Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act of 2011

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 697 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), 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.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

House Resolution 697 provides for an open rule providing for consideration of two bills, H.R. 5973, which is a bill making appropriations for fiscal year 2013 for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and related agencies, and H.R. 5972, the fiscal year 2013 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are offering yet another open rule, something that our liberal Democrat colleagues gleefully denied this House when they held the gavel. Once again, House Republicans continue our commitment to an open appropriations process in which all Members from both parties have an opportunity to influence the final legislative product.

In fact, this rule represents the eleventh open rule the Rules Committee has reported to the House thus far in the 112th Congress, which is in stark contrast to the 111th, in which the House considered a grand total of zero open rules.

I want to thank my colleagues from the Appropriations Committee for their leadership and hard work in producing the two bills referenced in this rule. H.R. 5973 includes $19.4 billion in discretionary funding, which represents a cut of $365 million below last year's level. H.R. 5972 provides a total of $51.6 billion in discretionary spending for the departments and agencies funded in the bill for fiscal 2013, which is a level representing $3.9 billion below last year's level.

While my liberal colleagues would undoubtedly prefer to borrow and spend more and continue to ignore the dire fiscal realities of our country, House Republicans remain committed to reining in wasteful spending, even if it involves making difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions in order to save our country from fiscal ruin.

The simple truth is we cannot afford to fund every program at the bloated levels that, for many years, kept political promises but, in the end, hurt the fiscal stability of our country. It would be unconscionable to continue indebting future generations to creditors like China without working to reduce Federal spending, which is the real driver of our deficit.

These are important bills, Mr. Speaker, and I'm proud that House Republicans, led by our esteemed Rules Committee Chairman Dreier, have embraced an open process to consider this legislation. We welcome the support of our Democrat colleagues on final passage of the underlying legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham).

Mr. Speaker, one of the bills that will seek consideration under this open rule is H.R. 5973, which primarily funds agriculture and nutrition programs. The legislation contains discretionary funding, as well as required mandatory funding for food and nutrition programs within the Department of Agriculture. This includes funding for the special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, the food stamp, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, and the child nutrition programs.

The bill provides $6.9 billion in discretionary funding for WIC, which, contrary to what liberals suggest, is $303.5 million above last year's level. This program provides supplemental nutritional foods needed by pregnant and nursing mothers, babies, and young children. Language is included for oversight and monitoring requirements to ensure the proper use of taxpayer dollars, as well as food price tracking to ensure necessary resources continue serving those eligible for program benefits.

The bill provides for $19.7 billion in required mandatory funding outside of the discretionary funding jurisdiction of the Appropriations Committee for child nutrition programs, which is $1.5 billion above last year's level. The bill provides for $80 billion in required mandatory spending, which is, again, outside of the discretionary funding jurisdiction of the Appropriations Committee, for SNAP, the food stamp program. This is $408 million below last year's level.

Since food stamps or SNAP spending is driven by program participation, the spending is called mandatory. This legislation also includes new stringent reporting requirements to help weed out and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the program, such as a requirement for States to include the fraud hotline number on all EBT cards, a directive that the Secretary of Agriculture ban fraudulent vendors, and a requirement for States to share data with enforcement agencies.

The legislation includes $996 million for food safety and inspection programs, which is equal to the President's budget request, and a decrease of $9 million below last year's level. These mandatory inspection activities, which play a significant role in maintaining the safety and productivity of the country's $832 billion meat and poultry industry, help maintain critical meat, poultry, and egg product inspection and testing activities and support the implementation of a poultry inspection

program to improve safety and inspection efficiency. This voluntary inspection program is expected to reduce government costs by $85 million to $95 million over 3 years and reduce costs to private businesses by a total of $250 million.

The FDA receives a total of almost $2.5 billion in discretionary funding in the bill, representing a 0.7 percent or $16.3 million reduction below last year's level. Total funding for the FDA, including user fees, is $3.8 billion.

These are just some of the priorities outlined in the underlying legislation. I look forward to hearing from committee leaders, who will provide further discussion of various elements of the legislation at the time the bill is debated.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the other bill that will benefit from consideration under this open rule is H.R. 5972, which provides funding aimed at supporting a vibrant and safe transportation infrastructure while making the difficult decisions needed to balance the budget.

The bill includes $17.6 billion in discretionary appropriations for the Department of Transportation for fiscal year 2013. This is $69 million below last year's level. The bill designates $39.1 billion from the highway trust fund for the Federal highway program, which is the same level provided last year.

However, the committee recognizes that since the highway program still requires reauthorization and the funding level provided in the bill may change upon the enactment of a highway authorization bill for the next fiscal year, the Appropriations Committee is prepared to support a differing highway trust fund spending level should a new multiyear authorization bill be enacted.

Included in the legislation is $12.6 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration, which is $91 million above last year's level. The bill provides nearly $1 billion for the FAA's Next Generation Air Transportation System, otherwise known as NextGen, allowing the FAA to move forward with the next step in modernizing the Nation's air control and airport system. The bill also supports operations and staffing, which will help ease congestion and reduce delays for travelers in U.S. airspace while rejecting the administration's proposals for new aviation fees.

The legislation contains funding for the various transportation safety programs and agencies within the Department of Transportation. This includes $776 million in both mandatory and discretionary funding for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, representing a reduction of $23.8 million below last year; $551 million for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, representing a reduction of $2.6 million below last year; and $177 million for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which is $4 million above last year's level.

The legislation includes a total of $33.6 billion to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is $3.8 billion below last year's level. The bill wastes no funding on any new, unauthorized ``sustainable,'' ``livable,'' or ``green'' community development programs. $26.3 billion is included in the bill for public and Indian housing, representing an increase of $759 million above last year's level.

Within this total, the bill provides funding to renew benefits for every single individual and family currently receiving assistance and ensures that no critical benefits are eliminated or canceled. The bill also fully funds the President's request for veterans' housing at $75 million and Native American block grants at $650 million.

Housing programs within the bill are funded at $9.3 billion, representing a reduction of $361 million below last year's level and $49 million below the request. Within this total, the bill provides sufficient funding for the most vulnerable populations, including $165 million for housing for the disabled, an increase of $15 million over last year, and $425 million for housing for the elderly, again, an increase of $50 million above last year.

These are just some of the priorities outlined in the underlying legislation. Again, I look forward to hearing from committee leaders who will provide further discussion of the various elements of the legislation.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues are talking about the fact that we are going to have a district work period next week. The district work period is because next week we are celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence, one of the most important holidays in this country.

Our colleagues across the aisle want to create more dependence in this country. They are as far away from the Founders of this country as you can be in terms of what makes this country unique and what makes it so great.

We don't need more dependence in this country, Mr. Speaker. We need to celebrate what makes this country great, what makes us unique. It's the independence of this country and the independence of citizens and their ability to take care of themselves and to personally take care of each other and not continue to look to the nanny state that our friends would create and have tried to create over the years.

These are very difficult times, Mr. Speaker. We all know that. But it's important that the American people understand that House Republicans have repeatedly worked to find common ground with the President and Senate Democrats and have passed several bipartisan bills that would improve this economy which has been so damaged by the policies of the left and this President.

Several proposals supported even by the President have passed the House and have been signed into law, including trade pacts, a bipartisan veterans hiring bill, and a repeal of the IRS withholding tax on job creators. But the President's own job council has embraced many of the job proposals advocated by Republicans but ignored by the President himself.

The simple truth is that President Obama's attempt supported by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and by them only, to stimulate the economy by growing government has failed.

But you don't have to take my word for it, Mr. Speaker. Just look at the facts: The recent jobs report showed that the U.S. gained only 69,000 jobs in the month of May.

May marked the 40th consecutive month that the unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent, repudiating the administration's pledge that unemployment would remain below 8 percent if the Democrat 2009 stimulus plan became law. Lest we forget, it was the Obama administration which claimed unemployment would be below 6 percent today if the $1.178 trillion Democrat ``stimulus'' was signed into law.

At the current rate of job growth, if the United States continues to struggle under the failed policies that have produced the ``Obama economy'' and adds only 69,000 jobs each month in the future, it would take a total of 10 years and 5 months--until June 2018--to regain all the jobs lost during the latest recession, which is longer than the 8 years it took to regain the jobs lost during the Great Depression.

But even these figures, Mr. Speaker, hide the fact that the rate of underemployment, or real unemployment, which counts those who want to work but have stopped searching in this economy and those who are forced to work part-time because they cannot find full employment, is 14.5 percent or higher.

Also troubling is the realization that since 2008, which is the year President Obama was elected, median family income has declined by $1,154, falling to its lowest level since 1996. As a March 2012, the number of Americans receiving food stamps was 46.4 million, which is the third most in any month in history and up 80,000 from February. Today, 15 percent of Americans receive food stamps, representing an increase of 45 percent since President Obama took office.

Mr. Speaker, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to continue the failed policies they began in 2007 and instituted for 4 years and worked with President Obama for 2 years on. Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are working to improve the dismal conditions imposed by the liberal regime that dominated Washington, D.C., for far too long.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I need to remind my colleague across the aisle we're not debating an adjournment resolution here today. I also need to remind my colleague across the aisle that it was the Democrats that set this student loan problem up. They made promises in 2006 to the American people they couldn't keep; and so they set up a time bomb, actually, so that the interest rates on the student loans would go back up because, again, they made promises they couldn't keep about lowering the rate of interest.

It affects a very small number of students, and it only affects them when they graduate from college, Mr. Speaker. If the Obama economy weren't so lousy and only 50 percent of the students graduating were getting jobs, it really wouldn't be that big an issue because it's a very small amount of money to the students. And if they had jobs, they wouldn't be quite so concerned about it. They only have to pay those loans back after they graduate because we're subsidizing interest while they are in school.

So I think our colleagues don't really want to go in that direction and talk about blaming Republicans for this mess with student loans, since they created it. And if the students were getting jobs, most of them wouldn't be as concerned about it as they are now.

Also, on the transportation bill that our colleagues tout so well, again, it fits right into their philosophy of borrow, borrow, borrow; spend, spend, spend. It is not a responsible bill because the Republican bill would stay within the limits of the revenue that we get from the highway trust fund. But they just want to borrow from the general fund and make our situation worse.

Mr. Speaker, it seems clear to everyone except the liberal leadership that job creators are bogged down by overly burdensome Federal regulations that prevent job creation and hinder economic growth. These regulations are particularly damaging for the real job creators in the country: small business owners. The Federal Government may create jobs, but they are not sustainable jobs, and they are a drag on the economy.

However, House Republicans recognize the need to remove onerous, redundant Federal regulations that are so harmful to small businesses and impede private sector investment and job creation. In order to ease the regulatory burden on the economy and to promote job creation, House Republicans have worked to advance legislation to rein in the unaccountable Federal regulatory apparatus and continue to pursue innovative initiatives such as my bill, H.R. 373, the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act, which would help improve transparency and accountability by disclosing costs to Federal mandates that would otherwise remain hidden from public scrutiny.

House Republicans appreciate that America's Tax Code has grown overly complicated and cumbersome, filled with loopholes and giveaways and is fundamentally unfair. That's why the House Republican plan for America's job creators recognizes the need to eliminate the special interest tax breaks that litter the Tax Code and reduce our overall tax rate to no more than 25 percent for business and individuals, including small business owners. This would make the Tax Code flatter, fairer, and simpler. Commonsense changes to the Tax Code would ensure that everyone pays his or her fair share, lessens the burden on families, generates economic expansion, and creates jobs by making Americans more competitive.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Dr. Foxx, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I just would like to point out to my colleagues that I don't want them to be under the misimpression that somehow this Republican leadership is somehow conducting an open and transparent process. At last count, they have given us 41 completely closed rules, and that's not even getting into the number of structured rules we've had. So I would be a little bit more humble before I would brag about the open process in this House.

I rise in opposition to this rule, which combines two unrelated appropriations bills, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and the Agriculture appropriations bills. And this rule also concedes that the House Republicans will not finish all their appropriation bills on time.

Under the House rules, the House cannot adjourn for more than 3 days in a row in July unless all the appropriation bills are finished. Section 4 in this rule is an admission that the Republican leadership hasn't met this threshold.

Mr. Speaker, I also oppose this rule because Republican budget caps have made it impossible to bring appropriations bills to the floor that meet the needs of our country. Rather than a balanced, fair approach to control our Federal deficit, Republicans have launched an all-out assault against middle-income families and those who are struggling in poverty. Rather than asking Donald Trump to pay one penny more in taxes, the Republicans are pursuing an agenda that would decimate food stamps, that turns Medicare into a voucher program, that goes after student loans. I could go on and on and on. Everything that they bring to this floor lowers the quality of life and the standard of living for the people in this country.

This Congress should be about lifting people up, not putting people down. And yet, the bills that get brought to this floor, time and time again, are all about putting the American people down.

Not only is the underlying Transportation appropriations bill underfunded, but we're considering it while the ninth--the ninth-- extension of the surface transportation bill, the bill that

funds our roads and bridges, is on the verge of expiring, and the summer construction season quickly moves towards a close.

We need a transportation bill, and we would have one, Mr. Speaker, if the Republican leadership would simply accept the bipartisan Senate bill. Instead, the Republican leadership has decided to play politics by including unrelated provisions like the construction of the Keystone pipeline in a bill meant to build and repair America's roads and bridges, in a bill that would have put thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans to work on these critical projects.

I had the honor of hosting Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former Republican Member of this body, in my congressional district yesterday. Secretary LaHood made it clear that Congress needs to get its act together and pass a transportation bill. Rather than more recesses, I would say to my friends, we ought to stay here and not leave until we get this bill passed.

Instead, this transportation appropriations bill is, essentially, a shell full of placeholder language waiting for the authorization bill to be finished. This is not a way to legislate.

My friends on the other side of the aisle like to say, where are the jobs? Well, I'll tell you where the jobs are. They're in this transportation bill that they are holding up, that they are holding hostage. You want to put Americans back to work? Pass this bill.

I'm also deeply disappointed, Mr. Speaker, that this is the second year in a row that the appropriations bill fails to fund the Sustainable Communities initiative, which brings together the Department of Transportation, HUD, and EPA to develop effective models of integrated planning and promote economic development in metropolitan areas across the country. We should be pursuing the smart, holistic approaches to urban planning and improvement encouraged by the Sustainable Communities initiative, and this bill doesn't do that.

I also have concerns with the project-based Section 8 funding level included in the THUD legislation, and with proposals to short-fund project-based contracts. Short-funding does not reduce Federal expenditures, but instead shifts the cost to the next fiscal year. In fact, according to the National Housing Trust, short-funding can increase financing costs because of the uncertainty it creates among lenders and investors. Short-funding is a direct result of the need to conform to the Ryan budget, and I hope that the Senate's funding level is adopted during this conference, if they ever do have a conference.

The sad reality, Mr. Speaker, is that of these two appropriations bills, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations is the better one. And this Agriculture appropriations bill is, to put it nicely, not where it needs to be. It is woefully inadequate in several places, and it continues a pattern set by this Republican leadership of trying to undermine the Wall Street reforms made under Dodd-Frank and to dismantle the antihunger safety net.

This bill decimates funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Corporation, one of the key regulators of the financial services industry. In fact, the bill cuts funding for the CFTC by 41 percent, a cut that will drastically reduce CFTC's ability to oversee an industry that continues to take risky gambles, as evidenced by J.P. Morgan's recent loss of $2 billion. The Republican leadership, once again, would rather allow Wall Street to run amok instead of providing proper oversight so that Americans on Main Street don't get taken to the cleaners.

Also not surprising is this Republican leadership's continued assault on the hungry in America. Over the past 18 months, the Republican leadership has pushed two plans to block grant SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, dramatically cut WIC funding in last year's Agriculture appropriations bill, and brought a reconciliation bill to the floor that would cut $36 million from SNAP, the most effective and efficient Federal antihunger program we have in this country.

Of course, we are still anticipating a farm bill from the Agriculture Committee that will cut at least $14 billion from this program. Also, while this bill funds WIC at $6.9 billion, it is still $119 million short of President Obama's request.

In essence, this bill is gambling that food prices and participation will stabilize and not continue to rise. Yet just as concerning is the lack of set-asides for breast-feeding counselors, electronic benefit cards and infrastructure. These provisions were included in the President's request and also in the Senate bill. They should not be excluded from the House version.

The other problem with the WIC language is the provision dealing with white potatoes. For the first time, Congress is mandating that white potatoes be included in the WIC food package. This is unprecedented and is deeply troubling. Congress has never, until now, interfered with the science of the WIC food package. This food package was specifically designed by the Institute of Medicine to provide the necessary nutrients through specific foods that are often not consumed, for a variety of reasons, by low-income pregnant women and their newborns, infants and young children. Like the effort to treat pizza as a vegetable, this is clearly done on behalf of industry. It does not belong in this bill.

This bill also cuts the Commodities Supplemental Food Program below the President's request. This program provides food to seniors across the country, but the funding level in this bill is so inadequate that it will actually result in 55,000 fewer seniors being served. That's 55,000 fewer low-income seniors on fixed incomes who will have food taken away from them simply because this committee decided that tightening our Nation's fiscal belt should mean less food for elderly in America instead of fewer profits for the wealthy.

The Agriculture appropriations bill doesn't spare international food aid from drastic cuts either. This bill cuts title II PL480 by 22 percent, or $316 million, under FY12 levels and $250 million below the President's FY13 request. These dramatic cuts would result in decreases in emergency services to between 6 million and 8 million vulnerable people, some of whom are already on the brink of starvation. They also weaken the funding for programs that fight long-term hunger and that build the capacity of people to withstand new emergencies. For example, it was the Food for Peace development programs in Ethiopia that helped keep communities from falling into famine and to withstand the shock of last year's drought, saving the American taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars.

Not only are these cuts unconscionable, but they are unwise because they will ultimately lead to future costs should there be widespread hunger, famine or civil unrest that requires American assistance. Mr. Speaker, we need to do better. We must do better. We need a surface transportation bill that actually puts Americans back to work.

I again ask my Republican friends to stop holding the Senate bill hostage. Bring it to the floor. Let us have an up-or-down vote on it. Let us pass it and get people back to work. We need to ensure that Wall Street doesn't, once again, run unchecked; and we need to guarantee that we don't let Americans go hungry during these difficult economic times. The Republican agenda is quite contrary to where I think the majority of Americans are, and we're seeing that agenda--that radical right-wing agenda--at work in these appropriations bills.

I will just close with this, Mr. Speaker:

My colleagues on the other side like to talk about numbers all the time while I like to talk about people. I got elected to Congress to help people. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, the agenda by this Republican majority is all about putting people down. We should be about lifting people up in this country. We can meet our budgetary challenges without lowering the standard of living for the people of this country.

With that, I urge my colleagues to reject this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut, I just want to yield myself such time as I may consume just to make a point here.

I think it's important for us not to try to fool anybody by saying that we are adequately living up to the challenge of combating hunger and food insecurity in this country, because I will say to the gentlelady that there are 49 million Americans who would disagree with you. There are 49 million Americans who are hungry in our country, the richest country on the planet. Seventeen million of them are children.

Among the many things that are cut in this Agriculture appropriations bill is the Commodity Supplemental Food program. The cut in that alone would throw 55,000 seniors off of food assistance.

We can talk about that we're trying to do the best we can, but let's not say that somehow we're doing something we're not. We are not meeting the challenge of ending hunger and food insecurity in America. Not by a long shot. That's one of the frustrating things about this appropriations process--that the very programs to help people get out of poverty, to get on their feet again, are being slashed. You are balancing the budget on the backs of hungry people while you ask Donald Trump not to pay one penny more in taxes. I think that's unfair, and that's why, I think, this whole process is unfair.

At this point, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, this rule allows Members to go home to their districts, even if we don't address the doubling of student loan interest rates that are about to hit people across the country and even if we don't hammer out a deal to fund our transportation programs and create jobs, notwithstanding the fact that our infrastructure is crumbling.

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to say that the House cannot adjourn at the end of this week until we finish our business.

And to discuss this amendment, I would yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen).

Let me just say I hope that the gentlelady wasn't implying that somehow the Federal Government doesn't have a role in investing in our national highway infrastructure. Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, I should remind the gentlelady, understood the importance of having a national highway program.

As has been pointed out by a number of our speakers on the Democratic side, our infrastructure is aging and is falling apart, and we're not going to be able to compete in this global economy unless we make the proper investments. And by making the proper investments, we are not only helping our economy; we are putting people back to work. We are putting people back to work. And yet the Republican leadership of this House is holding hostage a transportation bill that passed the Senate that would put countless people back to work, which passed overwhelmingly in the Senate by 74 votes--overwhelmingly in the Senate. We can't get that brought up on the House floor for a vote.

The Republicans, I would say, Mr. Speaker, I think are intentionally running out the clock. I think it's a cynical attempt to hold everything up, to not invest in our economy, to slow down economic growth. Hopefully, I think, in their minds, they hope that it will win them the election. I think it's a cynical way to do politics. We ought to be on this floor helping the American people.

And, yes, the 4th of July is a great time for us to celebrate our country, but a lot of Americans are not going to celebrate because they're out of work. And we have the ability to put them back to work. Yet my friends on the other side of the aisle are holding hostage the very bill that could put countless Americans back to work.

At this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).

Let me thank Mr. Conyers for yielding as I think it is important that we explain to our colleagues what we're doing here.

Madam Speaker, this is part of a 7- or 9-hour marathon for committees of jurisdiction to come to the floor to respond to how important it is to, in essence, clog up the government. It sounds pretty, and it sounds attractive to be able to suggest that we have not been exercising due diligence as relates to the regulatory process of the executive branch.

My colleague from Tennessee was right: when we cite the Constitution, what we are saying is that the Founding Fathers recognized the importance of three distinct branches:

The legislative writes legislation. It has the right to oversight, and those who are part of this body are elected to represent certain perspectives.

The executive is elected by all of the people, electing the President of the United States.

The third branch, the judiciary, has oversight.

So what we have taken to the floor to do is to spend 9 hours in redundancy, talking about what this body should be doing anyhow. We have the responsibility of oversight. We have the ability to question regulations in regular order; but what we will be doing is ignoring the people's business of creating jobs and, frankly, putting ourselves in the role of a clogged toilet, meaning

that we are doing nothing, that we are stuffed up.

I would make the argument that the REINS Act, maybe through good intentions, is a dilatory tactic that keeps us from doing our work. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, let me give you a few examples.

One of the subcommittees I have the privilege of sitting on--and I thank Chairman Smith for designing this committee again--is a committee dealing with competitiveness. What could be more important than assessing whether or not this country is losing its competitiveness to countries around the world or that corporations are doing noncompetitive acts that cause us to lose jobs?

I am not happy with the United-Continental merger. We've just lost jobs in Houston--500 of them. I would prefer our continuing to have oversight over whether these large-type mergers cause us to lose jobs. There are any number of merging industries that believe that's the best way to go, and therefore I would welcome that opportunity.

Mr. Conyers, I understand that the mayor of New York is suggesting that Germany should take over Wall Street. I'm offended. I'm hurt. Not that I have anything against Germany, but I know that there is a type of intellectual property that is possessed: if nothing else, the pride of Wall Street as it relates to the body politic of finance in this country and around the world. I would like to have a hearing as to whether or not that is detrimental to the loss of jobs or whether, in fact, it diminishes the competitiveness of this Nation. That is what the Judiciary Committee has powers to do.

If you put this bill in place--and I don't mind conceding that something is going to pass--I hope that there is a thought process that recognizes that staff has indicated to us that last year, under this rule, there were 94 major regulations that this body would have to attend to. So we would have had to eliminate our work on food safety; we would have had to eliminate our work on Wall Street reform; we would have had to eliminate our work on ensuring that Americans get good health care, all in order to stop the work of this body to address a regulation that we would have every right in an oversight process to handle.

Then, as a member of the Crime Subcommittee, I want you to be aware of the fact that I've been told by representatives of the Federal Bureau of Prison that our Federal prisons now house more convicted international and domestic terrorists than Guantanamo Bay. Yet we are at a hiring freeze. We don't have enough Federal Bureau of Prisons corrections officers. As the rising inmate population--nothing that I'm proud of--continues to grow, the ratio of Federal prisons correction officers diminishes.

You can see it in a tragedy in Washington State: Not enough officers in a State prison, and a prison officer is killed. We need to have hearings on how we can address the crisis in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I might say, they would add jobs. We need more individuals there to protect those who are serving their country as being part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons system, creating jobs. Why are we not attending to that?

When you have to address major regulation and stop the business of this House to either hold a hearing in committee or in 15 days discharge to the floor, we have to debate it on the floor, that's what we will be doing, rather than engaging in the legislative process. We write the laws, and I might say that I have a great deal of respect for the CBO, but I also know that they are not without vulnerabilities, and they are not without imperfection. If there's 800,000 jobs being lost, are they being lost throughout industry because of certain requirements and then, on the other hand, some 3 million-plus jobs may be created because of the access to health care and the increase in resources for more doctors and nurses, health technicians, providing scholarship dollars, more community health clinics that will employ people--it doesn't make sense. It's an oxymoron to suggest that you're going to have a finite loss of 800,000 but you're not going to be able to increase.

Let me add, I'm on Judiciary, and this is what we're here for. I've already cited to that I'd like the Competition Subcommittee to be addressing the questions of whether mergers are still good for America and the working people; whether or not our intellectual property that is being hacked and stolen is diminishing the ability for American workers to work; whether or not even entertaining selling Wall Street is a rational approach to take.

And then let me get on a more controversial subject. Someone would make the argument now this couldn't be a job creator, but we have been frustrated by the immigration system for now the lifetime of my tenure in Congress. We have had the pros and cons, or we have been mad at the 1996 reform and the 1980s reform. Some of us have continued to press one refrain: That we must do security, border security, and also a comprehensive approach to immigration. Some would argue that that absolutely cannot create jobs, but I will tell you, why are we not fully addressing the broken immigration system in this Nation? If we pull at the heartstrings of many Members of Congress, who will proudly speak of their German heritage, their Irish heritage, their Hispanic, Latino heritage, African American heritage, Asian heritage, heritage from all around the world, they will point to the fact that they came from somewhere.

We understand that if we can regularize this broken immigration system, not only do we have individuals legitimately investing in America through Social Security and taxes, but immigrants, new immigrants also create jobs for others, and it builds an economy. The agricultural economy, for example, that is playing hide and seek with workers who they have to hire--hide and seek, because they don't have a regularized system. Our agricultural industry, one of the greatest in the world, in fact the greatest--we can feed the world. I applaud our family farmers and the industry that has grown. I've always admired being able to do something with the land.

We could be addressing an immigration reform system that puts people to work, that allows the agricultural industry to grow and thrive and build jobs. In fact, I was listening to a colleague from the other side of the aisle who indicated he had come out of the agricultural industry, has a farm or land that is doing agricultural work, and he said that we have not been hampered by the economy; we are thriving, we could grow. So if we put an immigration system in place, the work of the Judiciary Committee, we create jobs. Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?

So I ask my colleagues, as my ranking member has said, to thoughtfully think of this particular resolution, the REINS Act. It is truly that. I would add that it will strangle with the reins the work of this body and the work of the Judiciary Committee, and it will not create any jobs. We will be stifled, dead in our tracks, working with one regulation after another.

What I'd like to say: If you have got a bad regulation, send it to the Judiciary Committee. We can handle it, but I don't want to see corporations getting away with criminal activity, which we could address in the Subcommittee on Crime. I don't want to see us getting away with food safety problems because we're not addressing it.

Madam Speaker, let me just say, this is a lot of great intentions, and I have a great respect for my colleagues. This institution is one that I love, but I frankly believe we can do better in this House, and the President of the United States and the administration don't deserve this. What we do deserve is a hard fight to reduce the deficit and to build on jobs and to serve the people back home who are struggling with their own problems and need this government to respond to the needs of education, health care and science, and many other issues.

I thank the ranking member, and I thank the chairman as well.

The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) and I have worked together on the immigration issue. And I would beg to differ. It is well documented that regularized individuals in certain industries would, in fact, create jobs and create investment into this country as well. But as you have one person working, that person generates the opportunity for another. In construction jobs, for example, when you are involved in construction and have the right trained person, it creates expanded jobs.

But I also want to make mention that as it may have been cited, the 600 jobs lost because, allegedly, of a CBO report, I know that 500 jobs have been lost because of a merger between two major giants in the aviation industry. And, frankly, I am hopeful that we could focus on whether that is one of the diminishing aspects of mergers, that individuals do lose jobs.

But I will also say to you that we have documentation here that 1.1 million private sector jobs have been created since the enactment of health care reform. I mentioned 3 million jobs in my statement; 1.1 million private sector jobs have already been created; 207,000 jobs in the health care industry have been created since the enactment of the health care reform.

Under the past administration, President Bush, 673,000 private sector jobs were lost, and this was the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The claim that the health care reform law would cost 800,000 jobs, or has, is misconstrued because last year's debate showed that the health care bill will save taxpayers billions of dollars and give consumers more better access to health care. In fact, private sector job growth has been strong since the enactment of health care. Again, 1.1 million jobs have been created.

So we will have a constant debate about numbers, but I think there is a vigorous debate on how these jobs could be lost. The real issue is, this is the Judiciary Committee, to protect the rights of the American people. And I have cited, and the ranking member has cited, and Mr. Cohen has cited ways that we can be constructive to create jobs in America, to protect the consumer, and to ensure that competition is fair and healthy. And I would, Madam Speaker, simply ask my colleagues to engage in that kind of work as opposed to work that will take up the time of this body and delay us from doing the people's work and providing justice for all.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, as the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I rise in support of H. Res. 72. In fact, Madam Speaker, all of the ranking members of the committees that are debating H. Res. 72 have also joined me in expressing their support for this resolution. I believe that we should take every opportunity to thoughtfully and comprehensively reform regulations to ensure that they protect the health and welfare of the American people while not unduly impeding job creation.

Obviously, however, this resolution is unnecessary. Our committee already convened a hearing on this exact topic just yesterday. We also adopted an oversight plan that specifically addresses the topic. So spending 10 hours debating this noncontroversial resolution does not seem to be the best use of Members' time.

Importantly, any meaningful discussion of regulatory reform must be based on a comprehensive examination that considers the costs and benefits of regulations, that develops conclusions based on solid data, and that seeks input from a wide variety of sources.

President Obama launched such an examination when he issued an executive order last month requiring agencies to examine the costs and the benefits of regulations to the overall economy, to small businesses, and to American workers and families. Several of the witnesses who appeared before the committee yesterday testified that the President's initiative is an important first step. By the way, these were the witnesses that were called by the majority. I look forward to receiving the results of the President's review. I hope that our committee will also undertake a balanced and thoughtful evaluation of regulations.

And now, instead of wasting 2 days debating a resolution we all agree with, we should use our valuable floor time to consider legislation that will actually create jobs. With our national unemployment rate at 9 percent, and even higher among minority communities--and as I told my committee yesterday, there are areas in my district where the unemployment rate probably approaches anywhere from 20 to 35 to 40 percent--we should be focusing on concrete proposals to get our economy moving. That's what America wants, that's what America sent us here for, and that's what we should be about the business of doing.

In his State of the Union message, the President proposed an initiative to create jobs and encourage economic growth through the modernization of our Nation's infrastructure. And on January 26, the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tomas Donohue, and the President of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, issued a rare joint statement applauding this proposal. Here is what they said:

``Whether it is building roads, bridges, high-speed broadband, energy systems and schools, these projects not only create jobs and demand for businesses, they are an investment in building the modern infrastructure our country needs to compete in a global economy.''

Similarly, in a study released by the National Transportation Policy Project in January 2011, Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Martin Wachs concluded after extensive analysis, quote, wise and well-targeted expenditures on transportation infrastructure can generate lasting productivity gains, while also providing a more immediate stimulus to accelerate the Nation's ongoing recovery from a devastating recession.

These are exactly the kinds of bipartisan efforts our committee and the Congress should be supporting. For this reason, I wrote yesterday to the chairman of the committee, Congressman Issa, asking that we schedule a hearing on these issues, these job-creating issues. I asked that we invite the Chamber, the AFL-CIO, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. I hope we will follow through on that idea. I think it would be a lot more productive than the debate we are having here today on this noncontroversial issue.

Importantly, as we consider such investments, we must also ensure that programs are in place to support small and minority-owned businesses that are so critical to the success of our economy. According to a report published in September 2010 by the Joint Economic Committee, three out of every four workers in the United States are hired by a firm with fewer than 250 employees.

These small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy, have struggled over the past 2 years with a lack of access to capital. And minority-owned businesses are particularly limited by their access to bonding. I would ask that the majority join us in trying to find ways to make sure that these businesses have an opportunity to be bonded. This is an issue that I started working on 30 years ago, and we see roadblock after roadblock with regard to bonding for small and minority businesses and women-owned businesses. We see it over and over and over again. That's what we need to be dealing with. Those are the kind of things.

And another thing that we find is that if you were to go into my district and bring together small businesses of all kinds, they would tell you that the thing that's stopping them from hiring people is things like access to capital. Many of them have had their lines of credit taken away. That's very significant. Anybody who has run a small business knows that a line of credit is essential and is extremely important for those small businesses to survive. And so, if we want to talk about trying to create jobs, which we should be, then I would hope that we would address that issue today.

And so with regard to bonding, I am introducing legislation that would expand the Department of Transportation's ability to assist disadvantaged business enterprises working in the transportation industry in obtaining bid, payment, and performance bonds. This legislation would also create a program through which up to five States could receive Federal funding to implement their own bonding assistance programs.

If the Republican leadership is serious, and I mean if they are really serious about creating jobs and making investment in our Nation's future, they should schedule time on the floor to consider legislation like this, rather than squandering days on pointless debates guaranteed to create zero jobs.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to clear up something that the chairman of the committee just said that is not completely accurate. Yesterday, in our committee hearing, we had Dr. Shapiro to testify. And the thing that he said was that when regulations are created, they are created in favor of protecting the health, welfare, and safety of American people. And basically, what he was saying is that we want to make sure that while you look at the cost-benefit analysis, you've got to understand that sometimes it's kind of hard to quantify the benefit of not seeing a baby strangled in a crib, the benefit of making sure that people have clean water, the benefit of making sure that when we eat food that that food is healthy and that it's not poison, the benefit of seeing that if we eat a piece of fish that it's not filled with pfiesteria. Those are the kinds of things that he was talking about. And so he wasn't saying that we should not look at it. What basically he was saying is that you've got to understand that when we came to this Congress and we put our hands up and we swore, we swore that we would protect Americans. And that's what this is all about.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Reclaiming my time, as I said before, again, he was saying that regulations are put into effect to protect Americans. And I want to make it clear that we, on this side of the aisle, we have absolutely no problem with making sure that we look at regulations. If they are outdated, if they are overburdensome to the degree that there's no balance there, if they don't make sense, then we want to see those regulations go. But at the same time, what we're also saying is that it has to be a comprehensive examination. And I would think that the chairman of the committee would agree with me on that; that whatever we look at, because we want whatever comes out of this Congress to be credible and to be based on integrity, and we want the American people to buy into it, and hopefully this Congress to buy into it, that it would be a comprehensive view, that we'd look at the total picture, not just the cost, not just the benefit, but looking at it all.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, it gives me great honor to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland, the whip, Mr. Steny Hoyer.

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

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

I would just say one thing to the gentleman who just spoke, which is that we agree with the gentleman from Maryland. We want a comprehensive look at these regulations.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, as I said a little bit earlier, this is not controversial. We're on the same page and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) said it quite appropriately: We believe in effective and efficient government. There's nothing more important. When government performs effectively and efficiently, we all benefit.

I think the President was right when he issued Executive order number 13563, when he said that we want to look at outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome regulations to modify and streamline our rules. That's what we're all about, but I want to make sure that we do have that balance on both sides because of the fact that the American people are depending on us to be their line of defense.

As Mr. Stanley ``Goose'' Stewart said--he's a fellow who was part of the Sago Mine incident in West Virginia--and I'll close with these words. He said this to our legislators in a letter. He said, You were elected to represent the American people, but more importantly, you are Americans, and at the very base of it all you are human beings. The safety of our American people should mean more to you than extra profits for big corporations. It seems wrong to justify the filling of corporate bank accounts with the blood of American workers and the tears of their families.

With that, Madam Speaker, I urge all Members to vote for the resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am curious about the reference and surprised that my friend, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, would come to the floor in this discussion and lift up the REINS Act as a way that we may prevent the regulations for inhibiting jobs.

Dear friends, under the REINS Act we would be violating the separation of powers doctrine that I am sure that Members of the Judiciary Committee, particularly my friend the chairman and ranking member for many years, would be familiar with.

The REINS Act, which we have under consideration in our committee, would be the last thing we would want to enact in this Congress to create more jobs--the last thing. I am surprised that the separations of powers doctrine is now required for me to explain on the House floor, about a 1988 case entitled Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, that the REINS Act would be constitutionally infirm and that the REINS Act would be a terrible thing for us to do if you are serious about jobs.

Supporters of the REINS Act argue that Congress, and the chairman has said this, that Congress has delegated too much authority over the years to what they call ``unelected bureaucrats'' in the executive branch--of course, they are appointed--creating thereby a lack of accountability among Federal agencies and resulting in burdensome regulations.

The REINS Act does not address even the problem that they are arguing about. Some might argue that there is a need to strike a balance between protecting the safety and health of all Americans and fostering economic growth and job creation. But the President of the United States has already anticipated this need with his issuance just days ago of the executive order improving regulation and regulatory review. I intend to put this in the Record at the appropriate time. This directs agencies to consider these concerns in promulgating rules.

But the bill that the chairman of the committee refers to would not achieve this balance. Rather, it will distort the rulemaking process and will hamper implementation of every single law on the books by changing the presumption in the Congressional Review Act and requiring affirmative congressional approval for all major rules. This act will serve as a chokehold and stifle regulatory review, which may in fact be the real intent of REINS legislation.

So I must respectfully hope that all of the Members of this House will carefully review the REINS Act, which will be coming up for a vote in the committee. We have had the hearings. I would like you to all weigh in on this, because nothing could be more seriously destructive to trying to create jobs than doing what is proposed in that bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased now to yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Courts and Administration.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In the time allotted to the Judiciary Committee, Judge Poe, if he is still here, has raised two specific grievances about overregulation diminishing job opportunity. One was on the 1099 form, which I am going to examine more carefully; and the other was about the fact that the Health Care Reform Act frequently, derogatorily, is referred to as the ObamaCare Act, but which I call the ObamaCare Act because I think it's going to go down in history as a major accomplishment of the President's within the first 2 years of his office.

He said it would cost 800,000 jobs. I would like to ask him or anyone in the House for any evidence that there is an 800,000 jobs expense. The health care bill that both sides refer to as ObamaCare now creates jobs because we're adding many more people to the health care system, which, ladies and gentlemen, is going to require more doctors, more nurses, more clinics, more hospitals.

How on Earth can we expand the provisions of health care, which incidentally should apply to every American in this country, and then say that it's going to reduce the number of jobs?

I think that logic defies explanation, but I would yield to anybody who would like to explain it to me.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Reclaiming my time, I frequently cite them as a credible source myself; but would the chairman of the committee explain how we insure millions more people and then have fewer and fewer jobs?

Did the CBO explain anything about this job loss and about how the health care system would be considerably expanded but would at the same time lose jobs and would do it with fewer people? Would the chairman of the committee assist me in understanding that apparent disconnect?

I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I am now pleased to yield such time as she may consume to the distinguished gentlelady from Houston, Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee, a senior member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield such time as she may consume to the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I thank the gentleman from Texas, Chairman Smith. I appreciate that very much.

I wanted to suggest that the gentleman from Texas, Judge Poe, a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee, raised the criticism about the new 1099 rule being a job-killer. And apparently, he and the President are in agreement on the rule expanding reporting requirements to include transactions of $600 or more. President Obama has stated that he is open to reconsidering these rules in light of the burden that it brings on small business. So I would like to suggest that there is at least one point of accord. There may be others between the members of the Judiciary Committee in the consideration of the matter before us.

Now I return to the assertion that the health care bill, proudly referred to by some on this side of the aisle as ObamaCare, that this bill will cost 800,000 jobs. And I would like to suggest that this misleading figure has been floating around since last summer. This is why The Hill article on the CBO today said, ``GOP jumps on old job numbers.'' What CBO said last summer was that if health insurance is affordable, a person who is working a bad job just to keep health care might be able to leave the job.

Surely we wouldn't want a person who is suffering from a preexisting disability, who would be covered under this expanded health care law, to keep on working when the only reason he was working in the first place was to get the health care that was otherwise, until now, unavailable.

If people can get health insurance despite preexisting conditions, then such folks might be able to leave their work. I'm sure that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wouldn't have any objection to that. Yes, it might reduce the number of people working, but it would save lives. That's what health care is about. A person who is not eligible for Medicare because he or she was under 65 might choose to retire and get private insurance instead of staying on the job until Medicare becomes available. Others who needed to work a second job just to afford health care may not now need to do it because we have made health care more affordable.

For goodness sake, I can't imagine that anybody under the example that I have used would be opposed to a person leaving a job under that circumstance. That does not mean that that is costing jobs in America. It's saving lives.

[From the Healthwatch--The Hill's Healthcare Blog, Feb. 10, 2011]

GOP Jumps on Old CBO Job Numbers

(By Jason Millman)

Eager to exploit an opening to attack the healthcare reform

law, Republicans on Thursday touted testimony by Congress'

budget scorekeeper that the law would result in 800,000 fewer

people working.

Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf first

made the projection last summer, but it didn't stop

Republicans from circulating his Thursday comments during a

House Budget Committee hearing as fresh proof that the reform

law ``destroys'' jobs.

``The Verdict Is In: CBO Confirms New Health Care Law Will

Cost Jobs,'' was the title of a Senate Republican Conference

press release.

``CBO: ObamaCare Will Destroy 800,000 Jobs,'' was the

headline from the National Republican Congressional

Committee.

However, the CBO prediction is a little more nuanced. Last

summer's CBO report said the projected labor reduction is

``largely'' the result of more people voluntarily staying out

of the workforce because the healthcare reform law gives them

better healthcare options through an expansion of Medicaid

and new state-run health insurance exchanges.

From the report:

``The expansion of Medicaid and the availability of

subsidies through the exchanges will effectively increase

beneficiaries' financial resources. Those additional

resources will encourage some people to work fewer hours or

to withdraw from the labor market.''

Further, a ban on discriminating against preexisting

conditions will likely ``increase the appeal'' of health

insurance plans offered outside the workplace for older

workers.

``As a result,'' CBO said, ``some older workers will choose

to retire earlier than they otherwise would.''

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the ranking member on the

Budget Committee asked Elmendorf to explain the report on

Thursday.

``One of the impacts you said was that there will be some

individuals who, because they can get their health care

through the exchange . . . would now have the freedom to

choose to not get a job simply because they needed the health

care,'' Van Hollen said, according to a transcript from CQ.

``Isn't that correct?''

``Yes, that's right,'' Elmendorf replied.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.