Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2401) to require analyses of the cumulative and incremental impacts of certain rules and actions of the Environmental Protection Agency, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 409 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my very good friend, my Rules Committee colleague, the gentleman from Worcester, Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I might consume. During consideration of the resolution, all time that is yielded is yielded for debate purposes only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the matter that is before us.

Madam Speaker, we are dealing with extraordinarily challenging times.

The American people have been sending a message to us which is powerful and overwhelming, and it's one that I believe that both Democrats and Republicans have heard, and that is: We need to get our economy back on track. We need to make sure that we have a climate that will create jobs so that people--many of whom I represent, sadly, and I know the Speaker faces the same thing in the Show Me State of Missouri, and my friend in his State of Massachusetts faces this. We have friends and neighbors who have lost their jobs, who have lost their homes, who have lost their businesses, and the message that has come to us overwhelmingly is that we must put into place policies that will encourage job creation and economic growth.

We obviously have a very troubled global economy. The developments that have taken place in Europe have played a big role in leading to today's huge drop in the stock market. I haven't looked at it in the last few minutes, but earlier today it was down over 400 points, and I know we have obviously difficult decisions that lie ahead for many.

We, as an institution, the United States Congress, have a responsibility to address the fiscal needs and challenges that are before us. One of those challenges and one of the factors that has played a role in the economic downturn, I believe very strongly, has been the $14\1/2\ trillion national debt that looms before us.

Again, as you know very well, Madam Speaker, in a bipartisan way, Democrats and Republicans alike decry the $14\1/2\ trillion national debt that we have and the fact that we have deficits going as far as the eye can see.

Now, we know that last July, just before we adjourned for the month of August, we had to deal with the question of whether or not we were going to increase the debt ceiling. We tackled that issue, and we ended up coming to a bipartisan consensus. We all knew that it was necessary for us to increase the debt ceiling because there was a responsibility to pay the bills that have been accumulated in the past.

From this side of the aisle, we complained and fought against the 82 percent increase in non-defense discretionary spending that we've seen over the past 4 years, but with that money having been spent, we recognized that the bills had to be paid.

That led us, Madam Speaker, to come to a bipartisan consensus that we would, in fact, increase the debt ceiling; but we had to tackle, in a bipartisan way, the deficit and debt issues that are looming before us.

So we put into place a joint select committee which, as we all know, is going to be charged with, by November 23, completing its work and, by December 23, having a vote in the House and the Senate. And if they're not successful, we will deal with sequestration, which will be across-the-board spending cuts that I don't think anyone wants to see happen because we want to be in a position where we make those decisions for $1\1/2\ trillion. And as many have said, that group of Senators the other day said a $4 trillion--excuse me--$4 billion. What is the number? I was right, $4 trillion. Excuse me. You know the proverbial Everett Dirksen line: A billion here, a billion there; before long, you're talking about real money. And that was five decades ago that he said that, and we are where we are now.

So the plan, as proposed by some, Madam Speaker, would take us to as much as $4 trillion in spending cuts, and I hope we can do that in a bipartisan way.

Now we are in a position where we--as I said yesterday during the debate on the rule on this issue, last year, for the first time since the 1974 Budget Act was put into place, we didn't have a budget that was proposed to us.

Hey, I'm not in the business of pointing the finger of blame. I'm just in the business of looking at the facts of where we are. So we know what has been inherited. We know, as we hear these very strong statements being made, that we've gone through a difficult 9 months. We had to deal with the continuing resolution to simply clean up the mess. The Acting Speaker is a member of the Appropriations Committee, and she knows very well the challenges that we had with those appropriations bills having to be done last year. That Appropriations Committee on which the Acting Speaker sits has to deal with this issue, and had to deal with it earlier this year. Today, Madam Speaker, we are in a similar position.

We, right now, know that the fiscal year comes to an end next week. We have some very important priorities that need to be addressed, and the one that everyone is talking about is the fact that we have seen disaster after disaster hit this Nation. We are determined to ensure that those who have suffered most over the past several weeks and months from disasters--flooding--and I remember seeing my colleague from Vermont (Mr. Welch) yesterday. He sent out photographs of the devastation of the flooding that has taken place in Vermont. In Pennsylvania, we just had a Republican Conference at which one of our new colleagues, Mr. Marino, was up, talking about the fact that he has been walking through mud, talking to families--to parents who have their children literally sitting on automobiles because they can't get into their homes--and asking what it is that they're going to do.

We have our fellow Americans who are suffering, and we want to ensure that the dollars necessary for the Federal Emergency Management Agency are there. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee reported to us that we're seeing about $30 million a day being expended through the FEMA funding, and there's about $200 million left. So we are faced with the prospect of expiration--the expiration of all of the resources that FEMA needs--by this weekend, Madam Speaker. That's the reason that we are back here today.

We all know what happened yesterday. The Democratic majority and some Republicans chose to vote ``no'' on the continuing resolution, which would simply take us from now to November 18--a very short period of time, just a matter of a month and a half--so that during that time we can, as Speaker Boehner has said, deal with the overall appropriations process and establish the priorities. So we are here today, having had a meeting in the Rules Committee last night, calling for same-day consideration so that, quite possibly, with some modifications, we can bring up that bill which had enjoyed bipartisan support.

It is no secret, I'm sure the Democrats will acknowledge, that the minority whip, Mr. Hoyer, and the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Dicks from Seattle, both had indicated earlier support. They acknowledge it. They're on the record as having done that. They said that they had changed their minds, and I respect that. Members have a right to change their minds. We all have a right to change our minds. But that decision was made, and we went to the vote and the votes were not there.

Madam Speaker, I think there is clearly a bipartisan understanding that ensuring that resources get to our fellow Americans who are suffering due to these disasters that have hit--hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding--is a priority that we all share. Personally, I'd like to see the Federal Government get out of being the place of first resort for the American people to look to when there is a time of disaster.

In fact, the Acting Speaker's late husband, with whom I was elected in 1980, led an effort, going back decades, when he served here, that was working on proposals for us to address the disaster relief issue, which was a very, very challenging one. He explored and came up with some great proposals for how we could deal with disasters beyond having the Federal Government be the place of first resort for the American people when they are faced with the aftermath of a disaster.

But, Madam Speaker, those changes that were proposed by my late colleague Bill Emerson were not made in order, were not addressed, were not implemented, and so we are where we are; and while I'd love to see those changes down the road, today we need to address the very pressing needs that our fellow Americans have for some kind of resolution to this issue.

We have this same-day rule so that we can today pass with what I hope will be strong bipartisan support a continuing resolution that will simply carry us from now to November 18, during which time we will see, Madam Speaker, you and the other members of the Appropriations Committee work to come up with some kind of resolution to this issue.

I am going to urge my colleagues to support this measure in the name of bipartisanship, in the name of our effort to try and resolve this pressing issue.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to my friend that it's very unfortunate. In my opening remarks, I made the best attempt that I could to be as bipartisan as possible. Democrats and Republicans alike recognize that we've had the most open House, the most transparent process, and that more amendments have been made in order.

I am very proud that the Rules Committee has repeatedly made McGovern amendments in order that have been proposed to the Rules Committee. In the measure that we have addressing the regulation issue, we made every single amendment that complied with the rules of the House in order--an amendment offered by my friend Mr. Hastings.

So, to talk about these sorts of crocodile tears, Madam Speaker, the House has gotten to a new low. We need to make sure that the American people who are suffering and in need have the resources that are necessary.

The measure that is before us has a higher level of funding for those who are in need than the President has proposed to ensure that we immediately get those dollars to the people who are suffering, and there are people all over this country who have been suffering through these disasters, and it needs to be done.

Madam Speaker, I will say that we are what we are. The legislative process is not always a pretty one, but I began by talking about our priority of job creation and economic growth; limiting the size and scope and reach of the Federal Government; trying to decrease the regulatory burden, which our TRAIN Act--which we just debated the rule on a little while ago--is designed to address these sorts of steps, designed to make sure that more Americans will have opportunities to be members of the workforce, to be able to support their families and so that people won't see their small businesses lost because of the economic downturn. Those are the priorities that we have, and getting our fiscal house in order while meeting our priorities which, in this day and age, disaster assistance is one of, are what we've got to do.

So I am proud to work closely with my Democratic colleagues. I am proud of the fact that they have been supportive, Madam Speaker, of a number of the measures that we have had before us; and I am proud that we have been able to take many of their ideas, Madam Speaker, and allow them to be considered on the House floor so that we've been able to have a free-flowing debate.

That's what the American people want. I believe that since every Member of this House represents just about the same number of people, about 600,000. Under the new census, it will be, I think, 704,000 constituents, that they have a right to be heard, they have a right to have their ideas considered.

That hasn't always been the case under Republicans or Democrats in the past, but today it is. We're doing our doggone-est to make sure that more Members have their ideas considered.

I am very proud of that fact, and I will say that I regularly have Democrats come to me and say they are very appreciative of the fact that we have been able to allow their ideas to be considered on the House floor.

I am proud of the strides that we have been making under Speaker Boehner. We have a long way to go, but this is all inside baseball stuff. As you know very well, Madam Speaker, the priority is job creation and economic growth to ensure that our fellow Americans have the kinds of opportunities that they need.

Let us proceed. This is a procedure that I don't particularly like, but in light of the fact that there had been a bipartisan agreement yesterday that did not work out--that's about the nicest way that I can put it, it didn't work out--and so we had no choice other than to allow for a rule that would provide for same-day consideration simply of this measure to ensure that we don't go through a government shutdown.

I mean, we wouldn't be doing a same-day rule, Madam Speaker, if we weren't faced with, frankly, the threat--and I'm not going to point the finger of blame, but I will say it hasn't been Republicans who have been talking about the idea of a government shutdown. It's something that has come from some others and some on the other side of the Capitol who have talked about the prospect of that. We want to avoid it. We want to ensure it doesn't happen.

And so we're going to have an opportunity, Madam Speaker, to have a measure before us that will address the very important priorities of disaster assistance and other areas which doesn't cut as much as I would like. I would have loved to have voted ``no'' yesterday, Madam Speaker, because I believe that the spending level is higher than it should be.

The Republicans do, in fact, have a majority in the House of Representatives, but our Democratic colleagues have a majority in the United States Senate. We know that President Obama is a Democrat. In light of that, we have to come to some kind of a bipartisan consensus. So we're turning ourselves inside out to make that happen, and we have done it time and time again; and this is another example of it.

I hope that we will be able to move ahead and as expeditiously as possible provide the assurance that our fellow Americans need.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

First of all, let me express my apologies; 99.999 percent of the time I am always riveted to the words of my friend from Worcester when he is offering his thoughts. I have to admit I was talking to our distinguished Rules Committee colleague, Mr. Webster, over here.

First of all, let me thank the gentleman and say that he is right on mark in raising that question. It's not only a fair question; it's an appropriate question to ask of me.

The answer is we will have a meeting in the House Rules Committee right upstairs on the third floor, at which time we will have before us a proposal that I can tell you will be very similar to the measure that was considered yesterday. As you know, there was $1.043 trillion in that proposal.

It's my hope that we'll be able to do this today. That's the reason, as my friend knows, we were going to pass this measure yesterday and it didn't work out. I mean, that's part of the legislative process.

I thank my friend for yielding.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Madam Speaker, what I would say is that I hope the Rules Committee will be able to meet in the not-too-distant future. It's now about 2\1/ 2\ minutes before 4 o'clock. I can't say how quickly we'll be able to meet.

We certainly, as is always the case, will give the minority ample notice for them to have a chance to look at whatever modifications are made to the continuing resolution that will be before us.

Excuse me?

I have no idea what the gentleman is talking about. What is 72 hours? What is that?

Well, there was never any such pledge made. If the gentleman looks at the rules of the House, he knows very well that there's nothing in there that states 72 hours.

That is true. As the gentleman knows very well, we're in a position right now where we're dealing with an emergency situation; the American people are hurting. We had the measure before us with a full 3 days. It was put online on Monday, and so we had the 3 full days. And it is true, we're looking at what would be possibly an amendment to that measure, and so we will be in compliance.

First of all, again, let me say, Madam Speaker, that there was not any 72 hours in the rules of the House, if the gentleman would look at the rules of the House. It is a 3-day layover requirement, and I believe that we will be in full compliance with the 3-day layover.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Let me just say that obviously we had a bipartisan agreement that was voted on yesterday that did not enjoy bipartisan support. I say that based on

the fact that we had agreements made in colloquies that took place----

Let me specifically say that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, indicated before the gentleman and the other Rules Committee members and me that he would be supportive of the measure; and he had a right to change his mind.

And, second, in the colloquy that took place last week between the distinguished minority whip and the majority leader, the minority whip indicated that he was supportive of the continuing resolution.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Madam Speaker, let me say that, first, to address the issue that was raised earlier, there was confusion. I don't know what the gentleman meant about 72 hours. There is a 3-day layover requirement. We will not, and let me underscore again, Madam Speaker, we will not be waiving the 3-day layover requirement; okay? So, I just think it's important for us to make that point. The gentleman repeatedly raises 72 hours and we're not in compliance with this and that, when, in fact, Madam Speaker, we will not be waiving. It's a 3-day layover requirement that exists, and we will not be waiving that.

Second, as far as what time, I believe that, within the next few hours, we'll be able to meet in the Rules Committee and come to the House floor. There are no guarantees. There are no guarantees, but I believe there is a very good chance that we will be able to, in the next few hours, meet in the Rules Committee and the gentleman and I will come to the floor with a rule that will allow us to make in order the continuing resolution to ensure that our fellow Americans who are suffering will have the resources they need.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

Let me say, at this juncture, I cannot tell my friend exactly what this measure is going to consist of, but we're in a position right now where that will be considered by the Committee on Rules when we meet upstairs. So we'll be meeting upstairs and we'll see whether that might be an amendment.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me say, Madam Speaker, to my very good friend that jobs and job creation are exactly what virtually every piece of legislation that we've been addressing in this House has been designed to deal with. Now, my friends on the other side of the aisle believe that the nearly $1 trillion--it was like $787 billion, I think, and then if you add the interest, it came up to like $1.1 trillion. That stimulus bill was their jobs bill. As I recall, we were told, if we saw that $1 trillion stimulus bill implemented, that the unemployment rate would not exceed 8 percent.

Well, Madam Speaker, in part of the area that I represent, we have an unemployment rate of 14 percent. We have a national unemployment rate of over 9 percent, and it's not acceptable. So I totally concur with my friend's assessment, and I congratulate him. I congratulate him for his opening statement there when he said the best way for us to deal with the deficit is to make sure that people in this country have jobs.

Economic growth is what we've been talking about. I believe if we had 2, 3, 4 percent more GDP growth in this country, we wouldn't be here having this discussion. The question is: How is it that we get our fellow Americans back to work?

We believe that it's essential to create long-term, good jobs in the private sector. We believe in doing things like opening up new markets around the world, because 96 percent of the world's consumers are outside of our borders. Ninety-six percent of the world's consumers are outside of our borders. And yet, unfortunately, we have not been able to have, yet, the agreements that have been negotiated over the past several years sent to us in the Congress to vote on. Clearly, if we had the agreements that have been negotiated between the Koreans and the United States, the Colombians and the United States, the Panamanians and the United States, we would create many, many jobs here in the United States.

Yesterday, Madam Speaker, I met with the Ambassador from Colombia. On August 15, they implemented an agreement with Canada for a free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia. And guess what? There has been an 18.9 percent increase in wheat exports from Canada to Colombia in 1 single month.

Now, Madam Speaker, I have said this time and time again here. We have union and nonunion workers who are employed by companies, great American companies that are manufacturing companies like Caterpillar, John Deere, and Whirlpool, and we could get these people working, we could get these people working if we could open up new markets for those manufactured products in Latin America and in Asia. That's exactly what we've got ahead of us. And I hope very much that the President will immediately send to us those agreements so that we can enjoy, again, bipartisan support, Democrats and Republicans working together to pass these agreements.

If we do that, we will do exactly what my friend just said, Madam Speaker, we will do exactly what my friend just said in his opening statement there. What he said was we need to get Americans into jobs so that we can have the revenues that are necessary for us to deal with the deficit and debt challenges that we have.

I'm happy to yield to my friend.

If I could reclaim my time, Madam Speaker, let me just say that I hope very much we are able to see offsets for this because, again, we have a $14.5 trillion national debt. We have deficits as far as the eye can see. So, as we deal with the very important priorities of ensuring that our fellow Americans who are suffering because of these tragic disasters that have taken place across the country--we need to realize that there is a hell of a lot of waste in the Federal Government, a hell of a lot of waste, and there are regulations.

Again, the measure that I just mentioned, my friends said that we haven't had jobs bills before us, but the measure that Mr. Hastings was just managing the rule on is designed to deal with the burden of regulations which have undermined the potential for job creation and economic growth.

Again, pursuing an economic growth agenda is a priority of ours, and making sure that we get our fiscal house in order is one of those. So that is why I will say to my friend in response to his question, you bet we are going to try and find areas where the Federal Government has been expending dollars that have not been spent wisely and use those dollars to ensure that those who are suffering and those who are in need have what is necessary for them to survive.

Madam Speaker, if I could reclaim my time, let me say to my friend we are not going to waive the 3-day layover requirement, and whatever changes are made in this

measure will be addressed in the House Rules Committee and then fully debated on this House floor so the Members will have an opportunity to decide whether or not they are going to support the special rule that would then make in order consideration of this continuing resolution that will prevent a government shutdown, make sure that the resources for those who are suffering are made available, and take us to November 18 so that very thoughtful members of the Appropriations Committee, like the acting Speaker, will be able to deal with the appropriations priorities that we need to between now and November 18.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, first, may I inquire of the Chair how much time is remaining on each side?

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to my friend from Fort Lauderdale, my Rules Committee colleague, Mr. Hastings, that I'd like to associate myself with a segment of the remarks that he made talking about the priority of addressing the very pressing needs of those who are suffering because of the disasters that have taken place in this country. My friend is absolutely right, and that's the reason that we are here.

Now, I would like to say that I don't know where it is that my friends get this 72 hours that's discussed regularly. Mr. McGovern has raised that, Mr. Hastings has raised it, Madam Speaker, and I don't know where they get that. We have what is known as the 3-day layover requirement. And let me clarify this because obviously some of my colleagues don't completely understand. I'm talking about the rules of the House, not statements that may have been made. The rules of the House say that there is a 3-day layover requirement.

On Monday, Madam Speaker, this measure was put online; the bill that we voted on yesterday was put online. It calls for $1.043 trillion in spending on an annual basis as we address keeping the government going, ensuring we don't have a government shutdown between now and November 18. That was put online on Monday.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Are you telling me I can't associate myself with your remarks?

If I could reclaim my time, I will tell my friend that the rules of the House are what we are complying with. The rules of the House say a 3-day layover requirement. On Monday, this was made available and put online. And now my friend says, I want to see it now, I want to see exactly what we're considering.

The reason that we will not be waiving the 3-day layover requirement is that we are going to have a bill that is very similar to the measure that we had last night, with possibly an amendment made to that.

I am happy to further yield to my friend.

If I could reclaim my time, Madam Speaker, I will tell you that I don't know what he means by the ``Speaker's word.'' The rules of the House are what we live by.

The rules of the House say that it needs to be made available online for 3 days. And guess what, Madam Speaker? We are in full compliance with the rules of the House, and we have no intention to waive that.

Okay. I'm looking now at a statement that was made on some program on Fox that says: ``I will not bring a bill to the floor that hasn't been posted online for at least 72 hours.'' Let me say thank you. I want to express my great appreciation. And I appreciate the size of the type, too, making it very easy for me to read it across the aisle here, another indication of our bridging the gap between either side of the aisle here, which is something I greatly appreciate.

It did turn out that the Speaker did say that, but then we came forward with a rules package; and that's why what I'm saying is the rules say that we will in fact have 3 days. A 3-day layover requirement needs to be met, and that's what the rules of the House consist of.

If I could reclaim my time for just one moment--and the reason I'm doing that is that I'm told that we have about 1 minute or so left, and I know my friend has 10 minutes. So could my friend yield to the gentleman and me? I know we're going to get the great poster with the Speaker's quote up there again, and I will look forward to reading it again, and I will join in reading it again with you all.

Let me just very quickly say that it was explained to us by the chairman of the Appropriations Committee today that we're spending about $30 million a day. There's $200 million in the account; it's scheduled to expire by this weekend. Passage of this measure tonight is something that will ensure that we will at least have those resources, and I hope we can address the needs of those Floridians who continue to suffer.

And others in this country.

I thank my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to my friend that I'm going to close the debate over here as soon as my friend holds up that brilliant poster of the Fox News interview that Speaker Boehner had.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are hurting and have been suffering from disasters over the past several weeks and months and, obviously, for a long period of time in the past.

We just had a meeting downstairs where one of my new colleagues, the gentleman from Williamsport, Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino) stood up and talked about the fact that he, just days ago, was trudging through mud, meeting with the parents of small children, young children who were literally sitting on the hoods of automobiles in Pennsylvania where terrible flooding has taken place, and they have been asking him, since they had lost their homes, what he was going to do. And Mr. Marino made it very clear that he would do everything possible to ensure that those families would have what they needed. And that's why we're here right now with the measure that we have before us.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this measure that will come before us later this evening is a measure that has been online more than 72 hours. It was put online on Monday. Today is Thursday, so well beyond 72 hours it's been made available.

We have actually doubled, from $500 million to $1 billion, the FY11 request that was made by the President because we understand the imperative of getting these resources to the American people who are suffering. We can do that, Mr. Speaker, while, at the same time, reining in the size and scope and reach and control of the Federal Government, because everyone knows, Democrats and Republicans alike acknowledge, that there is waste in government, and that's the reason that we're saying we must pare the level of spending back.

And so, Mr. Speaker, this is not martial law. This is simply our step to ensure that the American people get the resources they need and that we do it in a fiscally responsible way, and it stems from what was a bipartisan agreement.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I urge an ``aye'' vote on the rule.

I yield back the balance and I move the previous question on the resolution.

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

I want to thank the gentleman from California, Chairman Dreier, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

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

Here we go again, Madam Speaker. Republicans are, once again, going back on their promises for a more open, more transparent House of Representatives--another martial law rule designed to fix problems of their own doing, another effort to break the rules just to fix their own mess.

And it didn't have to be this way.

For months, we've known that more disaster assistance was needed to address the aftermath of the tragedy in Joplin and, more recently, to address the damage caused by Irene as it made its way from North Carolina up the east coast into New England. Americans respond to natural disasters. That's what we do. We always have. We rise to the occasion when our neighbors are in need. The problem is when politicians start playing politics with people's lives, and that's where we find ourselves today.

Yesterday, the Republican leadership brought a continuing resolution to the floor that not only provided less disaster assistance than that of the Senate, it also offset that funding by cutting a green jobs initiative. It's not enough that we've been in session 261 days without a single jobs proposal from the Republicans. With yesterday's continuing resolution, Republicans actually proposed cutting a jobs program just to make political points with their Tea Party base.

Yesterday, Democrats said enough--enough to the job-killing Republican agenda, enough to the notion that fiscal austerity means turning our backs on people in need, enough to the ``my way or the highway'' attitude that seems to make up the ideology of the Republican leadership.

Yesterday, 48 Republicans joined 182 Democrats in defeating the continuing resolution. According to Politico, it was ``an embarrassing setback.''

Yesterday, Republicans and Democrats said, Don't play games with the lives of Americans.

It's almost as if the Republicans blame the victims of the hurricane and tornado for having the audacity to live in the paths of those natural disasters. So here we are again, forced to consider a martial law rule in an attempt to fix the problems that the Republicans, themselves, created, a martial law rule that not only waives the rules of the House but that also allows for the immediate consideration of a new continuing resolution.

No time to read the bill, even though the Republicans started out the year by promising 72 hours to look at any legislation voted on in the House. No time to read the bill. No ability to amend the bill.

So much for the new open Congress.

It wasn't too long ago that my colleagues on the Rules Committee were touting the new open Congress. Look how far this new Republican House has fallen.

Madam Speaker, it is disappointing that we're here today. It's disappointing that the Republicans are making a mockery of the legislative process. It's disappointing that they continue to choose politics over the American people. The American people deserve better than this.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I'm a little bit confused. The gentleman referred to the legislation before us that it would provide this for the American people and that for the American people.

The legislation before us is a martial law rule which says that a bill that we have yet to see will be able to be brought up on the floor for same-day consideration. So I don't know what's in the new continuing resolution.

Maybe the gentleman can enlighten us: Do we expect a vote on the continuing resolution today? When can we see this continuing resolution? Does the gentleman have any insight that he can fill us in on and when Members might actually be able to see the bill?

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Let me reclaim my time and repeat the question.

The question is that the gentleman on a number of occasions referred to that the bill provides this for the American people and that for the American people when the bill before us is a martial law rule. We haven't seen the continuing resolution. When do we expect to see it? Are we voting on it today?

If I can reclaim my time, will that be in the next hour? Will that be today?

Reclaiming my time, the Rules Committee will consider it today, and then we would vote on it tonight? Is that the plan?

I yield to the gentleman.

Is that 1 hour or 72 hours?

Will you give me 1 hour, or 72 hours as was promised?

My understanding was that one of the pledges of the new Republican majority was that we were going to have a 72-hour layover to be able to read the bill.

If I could reclaim my time, I thought in the rules of the House it was 3 calendar days.

Reclaiming my time, if I understand the gentleman correctly, we may or may not meet soon. We may or may not vote on it today.

I'm happy to yield.

If I can reclaim my time, the gentleman mentioned our distinguished minority whip on a number of occasions. I don't recall him ever saying that he supported the Republican bill.

Reclaiming my time, I don't recall that, and I'll check with the minority whip to double-check on that.

I guess I'm just trying to provide some information to the Members of the House who are watching what's going on.

Am I correct in saying that, as of right now, we don't know when we're going to meet and we don't know when we'll see a final version of the continuing resolution?

Yes.

Reclaiming my time, if I may ask the gentleman one additional question, does he anticipate that the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program will be cut in the new version of the continuing resolution that will be brought before us?

Reclaiming my time, Madam Speaker, just for the record, I would like to have inserted a letter from Paul A. Yost, who's the vice president at the National Association of Manufacturers, and a letter from R. Bruce Josten, who is the executive vice president, Government Affairs of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, both strongly objecting to the offset that Republicans included in the continuing resolution that we considered yesterday that went down.

One of the reasons there was great objection over this, Madam Speaker, was because this program that was cut actually was a job- creating program putting people to work. I would say to my colleagues, if you want to reduce the debt in this country, you ought to figure out a way to put people back to work; and the way you put people back to work is not cut every single program that provides assistance to business and to people to be able to get on their feet and create jobs.

We have a crisis in this country that is not being addressed by this House of Representatives which has yet to consider a single jobs bill. And instead, we have a continuing resolution that gets brought to the floor that provides less disaster assistance than the Senate bill does to people who are in need and pays for it, offsets it, by cutting a program to create jobs. What sense does that make?

When it comes to disaster relief, we have never, ever, ever offset disaster relief because you can't predict with any accuracy whether there's going to be a tornado next year or a hurricane next year or an earthquake next year.

There are some things we don't offset we should offset; for example, the wars. We've been in Afghanistan for 10 years, and I can't figure out why we're still there, but we're still there. Ten years. I can predict pretty much--very accurately--how much it will cost to stay another year, and yet we borrow that money. We put it on the credit card. We borrow $10 billion a month for military operations in Afghanistan that goes onto our credit card; not paid for. Not paid for.

But when it comes to helping people in this country who have been adversely impacted by a natural disaster, through no fault of their own, who have lost their homes, who've seen their communities devastated, all of a sudden we're here saying we've got to find these offsets. And where do the offsets come from? They don't come from Donald Trump's tax cut. Where they come from is a program to put people to work.

The gentleman, the chairman of the Rules Committee, talks about this great openness that we have in the Rules Committee. I have offered, I think about half a dozen times, an amendment to go after the U.S. taxpayer-funded oil subsidies, these subsidies that we provide oil companies that are making record profits, and we can't even get that issue for a vote on this House floor.

I hope we have enough time to read what's in the bill. I hope that we have enough time to understand what's in the bill. I hope that we meet today. I hope that we meet at a decent hour. But we don't have the answers to any of those questions, and I think that that's unfortunate when it comes to a bill about the funding, the continuing funding of our government.

Again, Madam Speaker, I regret that we are here. I regret that we are debating a martial law rule. We're not debating a continuing resolution right now. It's a martial rule that basically shuts everything down and allows them to bring up a bill any time they want to bring a bill up. People won't even have time to read it. And we'll have that vote possibly today. But again, we don't have any definite commitments from the other side what time or even if it will be today.

I will close by saying, Madam Speaker, that I think it is important that this House gets back to the issue of jobs and protecting and caring for the people here in this country. Our biggest challenges, I'm going to tell my friends on the other side, are not halfway around the world; some of them are just halfway down the block. I regret very much that this Congress has yet to deal with the issue of jobs.

Chamber of Commerce

of the United States of America,

Washington, DC, September 22, 2011.

To The Members of the U.S. House of Representatives: The

U.S. chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business

federation representing the interests of more than three

million businesses and organizations of every size, sector,

and region, strongly supports disaster relief funding to

assist victims of natural disasters. The Chamber is also a

vocal proponent of fiscal responsibility and recognizes that

Congress must make difficult but necessary choices among

competing priorities.

As Congress sets spending priorities, the Chamber wishes to

highlight a few important facts about the Advanced Technology

Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program. First, the program

was authorized in the Energy Independence and Security Act of

2007, which was supported by both Republicans and Democrats

as an important step in reducing America's dependence on oil

from unstable regimes. Second, ATVM loans, which will be

repaid with interest, incentivize automakers and suppliers to

build more fuel-efficient advanced technology vehicles in the

U.S., providing new, opportunities for American workers in a

sector of the economy that

is critical to the nation's recovery. Third, the fact that

the Department of Energy has yet to use the funds Congress

appropriated for the program is not the fault of industry;

numerous loan applicants have been in the queue for years,

waiting for the Administration to complete its due diligence.

Again, while the Chamber understands the importance of

reducing America's unacceptable debt and believes that all

programs must be on the table, the Chamber urges you to bear

in mind the facts about the ATVM loan program, which promotes

manufacturing in the U.S. and is an important component of

America's energy security.

Sincerely,

R. Bruce Josten.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

I just found out some news here in answer to a question I had earlier about offsets. Apparently, according to the National Journal, the Republican leaders are considering tacking on as much as $100 million in additional offsets to their GOP continuing resolution they are bringing to the floor. That is a quote attributed to House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier. So I just read in the National Journal basically that there will be additional offsets.

Which brings me back to my original point of why it's important for us to see this bill. You say that you want to eliminate waste, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program is not waste; it creates jobs. So I don't know where else you're going to cut.

Madam Speaker, I just want to make sure the record is clear when it comes to Democratic support for the continuing resolution. In his pen and pad press conference, Minority Whip Hoyer said he was ``loath'' to support yesterday's CR, and I have a copy of that press conference and the transcript of the colloquy that went on on the House floor here. So if anybody is interested in reading it in detail, I have it here.

At this point, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

I yield to the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to hold this poster up because I want to make sure that it's clear to everybody. I'm going to quote this: ``I will not bring a bill to the floor that hasn't been posted online for at least 72 hours.'' John Boehner, Fox News, ``America's News Room,'' 7/ 22/2010.

Mr. Speaker, we can have all the verbal gyrations that we can come up with here about how not to kind of get to the point, which is that we're not going to be able to have 3 days or 72 hours or 3 legislative days--or three anything--to look at this bill. And the bill that we're going to be debating later today or tomorrow--we don't really know--is going to be different. And we know it's going to be different because the chairman of the Rules Committee said in an interview that we have online to National Journal that there's probably going to be another $100 million more in offsets. And so where are those offsets coming from?

We know that one of the offsets that was in the continuing resolution yesterday was an offset that actually was a job killer, that actually is something that not only Democrats supported, but the United States Chamber of Commerce supported. Everyone came together and agreed that this is a good program, and it was cut, and it is going to discourage job creation in this country.

So I think it is important to know where these offsets are going to be coming from. And, again, let me repeat what I've said over and over: this has not been a bipartisan process. The only thing bipartisan about this continuing resolution was the opposition to it.

And, again, I would tell my Republican friends that the reason why this promise by Speaker Boehner is important is because we do need to understand what's in the bill. We're beginning to understand that your rules don't live up to what you actually promised.

Mr. Speaker, the other thing about this that I think is important for people to understand is that never, ever, ever have we ever insisted on offsets for emergency spending for disasters. We don't know whether there will be one, two, three, or no emergencies that hit our country next year or the year after or the year after that. Maybe my Republican friends have now figured out a way to predict earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and tornadoes, but we don't know how to predict with any accuracy.

And this notion that we're not going to be there, that we're going to insist on offsets in order to provide people who have been thrown out of their homes, whose communities have been destroyed through no fault of their own, that we can find an offset when we don't need any offsets for nation-building in Afghanistan, that's all on your credit card. There's no offsets needed for that.

Why is it that no offsets are needed to do that kind of stuff, but when it comes to helping people in this country, all of a sudden we become super fiscally conservative? We need to have offsets for everything.

You want to reduce the debt? Put people back to work. That's how you do it. Cutting programs that put people back to work doesn't put people back to work. It slows down the economic recovery.

Here we are in September, and we have yet to deal with a single jobs bill on this floor. I don't know what it's like in California, but I can tell you in Massachusetts, when I go home, people want to talk about jobs and the economy. Yes, they want to reduce the debt, and they understand, by ending some of these wars, by cutting back on some of these overseas bases that we have, by asking Donald Trump to pay his fair share.

There's something wrong in this country when a billionaire hedge fund manager pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. It's like, no, we can't ask that person, that billionaire to pay his fair share. Everything is aimed at working people and those who are most vulnerable.

We should be talking about putting America back to work. We should be debating every day about ways to stimulate this economy, to provide incentives to put people back to work, to find ways to stop incentivizing corporations to send American jobs overseas.

Instead, my friends on the other side of the aisle are protecting all that status quo. I mean, they are protecting those tax breaks, those incentives that encourage jobs to go overseas. Enough. Enough.

I'll close by saying this, Mr. Speaker: When it comes to protecting subsidies for Big Oil companies, my friends are there. When it comes to rebuilding and nation building in Afghanistan, they're there. When it comes to maintaining a Tax Code that allows a billionaire hedge fund manager to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary, they're there. But when it comes to disaster assistance, when it comes to jobs, when it comes to things that matter to everyday people, it is a struggle. It is a fight.

I would urge my colleagues to rethink their priorities, to work in a bipartisan way when it comes to disaster relief and job creation.

Let's bring the President's jobs bill to the floor. If you don't like it, vote against it. But allow us to have the opportunity in this new, open House. Let us bring the President's jobs bill to the floor. Let us see whether we can pass it here. I think if this truly is an open House, we ought to have that opportunity.

I will just say, Mr. Speaker, before I yield back the balance of my time, I don't know when we're going to get this bill. I don't know where the cuts are going to be made. I don't know what other job- creating programs are going to be cut. But again, ``I will not bring a bill to the floor that hasn't been posted on line for at least 72 hours.'' We're not even going to get 72 minutes, in all likelihood.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 2401. I do thank my colleague, Mr. Bishop, for granting the time for the opposition.

This bill is really another attempt by the Republican leadership to demonize the Environmental Protection Agency and dismantle any government regulation intended to protect our Nation's public health and the environment.

H.R. 2401 is a waste of time and an absolute insult to the millions of Americans without jobs. Instead of crafting legislation to increase consumer confidence, instead of helping Americans hold on to their homes, instead of creating jobs for the millions of people who are unemployed, instead of relieving the burden of the middle class by making the Tax Code more fair, my friends on the other side are asking us to vote on a bill that effectively bars the EPA from finalizing and implementing two of the most significant air quality regulations in decades.

Coal plants--and let me lay my bona fides out here: I do believe in clean coal--the biggest source of unregulated mercury emissions in the United States, pump out 48 tons of emissions every year. Mercury contaminates more than 6 million acres of freshwater lakes, and I want to just take the prerogative of talking about one.

I was born in Altamonte Springs, Florida, and the nearest lake to where I was born is called Mobile. At one point, my grandfather could pass by and say to my grandmother, I'm going down to the lake and catch some fish--and be guaranteed that that was going to be the case--and bring it back home in short time.

Now that lake is dead, and it's because of mercury contamination that that lake is dead; 46,000 miles of streams, and the stream that led into Lake Mobile is dead. And 225,000 acres of wetlands across the United States in all 50 States have some type of fish consumption advisory. Let me repeat that: all 50 States have some type of fish consumption advisory.

What's more, there are substantial economic benefits to these clean air rules that my friends are trying to block. The EPA estimates that the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards alone could generate more than 30,000 construction jobs and 9,000 long-term utility jobs, benefiting steelmakers, pipefitters, boilermakers, and others.

The economic value of air quality improvements totals $59 billion to $140 billion annually. That's 25,300 lives lost to toxic air pollution; over 11,000 heart attacks; more than 12,000 asthma attacks, and a significant portion of them being children; over 12,200 additional visits to the emergency rooms of our country; and hundreds of thousands of missed work days.

Overall, the EPA predicts that the monetary value of protecting Americans' health through implementing the Clean Air Act is projected to reach $2 trillion in 2020 alone. Yet this bill ignores those benefits.

Madam Speaker, all of us know that times are tough, but this great Nation has been through tough economic times before. Environmental regulations are not the problem. The economy was really tough--and we are reminded of it often by my colleagues--under President Carter; yet the EPA at the time managed to set new national air pollution standards for airborne lead and began the phaseout of ozone-layer-destroying gases from aerosol spray products.

Nor has protecting the environment always been a partisan issue. The EPA has also had great successes under Republican Presidents. Upon founding the EPA in 1970, President Richard Nixon said the following: ``We can no longer afford to consider air and water common property, free to be abused by anyone without regard to the consequences. Instead, we should begin now to treat them as scarce resources which we are no more free to contaminate than we are free to throw garbage into our neighbor's yard.'' That was in 1970.

One of the first tasks assigned to the EPA was to enforce the Clean Air Act, also signed by President Nixon. Since its adoption, these regulations have prevented an estimated 200,000 premature deaths.

During President Reagan's administration, the EPA tested elementary and secondary schools for asbestos for the first time and named protecting endangered wetlands a top priority, while

subsequently opening the new Office of Wetlands Protection.

And contrary to what many of my friends across the aisle believe, history did not end with President Reagan. President George H.W. Bush implemented the new cap-and-trade policies that successfully addressed the growing problem of acid rain.

President Bush's EPA also started the wildly successful Energy Star program, helping Americans save money through adopting energy-efficient products and practices. Since then, Energy Star has saved Americans $17 billion on utility bills.

And on a more personal level, I grew up at times with asthma, as did a cousin of mine who still suffers the effects of it. Several of the employees that work with me now and some before have had asthma, and I genuinely believe that if we did not have the clean air standards that we have today, some of us may not be here.

In light of all these accomplishments, it's clear that H.R. 2041 is nothing more than an effort, at the behest of a big, big set of businesses, to delay and block necessary and important regulations that will keep our country safe and clean.

Republicans claim that this bill assists agencies with their economic analyses of EPA regulations. This is nothing more than a convenient, ad hoc justification.

Firstly, all major regulations already receive years of extensive cost-benefit analysis before implementation. At the same time, this bill fails to take into account any of the health and environmental benefits of the regulations in question, rendering the one-sided ``cost-only'' analysis set forth by this bill unnecessary.

Second, the version of the Energy and Commerce bill that was reported out suspends two major regulations that have been the subject of analysis, litigation, re-examination and rewriting for over two decades. Both the National Environmental Policy Act and Executive order 12866 signed by President Clinton require Federal agencies to perform the type of analysis required in the bill, including a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis.

By requiring unnecessary and duplicative studies, my friends on the other side could not make their desire to indefinitely block these regulations any more clear.

I've introduced an amendment that carves out an exception for rules and regulations drafted in adherence to the rules already on the books, freeing these important regulations to proceed along as scheduled.

Madam Speaker, based on what I've seen by this Republican-led Congress, it's clear to me that they obviously have no intention of using their real power to create jobs. Instead, they prefer to waste time on measures such as this bill that are designed to do one simple thing, and that is to further delay both past and future regulations.

Now, let me make it clear. I've quarreled, as have some of my colleagues, with the Environmental Protection Agency, as rightly we should when the circumstances permit, and that is, in my case, with the numeric nutrient standards that are proposed in Florida. A court has made a decision regarding the enforcement of those nutrient standards, and I believe that the communities involved are prepared to undertake to do what's necessary. And I do not believe that EPA has to involve itself at this point in time.

But when I quarrel with EPA, as I do, I don't do it in a way that demonizes the agency. I do it in a way that's looking for a solution.

One thing that I've learned in the years that I've been in this institution is that whether you have a right or left or center ideological perspective, to begin demonizing certain people suggests to me that those people probably have been successful. I don't know Lisa Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency Cabinet official, but I do know that the way people are screaming about the work that she has done suggests that she must be having some success.

It's time to call my friends out on the other side for their shenanigans, and show the American people that they are more interested in helping big business and the wealthy than the middle class and working poor Americans who continue to struggle all across this Nation every single day.

If we start cutting the regulations that protect the environment when we are down, where will we be when we recover?

I've seen firsthand what happens in places that disregard environmental protections for the sake of business. I remember being in Seong, China with a departed colleague, Gerald Sullivan, who was chair of the Rules Committee, and holding my hand in front of my face and not being able to see it. I also had that same experience in Los Angeles, California, in the late 1950s.

This certainly is not the kind of home that we want to leave for our grandchildren. The air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the soil on which we produce our crops is the earth that we call home. And, in my view, we must keep it clean.

Let me tell you what Ronald Reagan said. If we've learned any lessons during the past few decades, perhaps the most important is that preservation of our environment is not a partisan challenge. It's common sense. Our physical health, our social happiness, and our economic well-being will be sustained only by all of us working in partnership as thoughtful, effective stewards of our natural resources. President Reagan made those remarks on signing an annual report of the Council on Environmental Quality.

Additionally, he said, in a radio address, that I'm proud of having been one of the first to recognize that States and the Federal Government have a duty to protect our natural resources from the damaging effects of pollution that can accompany industrial development.

And more importantly, what he said is, what is conservative after all, but one who conserves, one who is committed to protecting and holding close the things by which we live? And we want to protect and conserve the land on which we live, our countrysides, our rivers and mountains, our plains and meadows and forests. This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children, and our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it. He made those remarks at the dedication of the National Geographic Society's new headquarters building in 1984.

President George W. Bush said, our country, the United States, is the world's largest emitter of manmade greenhouse gases. We account for almost 20 percent of the world's manmade greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, in a joint address to Congress he said, I also call on Congress to work with my administration to achieve the significant emission reductions made possible by implementing the clean energy technologies proposed in our energy plan. Our working group study has made it clear that we need to do a lot more.

Those words from two Presidents that are revered, rightly, by many of us in this institution, and certainly by my colleagues that are Republican that share the same ideological perspectives, should be sufficient to put to rest this polluting bill that we could rename the Toxic Polluting America measure.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I'll try to do better about that as we progress.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend, a former member of the Rules Committee, a distinguished Member of this body from Maine (Ms. Pingree).

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide that immediately after the House adopts this rule, it will bring up H.R. 1366, the National Manufacturing Strategy Act of 2011.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), whose father I had the privilege of serving with as well.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My colleague from California spoke about what our committee would do. I would urge him to understand that Congress is doing it for them with this measure.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Madam Speaker, the day before yesterday, Frances Beinecke, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the following:

``GOP lawmakers would have us believe that the public health and environmental safeguards stemming from the Clean Air Act--a 40-year-old law signed by President Nixon--are thwarting economic growth. It's not the unregulated market in mortgage debt, the U.S. trade deficit with China, or the shaky state of European banks that is freezing growth. It's the EPA's effort to reduce toxins from old power plants.''

Madam Speaker, millions of Americans are hurting and are in desperate need of our help. Instead of working to create jobs, my colleagues on the other side would rather consider ``do nothing'' bills. We've been doing nothing around here for a very long time now and have been considering ``do nothing'' to get our economy back on track. This ``do nothing'' bill does not create jobs, and it does nothing to help the struggle of middle class and working poor Americans. Let me just give some examples of the time line on the Environmental Protection Agency's laws and list them, in part, by administration.

I spoke earlier about the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act that President Nixon vetoed. His veto was overridden, and then he signed it on October 18, 1972.

Under President Ford, we got the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the cancer-causing pesticides were banned. There was the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976 under President Ford.

Under Jimmy Carter, we got the Clean Water Act of 1977. Then the EPA set a new national air pollution standard for lead, and I'm sure families with children understand that dynamic. The phaseout of chlorofluorocarbons took place in 1978.

Under President Reagan, in 1982, we got the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and the asbestos testing in schools, which was critically important throughout this Nation. We got the Chesapeake Bay pollution cleanup and a 90 percent reduction of lead in gasoline. During that same period of time, although it was not his discovery, the ozone layer problem was discovered. Then in 1986, President Reagan signed the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments, the wetlands protection measure, and the Right- to-Know Laws for chemical safety. The Montreal Protocol was signed by the President in 1987 and standards for underground storage tanks in 1988. The sewage Ocean Dumping Ban also came about in 1988.

The Alar pesticide ban for use on foods came under President Bush. Toxic waste control came under President Bush as well as the Pollution Prevention Act. Acid rain controls were enacted as well as the Energy Star program.

Those are just a few, and I won't go into the many under President Clinton and the few that have taken place under President Obama.

With that said, there seems to be this act against the Environmental Protection Agency that suggests that they have been harmful in some way--that's another word for ``demonize''--that they've been harmful, the EPA, in all of these things that have been done throughout all of this time that have helped our environment.

I just, for the life of me, don't understand why it is now we want to slow down this process and allow for an analysis, that is already being done, to be delayed. We want to protect and conserve the land on which we live--our countryside, our rivers, our mountains, our plains, and meadows and forests. That's what Ronald Reagan said. This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children, and our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.

Does the bill that we're considering today leave the land better than we found it? I think you know the answer.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question, ``no'' on this rule and the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

This week is Dirty Air Week in the House of Representatives. Yesterday, in the Energy and Commerce Committee, we considered legislation that will increase emissions of mercury and other dangerous chemicals from industrial sources. Today the full House considers legislation to cut the heart out of the Clean Air Act.

Mr. Speaker, this is the most anti-environmental House of Representatives in history. Since February of this year, the House has voted again and again to block action to address climate change, to halt efforts to reduce air and water pollution, to undermine protections for public lands in coastal areas, and to weaken the protection of the environment in other ways.

My staff prepared a database last month on every anti-environmental vote in this Congress. The tally was 125--125 votes to weaken clean air, clean water, safeguards to make our drinking water less safe, to weaken environmental standards in dozens of different ways. This is an appalling and dangerous environmental record. The full database is online at democrats.energycommerce.house.gov.

Today the assault continues on the Clean Air Act. The bill we consider today, the TRAIN Act, will block and indefinitely delay two EPA rules that reduce pollution from power plants: the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. These rules are critical to protecting the public health. Each year these rules will prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths, tens of thousands of heart attacks, and hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks. They will also prevent over 2 million lost workdays. If this legislation is enacted, these public health benefits will be lost, and more babies will be born with birth defects and learning disabilities.

And this is not all. Today we will consider amendments offered by Chairman Whitfield and Representative Latta that will make this bill even worse. The Whitfield amendment will eviscerate the law's ability to require power plants to install modern pollution controls.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told us this morning that if the Whitfield amendment is enacted, EPA will never be able to issue a rule to prevent emissions from power plants in one State from polluting the air in a downwind State. She also said that the amendment could destroy the agency's ability to ever reduce toxic mercury emissions from power plants.

The Latta amendment is even worse. It will reverse 40 years of clean air policy, repealing the health-based standards that are at the heart of the Clean Air Act. The Latta amendment would allow our national goals for clean air to be determined by corporate profits, not public health.

These radical amendments were never examined in hearings or debated in the Energy and Commerce Committee or in any other committee. Members are being asked to vote on major changes to the Clean Air Act without any idea of their terrible impact on air quality and public health.

My Republican colleagues will argue that we need to gut the Clean Air Act because it is a job-killing law. That is categorically false. The last 40 years proved we could have both economic growth and a clean environment. We do not have to choose between jobs and toxic mercury emissions that endanger our children's health and poison our lakes.

The rules that are being overturned are job creators. If these rules are allowed to go forward, the utilities that operate our oldest and dirtiest power plants will have to install new pollution controls. This will create 1.5 million jobs by 2015. This bill puts these jobs on the chopping block.

I urge all Members to oppose this legislation and protect the Clean Air Act.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased at this time to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Energy Subcommittee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased and honored to yield 5 minutes to one of the strongest environmental champions in the House of Representatives, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to my fellow Californian, an important member of the Health Subcommittee, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. Chairman, before I yield, I want to indicate that Mr. Whitfield just argued that this bill will not harm public health because although it blocks two critical rules to clean up old power plants, it doesn't repeal the Clean Air Interstate Rule, or the CAIR rule. Well, leaving an inadequate rule in place does not achieve the health benefits lost by blocking the Mercury Air Toxics Rule and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. The CAIR rule was blocked by the courts. They found it didn't comply with the Clean Air Act because it did not effectively address pollution that crosses State lines. That means that States suffering from up-wind pollution have to look for additional, more costly, pollution reductions from smaller local sources; and it does not require power plants to clean up mercury and other toxic air pollution. His statement was absolutely incorrect.

At this time I want to yield 3 minutes to a very important member of our committee, Ms. Schakowsky from the State of Illinois.

I yield 5 minutes to the gentlelady from the State of Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Mr. Chairman, my colleague, Mr. Whitfield, just said that the EPA found that the mercury reduction benefits were so insignificant by EPA. Well, what they found was they couldn't put a pricetag on the avoided birth defects and brain damage to babies. If that's insignificant, I just think people ought to put this whole effort to deregulate the efforts to protect the environment in perspective. I think the Republicans think it's insignificant because we can't put a dollar figure on birth defects and brain damage to an infant--and so many Republicans call themselves pro-life.

I want to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee who has fought so hard to protect environmental regulations, especially those that protect the public health, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Chairman, I want to set the record straight because I think we're getting a lot of false information. We are told that this bill doesn't weaken any existing law. That's not correct. The Cross- State Rule has already been finalized, which means if you are living in an area where pollution's coming from another State, and there's nothing you can do about it, the State that's causing the pollution has to reduce that pollution in order not to affect you. And that's going to be repealed by this legislation that's before us.

We're told all that's going to happen is we're going to delay some of these rules. Well, yes. We're going to delay the rules. And then Mr. Whitfield is going to offer an amendment to make sure that EPA can never adopt any of those rules.

And the thing that just galls me is the statement that the benefits from reducing mercury are insignificant. Well, EPA was unable to quantify or monetize all the health and environmental benefits associated with the proposed toxic rule, but EPA believes these unquantified benefits are substantial. We are talking about impaired cognitive development, problems with language, abnormal and social development, potential for fatal and nonfatal heart attacks, association with genetic defects, possible auto-immunity effects in antibodies. This is not insignificant. And I think that it's not accurate to tell us that this bill simply provides some transparency. I think the authors of the bill ought to provide us a little bit more transparency.

I at this point want to yield 6 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Chairman, the Republican spinmeisters like to come up with slogans. So they've come up with the slogan ``job-killing regulation.'' Well, let me tell you what we're talking about: children- killing pollution.

And I just think that when we hear the statements that they're not going to weaken or delay any rules that protect public health and the environment, we shouldn't take their word for it.

I have a letter here from the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. They represent the State and local air pollution control people who are on the ground every day working to improve the Nation's air quality. What they say is that if this bill is adopted it ``will create regulatory delays that could lead to thousands of premature deaths, remove important regulatory tools upon which States and localities depend, impose additional costs on government as well as small businesses, create regulatory uncertainty, cause job losses, and defund an important and cost-effective air pollution control program.''

Mr. Chairman, at this time I want to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the State of Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

I want to correct some of the statements that have been made. The gentleman from Oklahoma talked about the clean air in his area. That's fine. They have attained the standards for protecting public health. But there are a lot of other areas where they don't have that attainment of health-based standards.

Market forces alone will not correct problems that hurt our public health and the environment. Why should any business spend money to install pollution control devices if they don't think their competitors are going to do the same thing? So government must establish some standards so that everybody knows what the rules are going to be and the investments will be made.

Approximately two-thirds of the coal-burning power plants in this country have the up-to-date controls in those power plants. What we're talking about for the most part are those third we were told were going to be retired. But they're not being retired. They're still being used, and they're still polluting. And those power plants ought to come up to compliance with the reductions in their emissions.

One of the other speakers on the other side of the aisle said we don't have a real economic analysis of all of these regulations. That's not true. There are thousands of pages of economic analysis before these regulations have been promoted.

Another person on the other side said a lot of these rules are so onerous that they should be blocked because we're going to be threatening the reliability of the Nation's electric grid by causing these old, inefficient power plants to put modern pollution controls on them. Well, that's not the testimony that we received on September 14, 2011, in the Energy and Commerce Committee where Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff took a different position, as did FERC

Commissioner John Norris, and former DOE Assistant Secretary for Policy Susan Tierney. A stack of independent analyses confirmed that these protections that will require controls on these power plants will not threaten the reliability of our grid.

And over and over again we've heard unless we adopt this TRAIN Act, we are going to lose jobs. Well, the TRAIN Act blocks and indefinitely delays two of the most important clean air regulations of the past few decades: the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which are, again, directed at those power plants that emit toxic air pollutants, including mercury and carcinogens; and then the other rule is the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule to reduce power plant emissions that cause pollution problems in downwind States.

I don't believe they're telling us the facts when they say we're going to lose jobs. The truth of the matter is, according to the Economic Policy Institute, they reported in June that the Air Toxics rule would have a positive net impact on overall employment, creating up to 158,000 jobs between now and 2015.

The Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts released a report showing that the utility investments driven by the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Air Toxics rule would create nearly 1.5 million jobs by 2015.

Moving toward a cleaner, more efficient power sector will create capital investments such as installing pollution controls and constructing new capacity. These new investments create a wide array of skilled, high-paying jobs.

And I must say to my Republican friends, if we want to create jobs, let's pass the President's jobs bill. I'd like the Republicans not to block every effort by this administration to create new jobs in this country.

There are numerous groups that are on record in opposition to the TRAIN Act. Obviously, the public health groups are opposing the bill: the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. The American Public Health Association called this ill- conceived legislation that would prevent EPA from protecting the public's health from dangerous and deadly air pollution. The National Association of Clean Air Agencies, the ones that are doing the job of protecting our environment, groups that represent millions of Americans, particularly all of the environmental groups, oppose this.

Scientists have told us--and I know a lot of Republicans deny science--but scientists, I think, are to be respected. And they say sacrificing tens of thousands of Americans' lives will not create more jobs. Poisoning the air our children and our families breathe will not stimulate the economy.

Three hundred sportsmen organizations representing our Nation's hunters, anglers, and the businesses that depend on our wildlife and natural resources support EPA efforts to cut mercury pollution and strongly oppose any efforts to weaken the Clean Air Act.

The Evangelical Environmental Network opposes these efforts to block the Mercury and Air Toxics rule because they point out that in the developing brains of fetuses and children, this will cause learning disabilities and neurological problems, and is not something that people who claim to be pro-life ought to support.

The Obama administration opposes this TRAIN Act. They threaten to veto this legislation if it reaches the President's desk. Americans don't support weakening the Clean Air Act or blocking EPA's efforts to reduce dangerous air pollution from power plants.

I think, my colleagues, that this TRAIN Act and some of the amendments that are going to be added to it are reason enough to oppose this legislation, and I urge opposition to it.

I am going to reserve the balance of my time if the gentleman, the chairman of the subcommittee, is not ready to close on the legislation.

The EPA did an economic analysis looking at the cost and benefits. And on the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, they said that the costs would be less than a billion, but the benefits would be up to $280 billion per year, 150 to 350 times its cost.

I want the chairman of the subcommittee to answer a question when he closes. I believe the Republicans have misrepresented this bill during the debate, but false information was put on their Web site tonight. They claimed hundreds of groups support the TRAIN Act, and immediately two groups came forward, and maybe others will as well, saying that they would never support the TRAIN Act--Clean Water Action Committee and the Clean Air Watch.

I'd like to know if the information that is on the Web site is being checked for accuracy, because I know that a lot of things that have been said in this debate from the other side of the aisle have not been accurate.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2401.

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

The last time the Clean Air Act was significantly changed was in 1990, nearly 21 years ago, and since that time, a lot of changes have occurred in America. First of all, we find ourselves today with a situation where over 14 million Americans are unable to find work and millions more have given up trying. It appears that the only place where the job situation is good is at Federal regulatory agencies. Employment at Federal regulatory agencies has climbed 13 percent since President Obama took office, while private sector jobs shrank by 5.6 percent. I believe these two divergent trends are related because the breaking pace at which the Environmental Protection Agency is cranking out new regulations is creating obstacles to job creation in America, and also to stimulating the economy.

I don't care if you speak to small business people today or large business people today, they will tell you that one of the reasons that they are not investing is because of uncertainty--uncertainty about the health care bill that was passed last year, uncertainty about the financial regulations that are raising capital requirements and making loans more difficult to obtain, but primarily they talk about the excessive regulations coming out of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Now, these regulations normally are not scrutinized very much, but I believe that the legislative branch has the responsibility, particularly when this many regulations are coming down the road, at a time when it's having impact on our ability to grow the economy, that the legislative branch needs to look at it, and that's precisely what we're doing with the TRAIN Act.

Under the TRAIN Act, we are establishing a government body that will look at the cumulative impact of about 12 regulations that have come down from the EPA in the last year or so. For example, there are a number of costly new rules impacting coal-fired electric power plants. These include utility MACT, Cross-State Air Pollution Rules, greenhouse gas rules, coal combustion residuals, and others.

Each of these rules, alone, will force some existing power plants to shut down, while also blocking new ones from being built. This is bad enough, not just for jobs, but also because it will raise electricity prices. But the combined effect of all these rules is far worse. In fact, it could even reduce generating capacity enough that it would jeopardize the reliability of the Nation's electric grid system. And we need to know all of the information that we can obtain about these regulations so that we can move forward in a legitimate and conscientious way.

If America is going to remain competitive in the global marketplace, it is going to have to have reasonable electricity prices, and that's going to be essential if we're ever going to stimulate this economy and create jobs in America.

The cumulative burden of regulations really has not been much of a burden in the past because it's seldom that EPA has ever come forth with this many regulations. But the Obama administration's attempt to squeeze at least a decade's worth of major Clean Air Act regulations into less than 3 years, and do so in the midst of a weak economy, creates serious problems for America.

The TRAIN Act, which really is very simple, will require an analysis of the cumulative impacts of the listed rules on energy prices and reliability, on jobs, and the effect on American competitiveness.

Two upcoming rules that pose a particularly serious threat and are a major component of EPA's agenda are the utility MACT and the Cross- State Air Pollution Rule. For these two rules, we will be offering an amendment that would put them on hold, pending completion of the cumulative impact study, as well as make substantive changes to make sure that they are achievable in real life.

I might point out that the utility MACT is not in effect yet. The final rule is expected in November of this year. But the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule is in effect, and they'll start implementing it the first of the year.

We're going to ask that that implementation be delayed until the final rule of our committee that's established under the TRAIN Act makes its final report on August 1, 2012.

Some people are saying, well, if you delay this, then what are we going to do about our air transport rule? Well, the reality is that we have an air transport rule in effect today. I might add that EPA, when they implemented this bill, the CAIR Act, which was invalidated by a Federal court, showed that the SO2 emissions, the NOX emissions would be reduced significantly. And just about every environmental group in America supported the implementation of

I might just say first of all that I would tell Mrs. Jackson that we are not preventing her from implementing new air transport rules. We're going to keep in place what we have today that EPA said was a splendid program and even defended it in the court system. If my amendment is adopted, 3 years after the final report is made, they're totally free to go in and implement a new rule.

At this time I would like to yield 5 minutes to the vice chairman, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan).

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson), who is a cosponsor of this legislation.

I might say to the gentleman from Massachusetts, there is nothing in the TRAIN Act that would delay for 1 day the greenhouse gas regulations that EPA adopted last January. There is nothing in this bill relating to the Cement MACT as well.

At this time, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith).

I might say to the gentlelady from California, the air transport rule we have in effect today, when it was implemented, EPA said it would reduce SOX and NOX by 73 and 57 percent by the year 2015. So it's not like we don't have something already in place.

At this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Member from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

I certainly have great respect for the gentlelady from Colorado, whom I've had the opportunity to work with on a lot of issues, but I would say to her and to others the only regulation that we're delaying relating to mercury is the Utility MACT. And I might say that EPA said that the health benefits from the reduction of mercury because of the Utility MACT was so insignificant that they did not even include it as a benefit.

At this time, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

I would say to my friend from Virginia that EPA is not always as transparent as they may seem. When they issued the greenhouse gas regulation in January of this year, they did not give the public any information about cost or benefits, and the reason they didn't is they didn't conduct one.

At this time, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished former chairman and chairman emeritus of the Energy and Commerce Committee, a real leader in our committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield the gentleman another minute.

I might say to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon that it is correct that the court invalidated the current Air Transport Rule that we have in effect in America today, but I would also like to read from that decision because one of the reasons they invalidated this law was because EPA was looking at a regional basis rather than within individual States.

The court said: ``It is possible that CAIR would achieve air transport goals. EPA's modeling shows that sources contributing to North Carolina's non-containment areas will reduce their emissions even after opting into CAIR's trading programs.''

My point in saying that is this still is a particularly effective Air Transport Rule.

At this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter).

May I ask how much time we have remaining?

At this time, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Harper), who is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hultgren).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold).

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

I yield 4 minutes to the gentlelady from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp).

May I inquire how much time is remaining, Mr. Chairman?

At this time I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford).

I was prepared to close, but we do have one other speaker, and then I will close. He just came in, and we were not totally aware.

At this time, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), who is a valuable member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and a chairman of one of our subcommittees.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I want to thank the gentleman for the debate today. I was not aware that we had sent out a letter of supporters of this legislation, and evidently in that letter there was a letter in opposition that should not have been in there. If that created any hardship for anyone or problems, we certainly do apologize for that.

We should remind ourselves that by every public health measure, from infant mortality to life expectancy, we are healthier today and are exposed to fewer hazards than ever before. Our present day air is much cleaner now than years ago thanks to EPA, and our air quality is among the best in the world. And we recognize the importance of EPA. However, when EPA becomes so aggressive, as this EPA has become, and in a very short period of time they've come forward with 14 regulations--and we know that when you look at cost-benefit analyses, different entities come up with different figures on the cost and the benefits.

We, for example, have come up with an analysis on the Utility MACT and the air transport rule alone saying that the annualized cost of that will be $17 billion, that industry will have to spend that kind of money to get new equipment, that the total cost between 2011 and 2030 would be $184 billion. But one of the figures that really scares you in this is that they say there will be a net loss of 1.4 million jobs. Now, we know that some jobs will be created in trying to build this equipment that these regulations are going to require, but most of the analyses that we've seen indicate that there is going to be more of a job loss.

All the TRAIN Act is doing is saying let's have an independent government agency, including EPA, do an analysis of cost/benefit of all of these rules. We would also like them to look at what impact does it have on America's ability to be competitive in the global marketplace. We'd also like for them to look at what will be the job loss, net job loss. We would also like for them to look on what impact it's going to have on electricity prices as well as the reliability of electricity.

And on 12 of those regulations, we do not stop them in any way; but on two of them, the ones that are most costly--Utility MACT, and what I refer to as the ``air transport rule''--we do, in this legislation, delay the effective date of those, the implementation of those until 6 months after the report is due that this legislation requires.

Now, in my view, that's not being unreasonable. Some people think it is because it is the first time that Congress has ever come to the floor to question some of the EPA regulations, and I really think that that's our responsibility. They issue the regulations; but if they reach a point where we think they're being unreasonable, then we have an obligation to come and let's examine these, let's look at them before we move totally forward with it.

Now, Lisa Jackson, when she has come before us and testified, she has always made the comment that ``I'm creating jobs with these new regulations.'' And as I said earlier, she does create new jobs, but the net effect is there is a loss of jobs. Now, some of these rules may be great in areas like California and New York and the Northeast and elsewhere; but in the areas of the country where coal--and, by the way, coal still provides 50 percent of all the electricity in America. Our electricity demand is going to increase significantly in the next 30 years, so we're going to have to rely on coal. But a lot of these regulations are going to put coal miners out of business because they're going to close some of these coal mines. It's going to put some coal-fired utilities out of business because they're going to close these utility plants because the cost is not going to be worth what they have to do to meet these air quality regulations.

Now, on the air quality regulations, the question becomes, if you're 98 percent pure already, is it worth this much money to go 2 percent more? So that's the question we come down to, and that's why we ask for this analysis; and I would urge everyone to support this TRAIN Act legislation.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.