Food and Drug Administration Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 371 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend, the gentlelady from Rochester, New York (Ms. Slaughter), 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.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for the consideration of 10 different joint resolutions, all of which demonstrate House Republicans' continuing commitment to reopen necessary portions of our government.

The rule is a closed rule, which provides for 40 minutes of debate between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for each joint resolution. Additionally, the rule provides for 40 minutes of debate between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for H.R. 3223, the Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act. The rule also provides for a motion to recommit for each bill or joint resolution.

Additionally, the rule extends same-day authority for resolutions reported by the Rules Committee through the legislative day of October 21, 2013, thus continuing to allow the House the flexibility to continue to address the government shutdown. Finally, the rule permits the Speaker to entertain motions to suspend the rules until October 20.

Here we are again, Mr. Speaker--day four of a government shutdown. Unfortunately for the American people, not much has changed. The Senate is still recalcitrant, unwilling to consider legislation that would reopen parts of the government. I do want to add an exception, though, and thank our friends in the upper Chamber for actually agreeing with us to exempt our military from these cuts, both civilian and uniform. The Senate, however, is still unwilling to go to conference to discuss the very serious fiscal issues facing this country. The Senate is also unwilling to consider any of the five pieces of legislation the House passed in the last 2 days, which will reopen parts of our government. Even so, House Republicans continue to bring legislation to the floor to meet the needs of American citizens.

Today's rule will allow for the consideration of resolutions that reopen the Bureau of Indian Education, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Health Service, the WIC program, the National Weather Center, FEMA, our intelligence agencies, Impact Aid, Head Start--and the list goes on and on.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, this rule makes clear our commitment to the 800,000 Federal workers currently furloughed that they will, indeed, be paid. It is not their fault that Washington is dysfunctional in that Congress can't agree on the size and scope of government. Yet they are caught in the crossfire, wondering if they will be able to afford their mortgages and pay their utility bills. Mr. Speaker, that simply isn't fair. H.R. 3223, of which I am a proud cosponsor, would codify what we have done in every previous government shutdown: pay our Federal employees from the date on which the government shut down.

I particularly want to compliment in a bipartisan fashion our friends Mr. Moran and Mr. Wolf, who worked together on this measure, who brought it forward and gathered many dozens of cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. Quite frankly, I think their example of bipartisanship and working together is something that we could all learn from.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats and Republicans alike agree that that's the responsible thing to do. House Republicans are working to deal with the real-world problems of our constituents. Republicans are working to reopen the government. However, we lack a willing partner in the Senate and in the President. Every time we have attempted to negotiate with them, they have told us to accept their plan. They have even rebuffed our attempts to go to conference. Therefore, House Republicans have been left with little choice except that of passing a number of smaller bills to see if the Senate would be willing to accept those. Again, I remark on one occasion, with respect to the military, that they

did, indeed, accept one, so I would urge them to do that with the others.

I urge support for the rule and the underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to address a couple of points that my good friend raises; but before I do, I want to agree with her in that I think we all think the government ought to be open. I, actually, don't think there is much division about that, and folks have actually tried to do that. On our side of the aisle, every single piece of legislation we've brought to the floor during this period has either kept the government open in whole or in part, and I suspect we will continue to try and do that. So it's not the aim of either side here to shut down the government.

In terms of the Affordable Health Care Act, I certainly don't support it--I voted against it, and voted multiple times to repeal it and delay it--but I'll agree with my good friend on that, too, in the sense that there are times when we have actually worked together on both sides of the aisle to change it. My friends like to quite often mention there have been 41 or 42 efforts to repeal, delay, defund the bill; but they usually forget to add--and, quite frankly, some people on our side of the aisle forget to add--that seven of those have actually succeeded, that is, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President agreed with them.

The proposals that we have on the table now in terms of the Affordable Health Care Act are immanently sensible and overwhelmingly popular. To put it quite simply, we just don't think that political appointees and elected officials ought to be treated differently

than other Americans. Now, we can get into a big fight about health care; but the reality is, right now, under the law, Members of Congress and their staffs can bring subsidies with them onto the exchange. No other American can do that. We can do this either way as far as I'm concerned. I could leave them back as Federal employees, and they could be treated like every other Federal employee--that's the acceptable solution to me at least--or we could allow other Americans to bring subsidies onto the exchange just like Members of Congress; but the underlying principle is that we ought to treat them all the same. Washington political appointees shouldn't be treated differently than the average American.

The second thing is, I think, very simple. We're not talking about delaying all of ObamaCare; but if we are going to allow big businesses to wait a year before they implement what they're required to do--if we are going to allow 1,100 organizations and many labor unions to do it-- why shouldn't we allow the average American, at his choice, to delay it as well?

They don't want to delay. They can go onto the exchanges. The subsidies are still there. The tax programs are still there. Why shouldn't the average American have the same privilege that we've bestowed on Big Business, Big Labor, and countless organizations? That's what we're talking about.

To my friend's point here--and I suspect this is true of the debt ceiling a little bit further down the road--the Democratic approach is very simple: do everything I want, and then I'm willing to negotiate. We would like to sit down and talk now and see if we could find some common ground. We've got negotiators, conferees--the technical title-- available to sit down and find common ground. We're not asking for something that is unreasonable, in my view. We're certainly not proposing something that is outside the scope of the type of things we've been able to agree on before.

The President, I want to add, is taking the same approach that the Senate has taken with regard to the continuing resolution with the debt ceiling. He has just simply said we have to raise it unilaterally. That's not a particularly popular vote, probably on either side of the aisle. It's certainly not on my side of the aisle.

I'm willing to work with the President on the debt ceiling. I did it in 2011. And I want to note for the record, that is something he never did when he was a Member of the United States Senate. He didn't vote to raise the debt ceiling when he had the opportunity to do it. Instead, he engaged in a lecture about debt. It probably was a lecture that was needed. Regardless, he did not do for George Bush what he's asking us to do for him.

I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to work with him on the debt ceiling. If you voted for the Ryan budget, you envisioned the debt ceiling as being something that has to be raised while you deal with the underlying deficit. I do want to do something or be in a negotiation with the President about what to do on that deficit. I don't think that's an unreasonable position.

I think the real central issue in this is not the Affordable Care Act, not the debt ceiling, and, frankly, not even the government shutdown, as serious as that is. The real issue is whether my friends and the President of the United States will simply come to the table to negotiate. Will they put a counterproposal out there, or is it simply going to be: We insist in getting our way, in full, all the time? I don't think that's an acceptable way to arrive at common ground, and I don't think it's likely to succeed.

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

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

Just a quick point. My friend is always quite eloquent, and I know, frankly, very passionate and very well-meaning and very expert when he talks about nutrition programs, where he spent a great deal of time.

For the record, it's worth noting that we have increased nutrition programs broadly by 400 percent since George Bush became President. We doubled them, roughly, when Bush was President. Doubled them again since President Obama has been in office. What the Republican program is talking about is a 5 percent cut after a 400 percent increase based on reforms. I think it's maybe not quite so dire.

Again, I recognize my friend's good work in this area and hope that we have an opportunity to get to conference, have that discussion. I suspect the bill, if it comes back, may be closer to his liking than the bill that went out.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Reclaiming my time, the rolls have been going up in a period we're supposed to be recovering. I think we have some genuine problems in this program in terms of reform. Again, that's the initial proposal. It's not out of bounds considering a 400 percent increase to have a 5 percent cutback. We'll wait and see what comes out of the conference committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), my good friend and fellow member of the Rules Committee.

I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend from the great State of Florida (Mr. Mica).

I yield my friend from Florida an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend from Kentucky, the Honorable Hal Rogers, the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Certainly.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, we schedule a conference, we go to conference, and we try to negotiate our differences.

If the gentleman will yield, no, Mr. Chairman, I do not. I would just highly recommend to my friends we do, since it seems to be a good way to resolve our differences.

Mr. Speaker, I have some good news I want to announce here just shortly.

But I want to note, for the record, my friends quite often make the point that they don't like a piecemeal approach. The reality is, if you look at actions, sometimes they do. They like it until they don't.

I would point out we had, of course, H.R. 3210 here, which funded the military, by our good friend from Colorado (Mr. Coffman). I think, in a very bipartisan way, we voted overwhelmingly on both sides to fund the military and most of the contracting and civilian employees.

There is a little disagreement with the administration about that right now, but that's half the discretionary budget taken care of in a ``piecemeal approach.''

Today the administration just announced, and I commend them for doing it, and I commend my friend because she announced she was going to be supportive of this too, and I think we all are. It was very evident in the Rules Committee, H.R. 3223, the Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act.

The administration's just announced that they're going to support that legislation. The President looks forward to signing it, and that's a bipartisan agreement between both sides and, frankly, a product of the work of our mutual good friends, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), who found common ground and, in a piecemeal approach, moved us closer to a solution.

So I think that's maybe not the greatest news in the world, but on a day where there's not as much good as we would all like, some good news. And I would hope my friends would look at the individual pieces of legislation that are coming, where we mostly agree, and accept those.

We don't have to agree on everything, as the point's been made by several, to agree on some things. Those are areas that we do agree. And if we can fund our military in this fashion, and if we can make sure that our Federal employees are not going to lose any pay, retroactively, certainly, one step at a time, we can walk in the right direction and turn back on critical parts of our government. I hope that's what we're moving toward, Mr. Speaker.

So my friend knows, I'm quite prepared to close whenever she wishes to close.

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

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

I want to thank my good friend from New York. She's always a terrific, frankly, counterpoint and debater, and we agree on some things. We both agree that the government shutdown's not a good thing.

Frankly, there's a strong bipartisan agreement. It's not something that either side wished to achieve, and it's something we ought to be working together, step by step, to try and undo; and, frankly, we've made a little bit of progress.

Again, the idea that it never works to work piecemeal, it certainly did with respect to the United States military, civilian defense force, and contractors. That's exactly what we did.

We passed something out of here; and the Senate, which said it wasn't going to agree to anything, magically did.

Now we're going to, hopefully, eventually pass H.R. 3223 out of here to guarantee back pay. I think most people on both sides of the aisle will support that. The President's indicated he'll sign it, which suggests to me that the Senate will probably take it up and move on it. So, voila.

Once again, just working through the process, we've found something that we can agree on. The differences here should not be so great that they can't be bridged.

Just to remind everyone of the history, we have placed multiple offers concerning the Affordable Care Act before the Senate. The last offer seems to me something that we ought to be able to agree on, or certainly be willing to sit down and discuss. It only has two points, and it's basically a question of fairness.

Why should Members of Congress and high appointees in the executive branch and our staffs go into the exchange and be able to bring subsidies with us, when no other American can do that?

It's just not fair.

Now, we could amend the law and let everybody come into the exchanges with subsidies. That would be fair. Or we could say, you know, really, Members of Congress and their staff are at a fundamental level employees of the Federal Government and they ought to be in that, and that would be fair. But let's treat everybody the same.

More fundamentally, currently, the President has unilaterally decided to exempt 1,100-plus organizations. He's unilaterally, in a questionable measure, constitutionally, decided to suspend parts of the law for a year and exempt Big Business.

We think, gosh, if you're going to do that, shouldn't every single American have the right to decide whether or not they want to participate in this for just 1 year until everybody is actually operating under the same system?

That too is a question of fairness. Give every individual American the same relief from a mandate that you're giving Big Business and Big Labor. It just seems to me commonsensical.

It doesn't mean you have to stop the exchanges.

You don't have to undo the program. Just treat everybody the same. Be fair. That's the Republican proposal in front of the Senate right now, and, frankly, I think they probably don't want to discuss it because it's a hard one to say ``no'' to because it's fundamentally fair. And that's all we've asked, is that the Senate, which has rejected it, at least come to conference and talk about it.

The real issue here beyond the questions of policy is whether the Senate is going to be allowed to dictate unilaterally what the House does. Is it just going to say, no, you've to do it our way? We're not going to negotiate. We're not going to go to conference. We're not going to deal with you. You have to do it our way. That's not the way the system was set up.

My friend, Chairman Rogers, pointed that out quite succinctly. We've got a way to handle this. It's called go to conference, argue, and work out the differences. And I suspect we're going to see the same thing a little bit down the road from the President, who's told us and told the Speaker this week, I'm not going to negotiate with you on raising the debt ceiling in the United States. You just have to do it unilaterally. You have to put the country further into debt without any discussion of what we can do to change the trajectory of that debt.

Now, that's a remarkable change from where he was in August of 2011. A remarkable change. He was in a very different place and position and was willing to sit down and talk. I don't know why he would change that now.

So I think we should do something in this bill to build on this piecemeal approach. We should pass these different measures. We agree these parts of government ought to be open; and we should continue to work through, conference with our friends in the Senate and ultimately in negotiation with the President of the United States on the debt ceiling.

And so I urge the adoption of this rule.

In closing, I'd like to, again, say that one of the basic functions of Congress is to fund government. This rule would allow 10 or more pieces of that government to open again to provide for crucial services that they provide. I would urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying legislation.

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

I thank the distinguished gentleman from California, and I thank him for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, what baffles me is that our Republican friends are seemingly acting like there's business as usual, that we are quietly on the floor of the House, just passing a food safety initiative.

Our House is on fire, and there's nobody here to put the fire out. We're in the middle of a government shutdown. Of course I'm committed to the principles of this legislation, as my colleagues, as the ranking member, as the ranking member of the full committee, as Ms. DeLauro and Mr. Waxman are. We are all committed to this.

May I remind my friends that 45 percent of the FDA employees, they are on furlough. Just today, four people in Texas were arrested because of FDA criminal investigators. They were trying to sell stem cell packages to sick people, devastated people, that were fraudulent and diseased and inappropriate to terminally ill people. It was the FDA criminal investigators that were able to make this case and the U.S. Attorney in my district said ``thank you.'' But right now there are U.S. Attorneys across the Nation getting ready to lay off their attorneys.

The House is on fire, and my friends don't seem to understand.

Let me just share with you that there are usually 80 inspections on food facilities a day. They're not going on right now. Up to October 17, there will be some 960 facilities not inspected, and the only reason is that we will not come to the floor, put the clean CR on the floor, and have 195 plus 21 people vote in the majority to open the doors of this government.

But more importantly, have you heard the stories of families whose husbands or wives are laid off, struggling to make ends meet, calling on relatives to be able to help them? You've heard

of the young woman who came to my attention who had to be carried away to a shelter because she was suffering domestic abuse because of the financial crisis; or maybe you haven't heard that 70 percent of Americans and 51 percent of Republicans are saying, We don't like what you're doing, Republicans. We want this government to open.

Or maybe you haven't heard from the Democratic Governor of Kentucky, Governor Beshear, who says that right now 7,000 are already enrolled in the Affordable Care Act. He is saying that he has a report that says that if this Affordable Care Act works, he'll have 17,000 more jobs, $15 billion in the economy.

Let's stop this foolishness with ObamaCare. It's working. Let's get back to work and pass a clean CR. Too many people are hurting. Enough is enough. We need to do what is right for America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on H.J. Res. 77, a piece-meal ``mini-CR,'' which woefully underfunds the Food and Drug Administration, FDA.

Mr. Speaker, this bill would be unnecessary if only the House majority would allow a vote on the clean Continuing Resolution, passed by the Senate. The House would easily pass the measure and the President will sign it, as he reaffirmed today.

H.J. Res. 77 is the latest attempt by the House Republicans to extricate themselves from the mess they created by shutting down the government. But they should have learned by now that it would not work. It is inefficient, unfair, and costly. The shutdown needlessly disrupts the lives of Americans who provide benefits and services and those who depend upon them. These reckless mini-CRs will have the effect, intended or not, of sowing division when unity is needed. It is not surprising, therefore, that responsible leaders of organizations that would benefit from these mini-CRs are united in opposing this piece- meal approach to appropriating.

Veterans groups opposed the `Republican mini-CR for veterans' affairs. Similarly, leading research and consumer protection organizations oppose the FDA mini-CR before us.

For example, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, CSPI, opposes H.J. Res. 77. Although the organization is a health advocacy nonprofit that promotes food safety, the CSPI does not support the piecemeal approach by government that would make funding the FDA a partisan issue because ``the irresponsible shutting down of government and particularly public health agencies like FDA and Center for Disease Control places families at risk from food borne diseases. But opening FDA alone would not solve the problem. Food safety is a joint governmental effort involving 13 different agencies often working collaboratively?''

The FDA is an essential federal agency with the life-saving mission of protecting all Americans from unsafe drugs, devices, biologics, and food.

For example in Texas, three men were arrested and a fourth is being sought by the FBI in connection with what investigators say was a $1.5- million Texas-based scheme to illegally market and sell stem cell treatments to patients with terminal diseases. ``Protecting the public from unproven and potentially dangerous drug and medical procedures is very important,'' said Kenneth Magidson, U.S. attorney for the Houston- based southern district of Texas. ``This office will continue to prosecute violations involving threats to the public health.''

``This indictment demonstrates the commitment of the FDA to protect the American public from the harms inherent in being exposed to unapproved new drugs,'' said Patrick J. Holland, special agent in charge of the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, according to the statement. Due to the shutdown, the FDA is now unable to continue to aggressively pursue perpetrators of such acts and ensure that they are punished to the full extent of the law.

It is important that the FDA is funded as it plays a vital role in protecting consumers from contaminated and misbranded food.

But it is even more important that the entire government be reopened to serve all the needs of the American people.

Due to the shutdown, the FDA will have to cease most of its food- safety operations. That includes ``routine establishment inspections, some compliance and enforcement activities, monitoring of imports, notification programs (e.g., food contact substances, infant formula), and the majority of the laboratory research necessary to inform public health decision-making.''

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspection Service will continue manning every meat facility with full-time inspectors, even as many government programs are halted. But the FDA also oversees the safety of the vast majority of the country's food industry. According to a memo released by the Department of Heath Human Services, the bulk of FDA food inspectors have been deemed non-essential, so few, if any, food facilities will be inspected until the shutdown is over.

This past December, the FDA shut down a nut processor in New Mexico after records showed that the facility was shipping products infected with salmonella. This sort of monitoring and enforcement could become much harder because of the shutdown.

In fiscal 2011, the FDA coordinated or conducted inspections of about 20,000 food facilities for compliance with safety regulations. The number of past inspections suggests FDA officials normally inspect about 8o facilities per business day. So, for every day the government doesn't work, approximately 80 food facilities will go without federal inspections. If the shutdown lasts until October 17, 960 facilities may go without U.S. inspections.

A spokesman from the FDA contacted The Huffington Post on Wednesday to note that a portion of these inspections would be conducted by the agency's partners in state agriculture and public health departments. But he couldn't say how big a portion, or whether the FDA would continue, during the shutdown, to pay state agencies their normal fee for inspections conducted on the FDA's behalf.

To get a sense of what this means, we must understand that the FDA sends letters to food facilities that failed inspections. They reveal gnarly conditions at major food manufacturing facilities, including cooking implements covered in mold and stored in brown, soiled water at a Detroit donut faculty; high levels of illegal drug residues in veal were found from a farm in upstate New York; and flies infesting a tortilla factory in Hagerstown, Maryland.

The warning letters give the facilities in question a chance to correct sanitation mistakes before they cause serious outbreaks of food borne illness. If the commands in a warning letter are not obeyed, the FDA has the authority to punish, or even shutdown, the facility in question.

These warning letters are sent to just a small fraction of all facilities that are inspected, and not all of these facilities have infractions that lead directly to illness. That means, it is impossible to say whether cancelled food safety inspections will directly lead to food consumers getting sick. However, fewer inspections can have a direct correlation to more contamination in the marketplace.

For these reasons, we must end the government shutdown as soon as possible, or, barring that, to fund food safety programs with a separate bill.

The following leading research and consumer groups have urged Congress to end the shutdown completely since they cannot support a legislative approach that shuts down some essential public health agencies while temporarily funding others: American Medical Student Association, Breast Cancer Action, Community Access National Network, Connecticut Center for Patient Safety, Jacobs Institute of Women's Health, National Consumers League, National Research Center for Women & Families, National Women's Health Network, Our Bodies Ourselves, The TMJ Association, WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease, WoodyMatters.

It is not responsible to fund the FDA at the same time that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is unable to fully function to examine the cause of epidemics caused by unsafe food or defective medical products.

Mr. Speaker, if Congress fails to pass a ``clean'' continuing resolution before month's end, FDA inspections will continue to decrease across the nation and the likelihood of consumers becoming ill will increase.

This would be unconscionable.

Normally I would be pleased to be here today to talk about the funding for this program, but this is different. What the majority is doing is playing games with safety of the food supply and the lives of real people--the lives of our families, our friends, and our constituents.

For these reasons, we should be working to pass H.J. Res. 59 as amended by the Senate. That is the best way to keep faith with all persons who serve the American people as employees of the federal government, and the people who depend upon the FDA program.

October 4, 2013.

Hon. John Boehner,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Democratic Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi: We are writing as public

health, patient, consumer, and scientific nonprofit

organizations to oppose H.J. Res 77 and any other efforts to

single out the Food and Drug Administration for funding. Our

organizations represent millions of patients, consumers,

health professionals, and scientists who strongly support

the work of the FDA and urge Congress to provide the level of

appropriations the agency needs throughout FY 2014.

We appreciate the recognition that the FDA is an essential

federal agency with the life-saving mission of protecting all

Americans from unsafe drugs, devices, biologics, and food. We

are very concerned that the current shutdown is curtailing

the agency's work, which will inevitably delay the approval

of new medical products and the inspection of medical

products and food. The shutdown also harms scientists and

other employees who have dedicated their careers to public

service, and will make it even more difficult for the agency

to attract the scientific expertise it needs now and in the

future. And, the shutdown will also have a devastating impact

on some of the companies that rely on FDA reviews to get

their new products to market, and their workers.

Nevertheless, we cannot support a legislative approach that

shuts down some essential public health agencies while

temporarily funding others. For example, it is not

responsible to fund the FDA at the same time that the Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention is unable to fully

function to examine the cause of epidemics caused by unsafe

food or defective medical products.

We strongly urge Congress to do its job: immediately open

up all federal agencies and then quickly work together to get

the FY 2014 appropriations bills enacted into law, based on

the funding levels needed to do their jobs well. These

appropriations bills should not include a sequester or

arbitrary across the board cuts, but rather should give

agencies the authority to cut ineffective programs and

adequately fund those that are essential.

American Medical Student Association; Breast Cancer Action;

Community Access National Network; Connecticut Center for

Patient Safety; Jacobs Institute of Women's Health; National

Consumers League; National Research Center for Women &

Families; National Women's Health Network; Our Bodies

Ourselves; The TMJ Association; WomenHeart: The National

Coalition for Women with Heart Disease; WoodyMatters.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Unless the silent Members of the majority speak up, today's debate is a fait accompli.

For the last 2 days, Members of the majority have said publicly that they wish this government shutdown would end. In fact, a coalition of more than 218 Democrats and Republicans has publicly declared that it is ready to vote on the clean Senate CR. This 218 would be the majority, and we would pass it; and that's why the powerful minority, who has taken the government hostage, is doing all it can again today to prevent the Senate CR from coming to the House floor. It doesn't make any sense. Not only doesn't it make any sense; but, actually, were we to do that, we wouldn't have to be here today, trying to do these piecemeal pieces.

Last night, the Rules Committee proposed a rule for these 11 piecemeal funding bills before us today. They didn't go through a single meeting of a committee. At least, in the committee process, the subcommittees and committees would have given both Republicans and Democrats an opportunity to weigh in on these measures. Remember that half the population of the United States is represented by Democrats and that, in the last election, Democrat candidates for Congress achieved a million more votes than our Republican friends, but we are shut out of the process. Indeed, these bills were written yesterday afternoon and were brought straight to the Rules Committee, as so many are lately, in order to be rushed to the floor.

During our hearing, a colleague promised that the reckless approach would continue, even suggesting that we could see 150 more of these piecemeal bills before the majority agrees to end the government shutdown. That should take us to, maybe, October of next year. Yet, while they're willing to take 150 votes on bills the President would veto--and everybody knows the President would veto them--and the Senate would reject, they haven't allowed a single vote on the cure to the problem: bring up the CR, and put the government back to work.

Fortunately for the American people, no minority--no matter how powerful--can stop the will of the House if we exercise it. Unlike the Senate, a majority in the House can only be held back for so long. Thanks to the democratic spirit baked into our Chamber's rules, the majority will always succeed. For the more than 218 Members--a majority who has expressed a desire to vote on the clean CR--our most powerful tool is voting down the previous question and bringing the clean Senate CR to the floor to vote on.

Now, earlier this week, my Democrat colleagues and I urged the Chamber to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that we could bring the Senate bill to the floor. Not a single Republican joined our cause. Today, we are going to give you another chance. Following the debate on the rule, we will have a chance to vote down the previous question. While that may simply be legislative language to most people, what that will do is give us an opportunity--those of us who very strongly believe this government should work--to bring the CR, bring the shutdown to a close and put everybody back to work. I want to see by the end of this day that we can accomplish that, because words are no longer enough. Those Members of the majority who claim that they want to end the government shutdown get the opportunity today to stand up and vote. As I said the other day when we had the same opportunity, I would like them to put their voting cards where their mouths are.

Over the next hour, I encourage every Member of this Chamber to reflect on the damage that has already been wrought on our Nation because of the shutdown and on the damage that will ensue if we wait another day. The shutdown is costing the Nation $300 million a day, and more than 800,000 workers are furloughed without pay. Today, we are going to vote--and, I think, almost unanimously--to pay them when the shutdown ends. A logical person would say, Why don't you bring them back to work? If they're going to be paid anyway, let them work. There is no answer for that. There must be some reason here that is available to only a few people as to why the majority wants to keep the government shut down.

We have to also end this because our State Department and intelligence employees need to go back on the job. A hurricane is bearing down right now on the State of Louisiana while 80 percent of the FEMA workers are furloughed. NASA had to turn off the Mars Rover, which was giving us so much information about the universe--stopping all the space exploration in its tracks.

I think one of the best things I've read to describe what we are doing in this House was said by a Republican. Because there is no plan here--there is no end game here--he is saying that what they are doing is laying the track ahead of the speeding train as it bears down on them.

The majority started the shutdown because they were dead set on repealing the Affordable Care Act; and I think, by doing this piecemeal, they think they can still do that. Throughout the process, they have issued dire predictions about the health care law and have warned that the law would hurt American workers. It is absolutely turning out not to be true.

In the last week, two of our Nation's biggest companies have responded to the Affordable Care Act by giving tens of thousands of their part-time employees full-time jobs. Guess who they are? One is the largest employer in the United States--Walmart. They are raising 35,000 of their part-time employees to become full-time employees in order to make them eligible for health insurance. Walt Disney announced that 427 employees at Disney World who have been hired as full-time employees will be given access to the health insurance plan. We also hear all the time--and I've really got to research this--that Delta Air Lines has said, they tell me, that the affordable care plan would cost them $100 million a year. I surely would like to know how that's possible unless they plan to hire 70 million new employees, which would certainly be good for employment, but I see no earthly reason for them to do that. We need to know whether that's true or not since all of the rest of the dire predictions have turned out not to be.

The Affordable Care Act is working; but because of the majority, the government is not, and it's time for the majority to give up this losing game. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and on the underlying legislation; and, so importantly, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. Then, Mr. Speaker, we can bring the clean Senate CR to the House floor, as we should have done weeks ago, and end this government shutdown today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I'm so pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), our incredible member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I'm delighted to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 45 seconds.

My colleagues have confused the fact that they have gone around saying how, indeed, throughout August and all the rest of this time, that they don't want to shut down the House, in some hope, I guess, that nobody would understand that when they shut down the House, that they had actually done it.

Now what my colleague is talking about from the Democrat side, what they are saying, let's do what we agree with, they are taking their word for it that you didn't want to shut down the House. So let's not do it. You cannot superimpose that notion onto the idea of setting up this government by dribs and drabs. None of us are for that. The Senate won't do it. You know this is an exercise in futility. But pretty soon, the previous question is coming up. You are going to have a chance to do what you said you didn't want to do, shut down the House. But I understand from what you have said that because of health care, because of health care and what you think it has done to people in your district, you are holding this country hostage.

I don't have the time. My time has been given out.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am feeling quite badly. I didn't know how much time I had remaining.

I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), if he would like.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis) a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that regular order has not been the order of business in this House for a long time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, I believe I've only got one more speaker in the room, so I wanted to inform my colleague that, after Mr. Andrews, I may be prepared to close.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

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

I am absolutely going to vote to retroactively fund the Federal employees because that's the best I can do, on that one issue. It is a matter of basic fairness, but it is not good enough.

The fact is that the Federal employees will not get paid their retroactive money until after all this charade is over. We have no idea when that's going to be.

Let me reiterate again what all my colleagues have said: we can do it right now, put them back to work and let them get their paycheck.

I'm embarrassed every time I pass the Capitol Police at what's happening to them. It bothers me terribly to hear my friends at the State Department say that they're working on fumes.

We cannot run the Government of the United States, which is the beacon of democracy, has been the pattern for countries all over the world, by saying we're going to fund this piece over there and that piece over there, and we don't care what happens to the rest of it. That's not what we are here for.

Certainly, we will fund that one piece; but I can tell you right now, the Democrats are not going to do any of the rest of it because the Senate is not going to take it up and the President is not going to sign it.

We are simply wasting time, and we're taking up valuable time, and we are worrying the country half to death.

For heaven's sake, when we do this previous question, let us do the right thing. Vote ``no'' and get all these folks back to work.

Does it literally make sense to anybody who either manages a household or their own business that we would say to everybody, go home and rest around here or there; we'll pay you later when we decide you can come back, for not being here. That makes absolutely no sense.

Let them go back to work. We're going to pay them. Pay them now for the work they're doing. Pay concurrently with work.

Doesn't that make more sense?

Does it really make any sense at all that we're saying to them, we have no idea what the end game is here. You may be sitting around for a very long time, while the country pays $300 million a day of the cost of the shutdown.

For heaven's sake, I would say once again that we have to do this previous question today. We have to stop this nonsense. It is humiliating us. We cannot go on with this another week.

We're only here today to try to make it look like we're doing something because the government's shut down, and we know it. Those bills that we're voting on today had no committee action, nothing. The Senate has made perfectly clear they're not going to take them up. They will not become law, as every school child knows.

Now, those who vote ``no'' on ordering the previous question will be giving this Chamber what the leadership of the majority has not, and that will be the real chance to vote this down so that we can put the CR on the calendar and stop the shutdown now, today.

It doesn't have to go back to the Senate. The President's waiting for it.

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.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, I beg my colleagues, I do implore my colleagues, for goodness sakes, come to the floor, defeat the previous question. Vote ``no.''

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

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

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

My colleague and chair, Mr. Aderholt, just said that this bill is necessary because funding for the FDA is necessary. He's absolutely right, but this bill doesn't do all that. You cannot just fund one component of government and not have the rest of government. FDA is the Food and Drug Administration. It relies heavily on the Centers for Disease Control. You do nothing to fund the Centers for Disease Control. So as just one critical component of the Federal Government, it isn't the Federal Government, and that's what has been shut down, and so I adamantly oppose this legislation.

We have been here a number of days now with the government shut down because people are trying to use the appropriations process, which is, as every schoolchild knows, the process where the President asks and then the Congress disposes, and we use the Appropriations Committee to dispose; that is, we make the decisions on how much is going to be spent by each agency.

The President came to Congress asking for $1.2 trillion in expenditures. The Republicans rejected that in their budget and came up with a much less budgeted number of $967 billion. This bill on the floor, the big bill, has the Democrats agreeing to $986 billion. That's a $200 billion reduction. That's just amazing. I don't think this has ever been done before where that big of a cut has been made to the Federal Government, and yet we can't pass it.

The Senate has passed it because, as everyone knows, it's a bicameral process, and whatever the President signs has to be passed by both Houses. The Senate has passed over here a clean bill, as we say, which means without all kinds of conditionality. That would go to the President if this House had voted for it. It could go forward tonight. This whole thing--this charade of shutting down government--could be over tonight. All we would have to do is pass what the Senate sent over.

But no, here we go again. Now we're going to take it in piecemeal fashion. Tonight, we bring up the FDA; it's a wonderful organization. I want to point out to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that, since I've been here, in 20 years, we've passed 111 CRs--enacted. In fact, under President Bush, we passed 56. And I'm sure every one of the Republicans passed those; 56, without conditionality. Democrats didn't try to bring down the House. And even under President Obama, so far, we've passed 19 CRs. So why can't we do that now? Why can't we do what we've been doing, this House has been doing for decades, passing a CR to keep government open?

It's certainly not the responsible thing for our committee, and we're very proud of our committee, but a CR is giving up because we haven't passed the appropriation bills that are really the mechanics of how we ought to be spending money. In fact, my distinguished colleague, Mr. Aderholt, has, 94 times, voted for a CR. So I cannot support this piecemeal specialty of the day, just voting for one segment of the Federal Government and ignoring all the rest.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the distinguished ranking member on the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan, Congressman Levin, the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the former

ranking member of the Agriculture Committee and now the ranking member of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

Mr Speaker, how much time do both sides have remaining?

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Congresswoman from Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee, the ranking member on the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee.

I yield the gentlewoman from Texas an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has voted for CRs 19 times since President Obama has been in office, with the whole enchilada, passing them without rancor, without asking the President to negotiate. So there's no reason we can't do that tonight.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California, Henry Waxman, the distinguished ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

I yield the gentleman from California an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Chris Van Hollen, our distinguished leader.

I yield to the distinguished Congressman from Arizona, Ron Barber, for a unanimous consent request.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this piecemeal bill to nowhere that continues to delay and shut down government when we could be passing a bill right now that would keep government open, and it would open it up tomorrow morning; but the Speaker refuses to allow that legislation to come to the floor. He tells the press there aren't the votes.

Let's try it. I dare you. I dare you. Bring it to the floor. Let's see if there are enough votes. I think there are because I think the majority of this body wants to keep the government open and not play these games.

These are games. Never done before. Never done before. Congress has never shut down the government. Yes, it was shut down under Clinton, but it was by a veto. It wasn't for a failure to get them a bill. They're saying, Well, the President has to negotiate. He doesn't have to negotiate.

Under President Bush, we passed 56 CRs with no negotiation. Under President Obama, so far, 19. Almost every Member here voted for those. So you've been voting for CRs continuously for years and years without rancor. What's the difference now? You don't like a bill that passed 3 years ago, and you have to come and break the rules here by getting a waiver so you can bring up these issues on the appropriations bill because you don't want to do it in regular order? This is just insane.

This is insane. We've never done it like this. And the country is wondering what the heck is going on. Well, what's going on is we've just become children in this fight. This is nuts. This is not the way to run a government.

By God, let's get government open. We can do it tonight. Let's bring the bill to the floor and vote on it. Vote against this bill to nowhere.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I am opposed.

Mr. Speaker, this is the eighth time we've made this motion to bring the clean CR to the floor. And what could be simpler than a clean appropriations bill? No riders, no earmarks, no policy changes. I know it's something that my friends on the other side of the aisle have done over and over and over again. In this case, it's even with no increase in spending. It's clean; it's simple; it's the right thing to do.

So why are we here today, day after day, tinkering at the margins? Today we fund one agency; tomorrow it's something else; last Friday it was several others. This isn't any way to run a government, and no one who votes for this bill should think that it is. All this bill does is play favorites, pitting one agency against another for meager government funding.

So I offer this motion to recommit with the hope that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join me in funding, not part of government, not piecemeal government, all of government. Why? Because all Americans deserve a complete government at their service, a full- time government, not a partial government or a sometimes government.

This motion will allow us to pass the Senate version, which is a clean, what we call, continuing resolution, and it would reopen government within 24 hours. Very simple. Just bring it to the floor. Let the vote be what it is.

We've had, as I said earlier, 111 CRs since President Clinton was elected to office. In fact, I have the breakdown right here. We had 36 CRs, continuing resolutions, passed without this kind of conditionality, without the government shutting down--36. Under President Bush, we had 56 CRs passed without shutting down the government. With President Obama, in the years that he has been here, we've already passed 19 CRs without shutting down the government, without rancor, without conditions.

So why are we doing it now? It doesn't make any sense. Nobody can explain this. All Americans want all of their government back, and we can do that. Voting on this motion to recommit, we can get government open.

So I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this motion to recommit. Support our ability to get government back, working for all the people for all the time, not part-time.

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

Point of Order

Mr. Speaker, I request to be heard on the point of order.

Mr. Speaker, doesn't this bill before us fund a portion of the Federal Government?

My motion to recommit would open the entire Federal Government so that all the consumer protections that our Nation provides are guaranteed. We need to open up not just food safety, but we also need to open up the Centers for Disease Control. We need to open up consumer hotlines. Can the Chair explain why it is not germane to open up all the Nation's consumer protections?

Last Saturday, we agreed to pay our workers furloughed during the shutdown. I supported that bill. But what sense does it make to have workers paid to sit at home and not be able to do their jobs? What kind of strange House is this that would force this situation on our fellow workers? You've got to sit at home, but don't worry, you'll get paid?

Mr. Speaker, if you rule this motion out of order, does that mean we will not have a chance to keep the entire Federal Government open today? Can the Chair please explain why we can't keep the entire Federal Government open tonight, now?

Mr. Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the Chair.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 371, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 77) making continuing appropriations for the Food and Drug Administration for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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.J. Res. 77, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Joint Resolution 77, which would continue the funding for the Food and Drug Administration. I think everyone here in the House agrees that funding for the FDA is necessary to this critical operation in order to support our Nation's public health and the millions of jobs associated with FDA activities. Most Members of this body may not realize it, but FDA-regulated industries account for almost 25 percent of the consumer spending in the United States of America.

Fiscal year 2013 ag appropriation included total funding of $4.2 billion; $2.5 billion came from discretionary funds and $1.7 billion from user fees. Of greatest importance is the need to ensure that our constituents continue to consume safe foods and use safe and effective drugs and medical devices. Despite reduced funding levels overall for FY 2013, we were able to provide a strategic increase of $12.5 million for food safety activities and $10 million for food and drug safety inspections in China. These funding increases will continue under a CR.

In addition to the funds appropriated for the FDA, this resolution that we are debating this afternoon would allow FDA to collect and spend drug and medical product user fees. Of course, the fees are charged to the industry to support such lifesaving activities for the review and approval of new and generic drugs as well as medical devices.

This House has already passed a resolution to fund the public health activities at the NIH, and it awaits the Senate's approval. Also, USDA meat and poultry inspectors were deemed critical to our Nation's food supply and have stayed on duty during this temporary delay in funding. It is now time for this body to continue funding one more critical component of our public health infrastructure.

The Food and Drug Administration touches every Member of this House, either directly or indirectly, and we need the entire Agency back at work. We need to also limit any damage to the millions of jobs impacted by FDA's work in the food and bioscience industries.

Now is the chance for my colleagues here in the House to join me in keeping this important program fully operational. I would ask that my colleagues support this resolution that we're debating this afternoon. It will ensure that all critical elements of our Nation's food and drug supply will be protected.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the full Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), who chairs the full committee of Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), the chairman of the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Brooks), who sits on the Homeland Security Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller), who currently chairs the House Administration Committee.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), one of our physicians here in the House.

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that all of my colleagues would join me tonight in supporting House Joint Resolution 77 that has been discussed here over the last hour.

I understand that many of my friends across the aisle would disagree with the majority's decision to immediately fund the most critical function of government during the delay that we have in current funding.

I recognize your preferences for a vote on all the government at one time; but you must recognize the truth of the matter is we don't have consensus in the House. Until the White House and the Senate are willing to sit down and negotiate a quick solution to this stalemate, I ask that my friends across the aisle join me in supporting the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that is on the front lines for our public health on a day-to-day basis.

There are a number of us who would question why nearly half of the FDA is furloughed when nearly all of their work impacts the safety and protection of human life. However, the administration has chosen to cease activities related to food, to medical devices, and to human drug establishment inspections, infant formula notifications, and to laboratory research that are tied to public health decision-making.

Most importantly, I would want to think that the administration is not playing politics with the safety of our Nation's food supply; but why is it that 87 percent of the Food Safety and Inspection Service is on the job while only about half of FDA's food safety staff are actually working, especially when FDA is responsible for 80 percent of the food supply?

As I noted in my opening remarks a few minutes ago, I would speculate that many of our colleagues don't realize how the FDA impacts every single one of our constituents in one way or the other. From formula fed to babies, to blood transfusions needed during emergencies and routine surgeries, to drugs that extend the lives of the sick, to the domestic or imported foods we feed to our families, on every occasion, the FDA is there.

Just 2 days ago, this body voted 407-0 to approve a measure that will provide backpay to furloughed Federal workers. This vote did not impact the critical needs of public health, yet an important vote, nonetheless. I would ask that each of the 407 Members who voted on Saturday for the backpay for Federal workers to now vote in favor of a bill that provides for urgent needs for our public safety and our welfare across the United States of America.

Again, I urge my colleagues to support this joint resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order on the gentleman's motion.

Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order that the instructions that are contained in the motion violate clause 7 of rule XVI, which requires that an amendment be germane to the bill under consideration at the time.

As the Chair recently ruled on October 2, 3, and 4 of 2013, the instructions contain a special order of business within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Rules, and, therefore, the amendment is not germane to the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I insist on my point of order.

Mr. Speaker, I move to lay the appeal on the table.