Providing for further consideration of the bill (H.R. 4078) to provide that no agency may take any significant regulatory action until the unemployment rate is equal to or less than 6.0 percent.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for the time.

The bill before us here, referencing H.R. 783, is the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2011. It is a bipartisan bill, sponsored by the gentlemen from Virginia, Mr. Moran, Rob Wittman, Bobby Scott, and Gerry Connolly.

My party did intend to withdraw the objection and allow the change to proceed. Unfortunately, absent any change, we are still talking about a change to the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2011.

This act extends Federal recognition to several tribes in Virginia and establishes their relationship with the Federal Government. The tribes that it establishes are the Chickahominy Tribe, the Chickahominy Indian Tribe-Eastern Division, the Upper Mattaponi Tribe, the Rappahannock Tribe, the Monacan Indian Nation, and the Nansemond Indian Tribe.

This makes members of those tribes who apply and enroll eligible for services and benefits provided by the Federal Government to federally recognized Indian tribes. It also requires the Secretary of the Interior to take the specified lands into trust for the benefit of those tribes.

This bill does have bipartisan support, and I think it's a good thing that we're taking up a bipartisan bill. We were willing to, again, withdraw our objection and allow a change to be made. The only problem now with the discussion of this bill is that the corresponding change indicated in the resolution doesn't really make sense, as applied to this bill. Again, this is a bill that establishes several tribes, and yet a corresponding change is being made to the definition of the unemployment rate, which I can't find in the bill.

So I would like to ask my colleague, Ms. Foxx, where in the bill is the reference to the unemployment rate that is being changed in this resolution?

Reclaiming my time, this is the bill that is referenced in the resolution that the Clerk read. I heard that. And I am here ready to discuss the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2011, but I can't find the corresponding change that this resolution makes.

I just would like to ask the gentlelady, where in the bill is the unemployment reference in this Thomasina Indian Tribes recognition bill?

Reclaiming my time, if I can ask the Clerk to read the current resolution before us.

Reclaiming my time, again, looking at the THOMAS registry, H.R. 783 is called the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act.

But let us get on to it.

Again, the corresponding change does not exist in the spirit of bipartisanship. I was informed that my party was willing to withdraw their objection to a change that would have made a proper reference in this resolution to a corresponding bill that made sense.

Absent that, the change does not make sense. I think it speaks to, again, the broader issue of: Why the great rush on a bill that is not an emergency bill by any sense of the word?

There are critical bills we face that we need to move quickly on. My goodness, the Senate just passed the middle class tax cut. If the House doesn't pass a corresponding middle class tax cut, taxes will increase for tens of millions of American families on January 1. There should be, likewise, some urgency around reining in our budget deficit and balancing the budget. Likewise, there should be some degree of urgency about creating jobs and ending the recession, putting people back to work.

Here we have a bill, H.R. 4078, which, of course, is referenced under either version--the corrected or noncorrected version of this particular resolution--that is not a bipartisan bill. It's a bill that, in Judiciary Committee, did not have any Democratic support.

It is a bill that the President has indicated he does not support. It is a bill that we have no indication from the Senate that they would proceed with or pass. And I fail to understand the urgency of moving forward so fast that we don't only make--that there is not

only a mistake that was made in the original bill, but there is also a mistake apparently that was made in the correcting resolution, and there seems to be some uncertainty about whether we are even talking about a change to this bill or a Virginia tribe bill or an unemployment definition.

And again, I would fully understand that if this was an emergency situation that required this body to move forward on behalf of our Nation. If this was a last-minute deal and something was expiring at midnight, we would need to immediately correct that and move forward. And I don't think there would be any games from either side because that's for the importance of the country. But that's not the situation that we are facing here today.

Now the American people, unfortunately, have grown to expect inefficiency and ineffectiveness from the House of Representatives. But this set of errors, this comedy of errors here today, is really just icing on the cake.

The Republicans have put together a partisan, omnibus bill that they later find out had a typo. Then there was an effort to correct the typo, an effort that our side was willing to allow to move forward after briefly discussing. And then inexplicably, the Republicans decided not to correct the mistake. And now it is unclear whether we are talking about a tribal recognition bill or a nonexistent bill, a bill that has not been introduced. If there is no H. Res. 783, we are referencing a nonexistent bill, unless it references H.R. 783 from a previous session. But in any event, these matters need to be corrected before we can proceed in any manner. This is an example of how the House of Representatives is run of late.

There are many bipartisan, job-creating ideas that we can take up and we should take up on behalf of the country.

Instead, we have a partisan approach that lacks bipartisan support, an innocent error made in the bill, another innocent error made in correcting the error to the bill. And that leaves us in a quandary, frankly, because we are discussing a fix to a nonexistent bill that it is hard to debate or talk about because how can one be for or against a change to a nonexistent bill. And that puts all of us in a very difficult situation.

I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, the American public, even more so, the dismay that they show at this Congress, is only doubled and tripled, just throwing up their arms and saying, How are you even talking about a bill that makes reference to and changes a nonexistent bill which may or may not be a Virginia tribal bill, an underlying bill that is a partisan bill that confuses employment with unemployment?

So that's where we are, Mr. Speaker. We'll get through this together. We'll move forward as a country, but we can do better.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Prior to yielding to the gentlelady from Connecticut, I just want to the ask the gentlelady from North Carolina, what is House Resolution 783? We're having trouble locating it.

I yield to the gentlelady.

Reclaiming my time, again, in the absence of an actual House Resolution 783, I thought perhaps it was an erroneous reference to H.R. 783. Again, it is unclear what we are debating, but I know that we have somebody here who wants to debate an important topic that is critical to the country.

I am happy to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

We have one remaining speaker.

Mr. 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.

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to make in order an amendment which proposes that Congress will not adjourn until the President signs middle class tax cuts into law.

With that, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I didn't like this underlying bill in its original form. I voted against several components of it on Judiciary Committee, and it's a lost opportunity because there was real opportunity to do bipartisan regulatory reform. Both parties agree with streamlining government processes, reducing red tape, and helping important projects move forward, but that was the path not taken.

Unfortunately, this body is moving forward in a different way now. With the underlying flaw in the bill, I would imagine it would have very little support from either side of the aisle--namely, prohibiting agencies from promulgating regulation until employment reached, or unemployment, reached 94 percent, which is nonsensical. But even this new bill now, this correction to the bill, which corrects a nonexistent House Resolution 783, which, it has been indicated, needs to be changed. And there was an effort to do that, which was inexplicably withdrawn. No one from my party indicated that they planned to object; they simply reserved the right to object and find out what exactly was going on.

We have found out what is going on. Apparently, the Republicans need to change the resolution that is referenced in H. Res. 741. And I hope they do so. At the very least, then, this bill, while bad policy, will not be nonsensical as it is now, referencing a nonexistent bill. But consideration of all of this is the equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.

Consideration of this rule and this bill and the change to the bill and the change to the rule that changed the bill is all a major time sink while the country has real needs, like a middle class tax cut, like investing in infrastructure and like creating jobs.

The only thing preventing tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses from going into effect now is this House of Representatives. We should not hold these tax cuts hostage to a change to a bill and a change to a rule that changes a bill that doesn't exist. No--a change to a rule to a bill. Well, that's where we are today in the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, this country deserves better. I cannot support this wasteful rule or bill.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 741 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be amended by the amendment I have placed at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, if I might respond to the gentleman from Massachusetts, I appreciate his asking the question because it gives us an opportunity to do a mea culpa. That's my ability to quote Latin this morning in response to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Yes, there was a very minor error in the rule that was passed the day before yesterday, which was that two letters--the letter ``U'' and the letter ``N''--were left off of one word.

Then in preparing the correction for that, inadvertently two numbers were reversed in the number for the resolution.

I don't have a Latin quote from Murphy's law, but I would say that it appears as though, in the attempt to make one correction, unfortunately, another mistake was made. It was purely clerical errors, no nefarious intent.

We would like to move on in as expeditious a fashion as we possibly can because we know we and our colleagues are looking forward to a weekend of work at home, and we would like to move along and get this accomplished so we can get to the important work, the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, we are all human beings. How ironic it is that our colleagues were here just a few minutes ago on the floor discussing the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado. That was as great an example of what great human beings and how bipartisan we can be in this Chamber. It's as great a bipartisan effort as I've seen in a long time. We know what to do as caring human beings, what to say in such situations. It's such a great example of how this body can operate. That group was given 40 minutes to talk about a great tragedy.

Now we're engaging in a gotcha situation over an insignificant issue for which we take the responsibility. I'm frankly embarrassed that the tenor of the conversation is going in this direction after the wonderful bipartisan effort we just saw on this floor. A mistake was made, and then in attempting to correct the mistake, an extraordinarily minor other mistake was made.

I would appeal to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to say: We are human beings. We know how to forgive mistakes. Neither of these mistakes was made by a Member. We're quite willing to overlook mistakes like this in the past. I think in the spirit of comity, in the spirit that was established on this floor this morning, we should move on, get to the work that the American people sent us here for, and understand, as was quoted this morning by one of our colleagues, ``our time is very precious.'' Don't waste it by playing gotcha games. Think about what we discussed earlier.

Mr. Polis and I will debate this rule, and we'll do it in a spirit of comity. That's the way I think we should be operating. Yes, we made a mistake. Yes, a second mistake was made. We acknowledge that. We accept it. Now we'd like to get on to the people's work.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my unanimous consent request.

For the purpose of debate only, Mr. Speaker, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.

During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

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

To quote Rules Committee Chairman Dreier, ``We are here playing out the 21st century version of the great Shakespearean play `Much Ado About Nothing.'''

House Resolution 741 provides for the adoption of the amendment referred to in the resolution which would correct the technical error in H.R. 4078, the Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act.

It's very unfortunate that I must present this rule to the House today. The reason we are here is due to a typographical error. This innocent mistake could have been quickly and easily corrected through a unanimous consent agreement, but, tragically, the Democrat minority could not resist this opportunity to attempt to score political points.

Not a day goes by that I don't hear from constituents disheartened by the rigid partisanship emanating from Washington, D.C. This week, we had an opportunity to demonstrate the kind of cooperation the American people are craving without in any way compromising our principles. It's a shame that the Democrats missed this opportunity, choosing, instead, to force this exercise in futility, tying up this House unnecessarily.

There's not much more that needs to be said on this issue at this point, Mr. Speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I believe that the Murphy's law that was operating on our side of the aisle has skipped over, and the gentleman is referencing the wrong bill.

I believe, again, that the gentleman is referencing the wrong bill. We are dealing with House Resolution 741 at this point, and I believe the gentleman is on the wrong bill.

Mr. Speaker, I think by having the Reading Clerk read this, we can see, as I said before, that, unfortunately, it appears that the mistakes have gone over to the other side of the aisle. As the gentleman would see, he was quoting the wrong resolution. We are dealing with changes to House Resolution 783.

Mr. Speaker----

Mr. Speaker, I just have to point out to my colleague across the aisle that he has added a whole act to this comedy of errors, a whole act.

I know that my colleague in his orientation must have learned the difference between bills and resolutions. Even though our staff attempted to help him and his staff understand this and save an embarrassment, we are not dealing with a House bill; we're dealing with House Resolution 783, which my colleague said does not exist. It is a resolution, House resolution. That is different, Mr. Speaker, from a House bill, which is an H.R., has an H.R. number. So, unfortunately, again my colleague has compounded the situation.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take my colleague's offer--I hope he will fulfill his comment that they won't object to our getting this matter straight and moving on this morning so that we can get to the other business of the House. And with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

That does not exist, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire of my colleague if he believes that his side, in keeping with the theme of Shakespeare, has extracted their pound of flesh this morning? If so, we are ready to close.

I will reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

We're faced here today with trying to correct a couple of very minor errors that have occurred. But my colleague wants us to violate the Constitution by bringing forth a bill from the Senate which the Constitution clearly says is the responsibility of the House, and legislation related to taxes must begin in the House, so I find it a little unsettling that our colleagues have urged us to take up a bill that they know would violate the Constitution. All we're dealing with here are, again, some very minor clerical errors.

Mistakes happen. As silly and as embarrassing they are, but adults take responsibility for their mistakes, and that's what we're doing here. At the end of the day, we'll still pass a bill to cut down on a bloated bureaucracy and to allow small businesses to flourish.

Amendment Offered by Ms. Foxx

With that, Mr. Speaker, I move to amend the resolution with the amendment I have placed at the desk.

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

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I think we should have an explanation here. The Clerk read the technical language; but as I understand it, what happened was that the bill that we were voting on yesterday and will vote on today has an error and gets ``employment'' and ``unemployment'' confused and that this is a bill that would correct the error in the bill that we debated yesterday.

So I wonder, why do we now need a unanimous consent? Are we correcting the correction? It's the old Latin phrase ``Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?'' which means, ``Who guards the guardians?'' I guess the question today is, Who corrects the correctors?

I would yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina if she would explain why we had to get a bill to make a correction and why we now have to have a unanimous consent to probably correct the correction. What is the error? I guess I should ask, What is the error of the day? We know what yesterday's error was. What's today's error?

I yield to the gentlewoman.

Reclaiming my time to say, if that's the

case, if the letters ``U'' and ``N'' were left out, knowing the animosity on that side to the U.N., I can understand why psychologically that would have happened.

I yield again to the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, proceeding on my reservation, I appreciate the gentlewoman's mea culpa. She wasn't here at the time. I would note that it is my predecessor, the late Reverend Robert Drinan, S.J., who was better than I at responding to mea culpas. I won't be able wholly to deal with that.

I do think this is more than simply a double error. It's a matter of haste. I would take exception to the gentlewoman saying, well, it's important that we get this done right away. I think, frankly, the problem has been in these past couple of years, and to some extent before, we haven't met frequently enough. I understand people would like to get back to the districts they represent, but I think that this is emblematic of not having enough time to deal with things.

We are going to be voting, I think, on 20-something amendments today, important amendments on an important bill, that were debated for 10 minutes each late into yesterday evening, no proper airing of very controversial subjects. Indeed, I think this is what happens when you try to do too much too soon.

People on the other side were critical of some of the legislation we passed. The financial reform bill, they said it was too encompassing. But it went through a much more thorough process than this very controversial, even more comprehensive bill that we're dealing with today. The bill that we're dealing with today deals with every single subject that comes before this Congress because it would put severe restrictions on the adoption of regulations about financial reform, about health, about the environment, about occupational safety, about transportation safety.

Yes, it is a problem when you try to do too much too soon. I do not impute any nefarious intent. Let me say under the House rules, you can't impute nefarious intent, even if you think there is some, and I don't think there is any. So for two reasons, I don't impute that. But it does seem to me that this is an example of a flawed legislative process. We're doing this bill, which is kind of a big message bill.

I know there's a lot of criticism on the other side of the United States Senate, but the Senate passed an agricultural bill. This House isn't even going to take one up, a very important agricultural bill. The Senate passed a transportation bill. This House had to go along with a conference without any chance to deliberate on it. The Senate passed a postal reform bill to keep the postal service going, and this House can't take it up.

When we can't do the basic legislation that we should do and we do one of these broad message bills that's overly comprehensive and then we make mistakes, I think it's worth some notice.

I yield to my colleague from New Jersey.

Apparently, that is what was in the bill. They said it was a typo, that the letters ``U'' and ``N'' were left out. I will say there is certain equality here. The day before yesterday, the mistake was letters, and today it's numbers. I suppose tomorrow it will be astrological signs.

I yield to the gentleman.

It's my time. If the gentleman wants me to yield, I will yield.

First, I would note that the error was in the first substantive page. This was not buried somewhere deep in the bill. Just to reinforce the point that a lot of people didn't read the bill, that error was very much in the early part.

Of the first substantive one.

If the gentleman wants me to, I would yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina.

First, as with regards to the tragedy, of course we all come together. But the fact that we can celebrate tragedy does not mean that we put aside, in a democratic body, our legitimate differences. This is not simply a small mistake, but it is a small mistake in a bill that is about as partisan as it gets.

To make a plea for bipartisanship with this excessively partisan bill that is being put through in such a procedurally inappropriate fashion with major concerns about every aspect of the Federal Government, given 10 minutes of debate at 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock at night to be voted on, no, that's a mistake.

Secondly, as the gentleman from New Jersey and I have pointed out, it is not simply that a mistake was made, but

it's a mistake that would easily have been caught earlier if people had read the bill.

And I stress this because when we did some of the other legislation-- financial reform, health care--there was constant repetition of the argument on the Republican side ``You haven't read the bill. Nobody's read the bill.'' Well, you haven't read this bill, apparently, Mr. Speaker. At least not very many people have read it.

And blaming the staff, I never like to do that, because the staff prepares things, but Members sign off on it.

So, yes, we will proceed to this debate, but we are talking here about an indication, an overly broad bill given too little time for consideration. People on the other side--Members, apparently, didn't read it. And that is not a small point. It is symptomatic of where we are.

I will yield briefly to my friend from New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this motion.

Yes.

Mr. Speaker, in 2011, we came to this House for one reason, and it was a motion to recommit. We recommitted to the people of the United States that we were going to change the way business was done in this town. This motion to recommit is a joke. This is ridiculous.

Let me tell you about what it's like to be in the real world and not inside the Beltway. I operate a business that my father started back in 1953, after being a parts picker in a General Motors warehouse, going to fight the war, and coming back home. I called our body shop manager today, Jason Sholes. He's been with me for 26 years. I said to Jason, ``I need to know the cost of tape, Jason.'' He goes, ``What are you talking about, Mike?'' I said, ``In our body shop, when people wreck their car and bring their car in, I know we have to use a lot of tape.'' He said, ``Oh, my goodness. Has the cost of tape gone crazy. We use two types of tape, Mike. We use green tape. Green tape is the tape we use when we have to use water on a job, and we have to make sure that the tape sticks, and that's up to $4 a roll.''

I said, ``Tell me about the other tape.'' He said, ``The other tape is yellow tape.'' I said, ``Tell me about the yellow tape.'' He said, ``That's when we're going to paint a car, and we don't have to use the green tape. The yellow tape is a little less expensive. It's only $2 a roll. But, Mike, I've got to tell you that we're spending $160 a month on tape, and it's really making me wonder about whether I'm doing the right thing.''

I said, ``Jason, we're spending about $2,000 a year on green and yellow tape?'' He said, ``Yes, we are.'' I said, ``Jason, do you know what the cost of red tape is?'' He goes, ``I have no idea. We don't use red tape.'' I said, ``Yes, we do. It's $1.75 trillion.'' That's the cost of red tape.

I called my friend Don Shamey at NexTier Bank. I said, ``Don, we've know each other since we were kids. Our wives know each other, and our kids grew up together. We do a lot of things together. I've done business with you for 40 years. You're right across the street from me. Don, tell me about the new regulations.'' He said, ``Mike, if you take a look at it, there's 1,100 pages now that are the definition of whether you're a qualified borrower or not.'' I said, ``It only took 1,100 pages for the government to determine what the definition of a qualified borrower is? Are you kidding me? Do you mean to sit here and say that you are serious?''

We renovated a ballpark in my hometown with a guy named Tom Burnatowski, a veteran. It took us a couple of million dollars to renovate

our ballpark. The day we were going to open up, I got a call at the dealership where he said, ``Mike, could you come down.'' I said, ``Why? What's going on.'' He said, ``We're having trouble with the occupancy permit.'' I went down to see. I said, ``What's the problem?'' He said, ``Come into the men's room. Let me show you what the problem is.'' I said, ``You know, we have 1,500 people that want to come and see the opening ball game.'' He said, ``But we've got a major problem. The mirrors in the restroom are a quarter of an inch too low. So you can't possibly open that ballpark.''

You want to know the price of regulation? You want to talk about the thousands and thousands of pages that we put on the backs of the job creators? You want to talk about creating jobs in America? When you want to see a Nation that doesn't want to participate but wants to dominate in the world market, then let them rise. Take the heavy boot off the throat of America's job creators and let them breathe.

The jobs we are talking about are not red jobs or blue jobs; they're red, white, and blue jobs. They are not Democrat jobs or Republican jobs or independent jobs or libertarian jobs; they are American jobs. If you want this country to thrive and not just survive, then please start playing the game by the rules and stop this ridiculous mockery of what it is that we do here in this town. We are so out of touch with the American people.

Do you know what all this does? It adds layer, after layer of cost, and that cost is ultimately paid for by the American consumer. You want to have more revenues? Then let the tide rise for all boats. Let us be able to not only survive, but to thrive.

This is not a left or right issue, this is an American issue. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to rise today and vote for H.R. 4078. Let's let America get back to work.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am opposed in its current form.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset, I want to be clear that this final amendment does not kill the underlying bill. It only improves it. So regardless of whether you intend to vote for the legislation or against it, you will have the opportunity to do so today.

In a little more than a week, we will be getting back to our districts for the August work period. Some of us will have the opportunity to sit down with seniors to talk about the issues that affect them. Some will visit job sites or national parks. Regardless of where you go, there are basic protections that ensure the safety and the security of the people you'll meet with.

If you represent a district with a high foreclosure rate, there are commonsense protections that stand between your constituents and predatory subprime lenders. If you represent a district that borders one of our Great Lakes, like I do, there are basic protections that aim to keep invasive species, like Asian carp, out of our Great Lakes, protections that not only preserve and protect our natural species but thousands of jobs and the futures of the people from Illinois to New York. If you represent a district that has even one senior, as we all do, there are critical protections to ensure that their prescription drugs are safe and that the care they get must be safe as well.

In a week, we will all face our constituents, constituents who rely on these protections to stay safe, to stay healthy, and to hold onto their share of the American Dream. What this motion to recommit does is to allow us to recommit ourselves to those essential protections for the people whom we serve.

It ensures, while middle class Americans are paying their fair share and are playing by the rules, that those at the very top can't simply hide their money away in foreign bank accounts, because those who do well in America should do well by America. It also ensures that we have the protections we need to protect the financial futures of our middle class families and that we have cuts for them, for the middle class families--those who really need it.

It ensures that those protections that hold invasive species at bay, while allowing future generations to enjoy America's environmental wonders, will be upheld. It ensures that our prescription drugs for our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, and our grandchildren are safe and that home ownership is still the American Dream, not a subprime nightmare.

If you vote for this final amendment to the bill today, you will be able to honestly tell your constituents that you have voted to protect them, to protect their families, and to protect their futures.

Mr. Speaker, the days left in this Congress are quickly coming to an end. What we have here is an opportunity to accomplish what our constituents sent us here to do nearly 2 years ago--to put politics aside and to put our neighbors first. For the good of our country, let us join together in this moment to pass these commonsense protections.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this commonsense, balanced final amendment to the bill. Then we can immediately vote on final passage.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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