking unspent money from a rain forest education project in Iowa and, instead, spending those moneys to help millions, to help our veterans.

But unfortunately, after listening to the thoughtful testimony from Members on their ideas for improving the bill, the Rules Committee rejected every single one of them and approved this closed rule by an 8-4 vote.

So this House will spend just 1 hour, Mr. Speaker, considering this bill with no amendments even allowed to be debated and no substitute bill allowed to be offered by the minority.

So why the rush and the closed process? We are not asking for much. Give us a few minutes to sort out confusing parts of this resolution that have not passed the House previously, but have magically appeared in this resolution, like a rewriting of the formula for the distribution of section 8 housing funds. This new formula will affect hundreds of communities all across the Nation.

In my district in Washington State, multiple communities are slated to have their grants cut dramatically. In one city, city of Kennewick, the housing authority alone there will have their grant cut by $1 million. That is roughly one-third of their total budget. This rewritten formula was not approved by the House in previous spending bills for this year and clearly needs more input and discussion before becoming law. Unfortunately, we are denied the opportunity to discuss that.

One major issue that is neglected on this bill is a continuing safety net for our schools and counties in rural areas that have large amounts of Federal land and, therefore, have a very limited tax base. Recognizing the importance of this safety net, Mr. Walden of Oregon came to the Rules Committee and offered a bipartisan amendment with Mr. DeFazio of Oregon that would have provided a 1-year extension of funding so that these schools could keep their libraries open, keep the teachers at least through the end of the school year, and help counties with necessary road repairs. Let me be clear. Last year, over 4,400 schools received $400 million, and with this bill, they will receive exactly zero.

After convincing testimony by Mr. Walden, three Democrat members of the Rules Committee agreed to join me and Chairwoman Slaughter as cosponsors of H.R. 17 which would fix the problem for an additional 7 years. Less than an hour later, however, the Rules Committee voted against even considering a bipartisan amendment that would provide 1 hour of relief for this problem, saying that it is not the right vehicle.

Mr. Speaker, please try to explain to school children when their libraries close because of insufficient funding that the Congress wanted to act but chose not to because they did not feel this was the right vehicle.

Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, hundreds of unauthorized programs continue to be funded in this underlying resolution. We do not have a complete list of the unauthorized programs because the underlying measure is not a general appropriations bill and did not go through regular order. Therefore, there is no report which is required to list all unauthorized programs that are funded.

Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle speak at length about the open process they would have when they were in charge. I want to believe them, I truly do. I have had discussions with my colleagues up in the Rules Committee every time we have met this year, but unfortunately, the actions simply do not match the promises that were made.

At the beginning of the 110th Congress, I heard my colleagues on the majority side say that after we wrap up our first 100 hours agenda, we will have an open process. It has now been nearly 4 weeks. The 100 hours are long past, and yet the House is yet to consider a bill under an open rule. Most have been closed out without any amendments.

I have to ask when, when will this House have the opportunity to debate and consider the bills? When will the minority be permitted to truly participate in this process? Because I can think of no better time than right now when we are considering the funding for our Nation's priorities and funding for almost the entire Federal Government.

Let us have a real debate on the $463 billion in this omnibus. I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Would the gentleman yield?

I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the conversation we had earlier that this is not in your jurisdiction, but we were given waivers in this bill for legislation that is also not under your jurisdiction, and the rewrite, if I am not mistaken, of the formula that I mentioned on formula 8.

I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the amendment that was offered by our colleague from Oregon, while, yes, it refers to as a mandatory program was simply a 1- year program so that this problem could be fixed.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee, Mr. Dreier from California.

(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to my colleague on the Rules Committee, Mr. Sessions of Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my former colleague on the Rules Committee, Mr. Gingrey from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller).

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the gentleman wouldn't yield. I just wanted to ask one brief question. But I am pleased to yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, in response to the chairwoman, we have about four or five speakers left.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof).

(Mr. HULSHOF asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Speaker, how much time is left?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question so I can insert Mr. Sessions and Mr. Walden's amendment that was rejected in the committee. I ask unanimous consent to insert in the Record at the appropriate place the amendment that I will be asking my Members to consider if we defeat the previous question.