Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill, which should be called the More Work, Less Pay bill.

As my colleagues know, last week Majority Leader Cantor outlined his party's agenda for the month of May. The words he used to describe it was as a ``full legislative agenda,'' yet here we are only debating this bill on the floor of the House and I think finishing the business of the House around 1:30 p.m. today with plenty of time for Members of Congress to play golf, to go to the beach, whatever they want to do. This is hardly a full legislative agenda.

Let me add, Madam Speaker, that this bill is about overtime. Under this current legislative agenda, Congress wouldn't even come close to qualifying for overtime at a time when we have increasing national needs, balancing the budget, moving forward with jobs and the economy, comprehensive immigration reform. There are so many issues crying out for our attention, but here we are debating yet another bill that not only won't go anywhere, but also would actually make life harder and more unpredictable for American families.

This bill claims to provide working families flexibility, but in reality it allows employers to avoid paying overtime and get interest- free loans from their own employees.

There are many hourly employees who struggle holding two or three jobs, depending on overtime to pay bills, to keep food on the family table. If this bill were to become law, employers would be able to save a couple of bucks by essentially requiring people, in effect, to take comp time instead of overtime pay if they want extra hours.

Many American workers want to work more, not less. Under this bill, people's paychecks would be reduced and people don't have a real choice. It's no wonder that the vast majority of labor unions and workers oppose this bill and are not asking for this bill or this ``kind of help.''

I also want to correct something that has been claimed by my Republican colleagues, that somehow this bill gives private sector employees the same protections as public sector employees. That is not true. Most public sector workers are already protected against arbitrary and unfair treatment by civil service laws. Private sector workers don't have anything like that kind of protection.

That's why my colleague, Mr. Tim Bishop of New York, offered an amendment in committee specifying that private sector employers could provide comp time instead of overtime if they provided the same job security protections that public employees already receive. But this amendment was voted down in the Rules Committee yesterday, and we're not even allowed here on the floor of the House, where we're going to finish by 1:30 p.m., to have a debate. Somehow, there is not even enough time. Ten minutes is all we asked for on Mr. Bishop of New York's amendment.

Madam Speaker, the presentation of this bill is not consistent with the content of the bill. Of course it sounds good. Why wouldn't employees want the choice of being able to choose how they take their time? It all sounds good.

But like so many things that Congress does, the devil is in the details.

Contrary to what this bill says, employers can already give their employees time off if they so choose. Many do. We had Representative Joe Courtney in our Rules Committee yesterday who talked about when he was in the private sector and he had employees who had to attend school meetings, et cetera, he gave them time off. That's what most responsible employers do. We don't need legislation to tell employers it's okay to give their employees comp time.

Contrary to what the majority party here in the House says, employees wouldn't get paid under this bill until the end of the year for saved comp time--at no interest. No interest. So effectively, an interest- free loan to the company. Let's say an employee does overtime, works 45 hours a week for 3 weeks, accruing 15 hours of overtime. If they want this so-called flexibility that's provided under this bill, they choose to say, ``I may use this as comp time.'' That's their choice. However, they pay dearly for that choice in a number of ways.

Number one, if they don't use that comp time after a year, they get paid the original amount by the company. While it is true that if they got a raise in the intervening period, they get paid at that level of the raise, there is no accounting for interest or the net present value of those dollars. That's less of an impact when inflation is 1 or 2 percent, but still, it's an interest-free loan to the company. There's a much greater impact should interest rates ever return to their historical norms. And it wasn't that long ago that interest rates were in the high single digits, even double digits, effectively taking money from the worker and giving it to the company.

Number two, let's say the employer does want to use this comp time. Effectively, the employer has a unilateral veto over that. All they have to do is show that it creates undue disruption. That's the standard of unilateral employer veto.

Now, this is nothing like what occurs under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the FMLA. We've heard them say it's the same; it's not. Under FMLA it's a factor that leave doesn't create undue disruption. There's a variety of factors. It's not a sole determinant as determined by the employer.

In this case, the language is wide open to effectively provide a complete veto right of when that employee takes their time off. So again, our friend works 45 hours a weeks for 3 weeks, accrues 15 hours of overtime, and they get sold on this program. They say, ``I'll set aside the 15 hours.'' They try to take it off for their kid's birthday, they try to take it off when their kid is home from school. The employer says, ``No, you can't take it off that week.'' So it turns out that at the end of the year they still have their 15 hours.

They finally get paid, but because of net present value and interest, they are out 2 or 3 percent of that. Again, with higher interest, they could be out 10 percent. They could be out 15 percent of that. We can and must do better for American workers.

This bill would have a devastating impact for workers in my home State of Colorado. Me and my staff talked to Debbie Olander from United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 7. Debbie is a leader in our community, and she told me that wage step is already a big problem for workers in Colorado, and this bill would make it easier for employers to avoid overtime obligations and make it harder for employees who need those hours to pay those bills.

What happens if the employer goes out of business in the intervening year? Of course, the person whose wages are due can line up with other creditors, but who has the time or, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, the ability to wait to see if you ever get paid by a bankrupt employer? Instead of improving the lives of working families by giving greater flexibility, this bill allows employers to avoid paying overtime.

My Democratic colleagues on the Education and Workforce Committee and I agree that we must give working families flexibility to meet workplace and family needs. That's why we support bills like the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would help ensure that women are paid as much as men in the workplace, and the Healthy Families Act, which would establish a national paid sick day standard.

I've also heard from hundreds of workers from my district and across the country who support the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In more than half of the States, it's still perfectly legal in this day and age for an employer to fire an employee just because they're gay and what they do in their off work time. It's none of the employer's business who an employee is dating. To think that in this day and age it's legal in half the States for an employer to fire an employee because of who they're dating is absolutely absurd. We need to solve that by passing the Employment Nondiscrimination Act.

American workers are asking for these kinds of protections, unlike this sort of program that's being discussed today, which workers oppose or don't see as necessary. Well, you know, based on again the schedule for Congress, me and my colleagues aren't about to accrue any overtime anytime soon unless things change around here. Here we are, examining bills that are catchy, have good titles, might sound good on the surface, but don't address any of the real issues faced by American workers, the American economy, or our country as a whole. We need an agenda that's consistent with the needs of working families.

Madam Speaker, despite this fixation on changing the image and appealing to voters, many on the other side of the aisle seem to be recycling old ideas. In fact, an identical version of this bill was introduced in 1996, 1997, and 2003. It failed to pass the House each time. Madam Speaker, what this body needs is not just new branding, it needs new ideas, ideas that will actually help working families and make our country stronger.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Before further yielding, I yield myself a moment to respond.

I thank the gentlelady for the correction. What I was referring to is the vote in the Rules Committee yesterday on an open rule which we voted on in committee. Had we considered this bill under an open rule, I or Mr. Bishop, or any other Member of this body, could have brought forth his amendment.

You're correct, it was not submitted to the Rules Committee. It was offered in the committee of jurisdiction, on which I also serve. And I argued, you might recall, to the chair yesterday that this bill is a fine candidate for an open rule. Given that there's nothing else this body's doing today and we're getting done at 1:30, we might as well allow amendments like Mr. Bishop's and others to be able to be debated by the House and considered by the full House.

I also want to discuss something that the gentlelady said, something about how a mischaracterization of the opponents of this bill is somehow saying the private sector is bad or the government's good. I haven't heard anybody argue that. The private sector is great. The private sector is a chief engine of economic growth. This discussion is about the private sector.

In fact, it's the other side that's somehow trying to model policies that they say already exist in the public sector and force the private sector to comply with them. We're not here seeking to try to copy what exists in the public sector and apply it to the private sector. The private sector is the primary engine of economic growth.

I think where perhaps we disagree is that I hear from many on the other side that somehow government is bad. I believe, and many on my side believe, that the minimum amount of government is necessary to ensure the success of the private sector, to ensure the rules are followed and there's an open and competitive environment that allows the private sector to thrive and succeed and create jobs for American families.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 377, Representative DeLauro's Paycheck Fairness Act. To discuss her bill, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Before further yielding, I want to address this fallacious concept that the gentlelady from North Carolina has brought up in previous debate as well as this one that somehow the White House discriminates against women. Again, that's been proven as untrue. We actually have a young lady on our Rules Committee staff who worked for the White House and tells us she earned the same amount as men.

Of course, for the same job, women get paid the same amount. That's what paycheck fairness is about. It doesn't say if you do a different job you get paid the same amount, and it doesn't mean that every man and every woman is compensated the same. It's just for the same job, same pay. As for the Obama administration, every one of their actions and the White House's actions have been consistent with that. We believe it should apply to the private sector because, of course, not every woman in the country has the privilege of working for the White House.

We're talking about American families with real private sector jobs out there, not these government jobs that the other side keeps alluding to.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps.)

Before further yielding, I want to again address this great and sudden desire that the gentlelady from North Carolina has expressed to make sure that government policies apply to the private sector, to try to say somehow the way that government employees are treated needs to be the way that every private sector employee is treated. Usually it's the private sector that leads the way, not Big Government like the gentlelady from North Carolina is arguing. In fact, it's even a misinterpretation of what the public sector does.

The public sector has civil service protections for its employees. That's something that doesn't exist in the private sector. That's why, if we had been able to, under an open rule--which we don't have because, of course, somehow this body has to finish up by 2 p.m. so everybody can go home. But if we were allowed to have an open rule and actually bring forth amendments on this, we would be able to introduce Mr. Bishop's amendment, which would have facilitated this discussion of, well, if it's good enough for the goose, it's good enough for the gander. If the Republicans are so keen to apply public sector personnel policy to the private sector, then why not apply civil service protections to the private sector?

Again, the truth of the matter is there's a night-and-day difference between the types of protections and policies that public sector and private sector employees have. One of the goals of the Civil Service Act was to add a degree of professionalism to public sector jobs, to take away the patronage components that had a corrupting influence on the system. By and large it succeeded in that goal, to its great credit. It's a very different set of rules that we have with regard to the private sector.

So, again, I think that that is, to a certain degree, a false analogy, and I hope that the information I provided helps correct that in the eyes of those who are listening.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), a colleague of mine.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

I would just like to indicate I have one remaining speaker.

With that, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close.

I would like to inquire if the gentlelady has any remaining speakers.

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

First of all, conflating somehow paycheck fairness with compensation of women at the White House is comparing apples and oranges.

Nothing that we are supporting or that the Paycheck Fairness Act includes says that women and men should all be paid the same regardless of what their job is. It simply says ``equal work, equal pay.'' There's no evidence in the Daily Caller or anywhere else that for the same job, in the White House or anywhere in the administration, that women are paid less. They are not.

Even if you had paycheck fairness--again, we passed our law; it becomes the law of the land in the private sector--it doesn't mean every woman gets the same pay as every man. It simply means that for the same job men and women get the same pay. It is quite possible there could still be a differential either way. There's not a problem with that. It depends on what jobs people have. But for the same job, it should be the law of the land, just as it has been President Obama's policy that men and women receive the same pay.

Mr. Speaker, this bill, the ``more work, less pay bill,'' is yet another attempt to roll back workers' rights under the guise of doing just the opposite.

I wish we were here talking about things that would benefit American families like the Paycheck Fairness Act to ensure women receive equal pay for equal work; making sure that people can't be fired from their job just because of who they date. It is none of the boss's darn business.

But instead of collaborating with Democrats to produce a compromise bill we can be proud of, instead, this House is considering a bill that would

weaken over time and is nearly identical to bills that have failed in three prior Congresses.

There are many measures that we could be taking up to help grow the economy, reduce the deficit, create jobs, invest in the middle class, replace our broken immigration system with one that works; but this bill is none of those.

I wanted to point out and highlight the work of the Democrats on the Educational and the Workforce Committee. The Web site is Democrats.edworkforce.house.gov. They produced a video that shows exactly what this ``more work, less pay'' legislation is.

Mr. Speaker, I support giving American workers and families more flexibility. There could be a way to work together; but, again, this body has not done so. It does just the opposite. Instead of having an open rule under which many of us could bring forth amendments to discuss, Democratic Members offered several sensible amendments, which were rejected by the House majority, both in the committee of jurisdiction and the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 377, Representative DeLauro's Paycheck Fairness Act, of which I am an original cosponsor.

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 to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so we can bring up the Paycheck Fairness Act. I urge a ``no'' vote on this restrictive rule and the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 198 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, 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

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

House Resolution 198 provides for a structured rule providing for consideration of H.R. 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013.

Madam Speaker, it's hard to raise a family and earn a living at the same time. The reality is that every hour you spend working to provide for your family is an hour you can't spend with your family, seeing your children off the first day of school, taking them to a doctor's appointment, or attending parent-teacher conferences. As a mother who worked while my daughter was growing up, I understand the firsthand

struggles of working parents. That is why my colleagues and I have introduced H.R. 1406, the Working Families Flexibility Act.

This commonsense legislation will allow private sector workers to choose paid time off instead of cash wages as compensation for working overtime, which is the same privilege that Federal, State, and local government employees have been able to choose for over 30 years.

The Working Families Flexibility Act is pro-family, pro-worker legislation that gives workers the flexibility to spend time with family, attend parent-teacher conferences, care for aging parents, or attend to other family needs that may arise.

If an employer and an employee agree on comp time, then the paid time off must be granted at time-and-a-half for each hour of overtime worked. Labor unions support flexible overtime compensation for their own members, and this benefit is already included in many public sector union collective bargaining agreements.

The flexible approach offered by this bill has worked for public sector employees since 1985. If the policy works for our public service employees, it will work for our private sector employees, as well. Fair is fair, Madam Speaker.

The bill maintains protections for workers to ensure that this new flexibility is not abused by making the decision to receive comp time completely voluntary and allows an employee to change his or her mind if he or she initially chooses comp time but later decides to receive cash wages for overtime. All existing protections in the Fair Labor Standards Act remain in effect under this legislation, and it is up to the employee when he or she decides to use accrued comp time. Additionally, an employee cannot be intimidated, coerced, or otherwise forced to accept comp time in lieu of cash wages for overtime.

The legislation also maintains all existing enforcement remedies for employees if an employer fails to uphold the agreement, and employers must provide 30 days' notice to employees if comp time will no longer be offered.

H.R. 1406 provides proper protection and flexibility for employees and will help American workers better balance the needs of family and the workplace. I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to the gentleman from Colorado.

Madam Speaker, this bill sounds good because it is good. This is the theme from our colleagues across the aisle: everything about the private sector is bad; everything about government is good. That is their constant theme. This bill allows voluntary participation by employees. It does not require things.

I would also like to point out to my colleague from across the aisle, who is very quick to point out any mistake that I might make, is we did not have an amendment from Representative Bishop in the Rules Committee yesterday. Representative Bishop's amendment was offered in the Education Committee, but was not offered in the Rules Committee yesterday.

I would also like to say that government employees do not get interest paid on the time that they eventually get paid for instead of comp time, so we are not setting up a double standard here. What we're trying to do is eliminate a double standard, again, that our colleagues across the aisle love to have--bash the private sector.

Madam Speaker, we live in the greatest country in the world, and what made us a great country? Look at the rest of the world. What's made us a great country is the rule of law, which means we believe everybody should be treated the same way. It's our capitalistic system which has worked wonderfully well for this country, and every other system has failed all across the world. We don't need to do much but to look at what is happening in the rest of the world and how sorry their economies are, and it's our Judeo-Christian underpinnings. Those are the things that I think have made us great, Madam Speaker, and this bill will allow us to give people who work in the private sector, which is part of what's made us such a great country, the same privileges that people get who work in the public sector.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the gentlewoman from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler).

Mr. Speaker, I would believe that the comments of my colleague from Connecticut would be a little more sincere if she would direct the issue of pay disparity to the White House. The White House needs to do something about pay disparity. If we had leaders who led by example, then the White House would straighten out the pay disparity that exists there.

Also, my colleagues don't seem to want to talk about the bill before us today because it is such commonsense legislation. They have no real arguments to offer about defeating it, so they want to distract the American people onto other issues.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).

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

As my colleague from California knows, I am very fond of her and respect her a great deal; but I want to say that this bill is not a bad bill. This bill does not roll back the rights of workers at all.

And if the bill is so bad and what it does is give fairness to people in the private sector and it gives to the people in the private sector the same rights and privileges that people in the public sector have, then why are my colleagues not trying to roll back those rights for the public sector? It would make sense that all the horrible things they've said about this bill which apply to the public sector you would want to protect the public sector.

But that's not what my colleagues are doing. They're simply saying it isn't right to let the private sector employees have the same rights and privileges that public sector employees have. It doesn't make any sense for them to make that argument. It just doesn't make any sense to do that.

Mr. Speaker, the Working Families Flexibility Act makes it easier for American workers to juggle the needs of family and the workplace. That's what it accomplishes.

I want to urge the people watching this debate to read the bill. Unlike the thousand-page bill that came out that people have to ``wait until it passes'' before they understand what's in it, before we understand what's in it, this bill is basically 8 pages long. Any American can read this bill and understand it. So I would say to you, if you doubt what we are saying on our side of the aisle, read the bill. That is the best way for the American public to be informed.

Mr. Speaker, as we consider it, there are some things to keep in mind.

First, it in no way undermines longstanding essential worker safeguards or forces workers to give up overtime pay if that's how they choose to be compensated. It simply provides an additional level of flexibility that government workers already enjoy. I don't know how many more ways we can make that point, Mr. Speaker, but we will continue to do that.

Further, the bill does not allow employers to bully employees into picking comp time over cash payment. It provides new important safeguards to ensure that the choice to use comp time over cash wages is truly voluntary. Employees can change their minds and request overtime cash payment in lieu of unused comp time.

For employees represented by a labor organization, the labor organization and the employer must first reach an agreement to provide this benefit before the employee can choose to exercise it. For an employee who is not a member of a labor organization, the agreement is between the employer and the individual employee and must be entered into knowingly and voluntarily by the employee and may not be a condition of employment.

The bill does not change the 40-hour workweek or how overtime is currently calculated and accrued, and it does not affect comp time provisions regarding employees of Federal, State, or local governments.

Mr. Speaker, in fiscal year 2012, IRS employees accrued 246,450 hours of comp time in lieu of overtime pay. That amounts to 30,806 full 8- hour days. Employees at the Department of Labor accrued 51,097 hours of comp time, or 6,387 full 8-hour days. Employees at the Department of Education accrued 12,408 hours of comp time, or 1,551 full 8-hour days.

It's clear that Federal employees appreciate this flexibility. What is unclear is why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so hell-bent on denying private sector employees this same flexibility. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

We hear the word ``fairness'' from the other side of the aisle constantly. This bill is fair, Mr. Speaker. H.R. 1406 simply affords private sector employees the same flexibility that Federal, State, and local government employees have enjoyed for over 30 years. It is unconscionable to me that our colleagues would vote against this and say you should be a second-class citizen if you work in the private sector.

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

Mr. Speaker, I assume the gentleman from Colorado has additional speakers, but at this time I would like to reserve the balance of my time.

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

A little while ago we had a debate about the pay in the White House. I have an article from the Daily Caller that I would like to enter into the Record, and I will quote briefly from the article. The article is dated January 15, 2013, posted by Caroline May:

While President Obama handily won the women's vote by 11

percentage points in November over Republican nominee Mitt

Romney, his administration paid the women on his payroll less

than his male employees last year.

A Daily Caller analysis of the administration's ``2012

Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff'' shows that

while women comprised about half of the 468 staffers--as the

President touted during his press conference Monday--they

also earned about 13 percent less, on average, than their

male counterparts.

The median 2012 salary for female employees of the White

House was $62,000; for men that number was $71,000.

The article ends with a quote from New York Democratic Representative Charlie Rangel. He, however, called Obama's failure to appoint more women and minorities to high-profile positions ``embarrassing as hell.''

``The questions I've heard are fair,'' Rangel said January 10 on MSNBC. ``The record does speak for itself.''

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

[From the Daily Caller, Jan. 15, 2013]

Obama White House Paid Women Staffers Less Than Men in 2012

By Caroline May

While President Barack Obama handily won the women's vote

by 11 percentage points in November over Republican nominee

Mitt Romney, his administration paid the women on his payroll

less than his male employees last year.

A Daily Caller analysis of the administration's ``2012

Annual Report to Congress on White House Staff'' shows that

while women comprised about half of the 468 staffers--as the

president touted during his press conference Monday--they

also earned about 13 percent less, on average, than their

male counterparts.

The median 2012 salary for female employees of the White

House was $62,000; for men that number was $71,000.

The DC calculated the median male and female salaries by

determining employee genders based on their names. In cases

where the gender was not clear, The DC either identified the

specific employee in other ways or--in a few cases--assigned

gender based on the most common use of a given name according

to databases of baby names.

The 2012 pay disparity represented an improvement from the

disparity in 2011 figures the Washington Free Beacon reported

last year. According to that analysis, the median female

compensation in the White House was $60,000--$2,000 less than

in 2012--and the male employees' median was unchanged at

$71,000. That amounted to an 18 percent difference.

In his statement last year declaring April 17 Equal Pay

Day, Obama lamented the pay disparity between men and women

in America, echoing the well-worn yet often-questioned

statistic that ``women who worked full-time earned only 77

percent of what their male counterparts did.''

He pointed to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which made

it easier for women to sue for lost wages due to pay

discrimination, and to the creation of the National Equal Pay

Task Force in 2010, as examples of the administration's

commitment to equal pay.

``At a time when families across our country are struggling

to make ends meet, ensuring a fair wage for all parents is

more important than ever,'' the president said. ``Women are

breadwinners in a growing number of families, and women's

earnings play an increasingly important role in families'

incomes. For them, fair pay is even more than a basic right--

it is an economic necessity.''

Obama's White House female employees achieved a slightly

better 87 percent of what their male counterparts earned,

compared to Obama's national 77 percent figure.

In recent weeks Obama has come under fire for the

composition of his inner circle--initially sparked by an

official White House photo of the president published by The

New York Times in which he was surrounded by all men. His

nomination of white men to all four second-term cabinet

positions so far has also drawn criticism.

Establishment media outlets and women's groups have been

troubled by the apparent lack of female leadership and

diversity the administration has exhibited so far--with the

National Organization for Women demanding to know ``President

Obama, Where are the Women?'' Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan and

Gloria Steinem, all co-founders of the Women's Media Center,

have pressed Obama to adopt an inner circle that looks more

like American.

``[Obama] wouldn't have been re-elected without 55 percent

of the women's vote, something he earned by representing

women's majority views on issues, yet now he seems to be

ignoring women's ability to be not only voters, but

leaders,'' the trio wrote Friday in a CNN website essay.

NBC's Andrea Mitchell noted Sunday on ``Meet the Press'' that

women inside the White House ``are not happy'' with the male-

dominated face of Obama's administration.

Monday, Obama addressed some of the criticisms about the

composition of his cabinet, saying that it is too soon to

``rush to judgment'' and that women were influential

throughout his first term.

``So if you think about my first four years, the person who

probably had the most influence on my foreign policy was a

woman,'' Obama said. ``The people who were in charge of

moving forward my most important domestic initiative, health

care, were women. The person in charge of our homeland

security was a woman. My two appointments to the Supreme

Court were women. And 50 percent of my White House staff were

women. So I think people should expect that that record will

be built upon during the next four years.''

We have no further speakers, Mr. Speaker, and I am willing to close after the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. Speaker, we are very proud of this bill. I can't understand why our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so opposed to fairness when fairness applies to the private sector.

I would like to point out to my colleague that we would have entertained amendments in the Rules Committee had they been germane or if they had not been withdrawn. As he well knows, being a member of the Rules Committee, the amendments that were introduced by his colleagues were withdrawn before the committee had an opportunity to consider the amendments or were ruled nongermane.

I also assume that, based on the comments our colleagues have made across the aisle, that because the rights and privileges that are given to public employees are so horrible that they cannot be extended to the private sector, that they will probably be introducing a bill to withdraw those rights and privileges because they're only hurting public employees, and our colleagues don't want to be hurting private sector employees.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are committed to providing more opportunities for more Americans and helping make life work for more families. This legislation is a great step in that direction.

The rule before us today provides for consideration of a bill that gives employees across the country the flexibility that they deserve so they can better manage the many daily challenges of family life. Whether the employee is a new parent who wishes to stay at home with a newborn, a proud aunt who wishes to attend her nephew's baseball game, or a son or daughter who wants to care for an elderly parent, America's private sector employees should be able to determine for themselves what to do with the overtime compensation that they have earned.

Therefore, I urge my colleagues to vote for this rule and the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be back on the floor once again. I won't take a whole hour here, but I wanted just to talk about something that is so very important to America and, really, to the future of this country.

I like to start these discussions with what are we all about? What should we really be thinking about?

I find myself often going back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt during a very difficult time in America's history, the Great Depression. He put forth a principle, if you would, a values statement of what he was about and really what this country could and should be about.

He said the test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

It is a values statement. It is a statement of what I like to believe I am here for, to deal with this profound, important issue in this, another period of stress for the American family.

We often find ourselves here on the floor, and I do this almost all the time, talking about this subject, the subject of Making It in America. This is a manufacturing strategy for America, and in this strategy there are many elements that we spend time on the floor talking about and legislation that we push here dealing with how to revive the manufacturing sector, and in doing so, give the American family, the American middle class, an opportunity that it once had: to find a good-paying job, to be able to make it in America with their family, to provide for a home, for food, for clothing, for education, vacations, sort of the American Dream, to be able to do those things. They knew that if they would work hard they would be able to make it.

Well, one way of achieving that is with this strategy of rebuilding the American manufacturing sector to make it in America, whether that is manufacturing food, as occurs in my district--it is a big agricultural district--or some of the new technologies of biotechnologies of one sort or another.

The high-tech industry, the automotive industry is coming back, and indeed, for a variety of reasons, some of it had to do with on our legislative agenda. We are seeing the revival of the American manufacturing sector. Good, wonderful. That is where the middle class jobs will largely come from.

There are various pieces of this. There is the trade policy, and there is much debate here on the floor now and in the months ahead about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a new trade deal. Is it going to be fair trade or free trade?

We don't need free trade. What we need is fair trade.

The tax policies--certainly we see this in the kind of tax breaks that are out there. Does the oil industry need additional tax breaks?

Their incomes, which are the largest profits in the world, do they need to be supplemented with American taxpayer money?

Right now they are, the Big Five: $6 billion a year of American taxpayer money going to them.

We talk about tax policy, talk energy policy, but I want to really focus this evening on these two issues, labor and education.

We will leave aside the research issues--which are fundamental to future economic growth because you have to be out ahead, and that is where research comes in--and the infrastructure, which I will weave into this.

But I really want to focus on labor and education. And I want to focus on a very important part of this equation, this very important part about the middle class and those who want to be in the middle class.

Specifically, I want to talk about women, and I want to talk about a women's economic agenda, about why this is critically important not just to women and their children and the families, but also to America and to America's future.

We know that the American family has changed. We know that, over the years, more and more families are raised by a single parent, and in most cases, that is a single mother. And so a women's economic agenda is critical for those children.

It is also critical for the American economy because, when women succeed, America succeeds. This is a theme we are going to spend a lot of time talking about. We are going to talk about women in the American economy and their success.

And here are three of the principles that we need to talk about. America's success is dependent upon the success of women because women are a major part of our workforce today, and they are a major part of the poverty issue in America.

One in three women in America are living in poverty or are teetering on the brink of poverty. That is 42 million women, plus the 28 million children who depend upon them.

And the American family has changed. Today, only one in five families has a homemaker, a mom that is a stay-at-home mom, and a working dad. Two out of three families depend on the wages of the working mom. Two out of three families depend upon the wages of the working mom who is struggling to balance caregiving as well as breadwinning.

The average woman continues to be paid just 77 cents for every dollar that a man working in the same job, the same skill sets, and the same amount of time at that job earns, so the living wage and equal pay for equal work is critical.

The average African American woman earns 64 cents compared to a man doing that same work, and an average Latina earns 55 cents. This is a huge problem for those individuals. It is also a huge problem for the American economy because a large portion of the American workforce is held back by simple discrimination, obviously discrimination based on race.

An African American woman, a Latina woman, 55 percent of the wage that a man would earn in that same job, or 64 percent for an African American woman. It is discrimination, for which there ought to be no place in America.

Closing the wage gap between men and women would cut the poverty rate in half. Closing the wage gap for an African American woman, for a Latina woman, for a European woman would reduce the poverty rate in America by 50 percent.

Is this on the agenda for America? Is poverty on the agenda? You would think so, listening to the debate on the floor of the House of Representatives. How do you close the gap? End wage discrimination. That is how you do it.

This is not a new issue. This is an issue that has been with us at least for the last 60 years. President Kennedy talked about this in the early part of his all-too-short Presidency.

Women make up nearly two-thirds of the minimum wage workers in America, and a vast majority of these workers receive no paid sick days, not one, not one paid sick day; yet these are the mothers, these are the mothers that have the children, and these are the children that get sick.

So what is that mother to do? She might very well lose her job. Even though she is earning less than a man, she might very well lose her job when she does what every mother wants to do, and that is to care for their sick child.

More than half of the babies born to women under the age of 30 are born to unmarried mothers; and most of those mothers are White, a single-parent family and a woman, a White woman earning 77 cents doing a job that a man is paid a full dollar.

There is something wrong with this, and this is something that the House of Representatives and the Senate must deal with, and I am sure the President would sign that bill.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans and 85 percent of the millennials believe that the government should adapt to the reality of single- parent families and use its resources to help children and mothers succeed, regardless of their familial status.

An overwhelming 96 percent of single mothers say paid leave in the workplace policy would be the most help to them, and 80 percent of all Americans say that the government should expand access to high-quality, affordable child care.

A living wage, equal pay for equal work, paid family and medical leave, and affordable child care, this is an agenda. This is the Democratic agenda; this ought to be the Republican agenda; and it surely ought to be the American agenda, because when women succeed, America succeeds.

Three things that have been on the agenda for America for a long time and that are obviously not yet done. A living wage, this is the minimum wage issue. This is swirling around the congressional debate. Should there be a living wage, a minimum wage, a minimum wage of $10.10 for every American? What would it mean to women? It would mean that half of the women in poverty would no longer be there.

When you couple it with equal pay for equal work, suddenly, you have an American agenda where we can go after poverty, where the great debate about the equality of opportunity in America is addressed, where the equality and the wage disparity is addressed, where we can make some real progress in dealing not only with poverty, but also dealing with the well-being of our children.

We are in America, where one out of four American children go to bed hungry. You want to deal with that issue? Then you deal with a living wage and the minimum wage issue, $10.10, which is actually just about equal to what the minimum wage was when Ronald Reagan was Governor of California, long before he became President, and then you pay equal for equal work. This is an agenda that ought to be the American agenda.

Here is a little bit more on it. The challenge, the gender pay gap, where an African American woman earns 64 percent, or 64 cents, of what a male would be paid for in that same job, where a Latina earns 55 cents for what a man would earn doing that same job, and where, on average, across this Nation, it is 77 cents, the gender pay gap.

The Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 377, raise the minimum wage, H.R. 1010--which, by the way, ought to be $10.10--these bills have been introduced. These bills have strong Democratic support. These bills are not heard in those committees that our Republican colleagues control.

It is time for these bills to be taken up. It is time for America to end the gender pay gap with H.R. 377. It is time for the minimum wage to become, once again, equal to what it was in purchasing power when Ronald Reagan was Governor of the State of California in the 1960s, H.R. 1010, $10.10 an hour for every worker in America, wherever they are, whether they are a woman or a man.

Working family, how is a parent to care for their children? If you care about family values, this is important. This is important if you care about family values. What is a working mother to do? Remember, roughly half of the American families are now headed by a single woman.

If that child gets sick, in many places across America, that mother is faced with a terrible quandary. Are they going to go to work and leave the child at home sick? Or are they not going to go to work, lose a day of pay or, quite possibly, lose the job, which is not uncommon in America?

So we put forth H.R. 1286, the paid sick leave act, something that is common, in fact, in every European country, advanced economies around the world understand family values, like ours should, too. They understand that parents, man and woman, husband and wife, single father or single mother want to take care of their children.

We have six children. We have raised those children. We have 11 grandchildren. And we understand that those kids are little petri dishes that collect germs and get sick. We understand what it takes to care for a child. It takes the attention, the full attention, of the husband or the mother or the single mother or the single father.

H.R. 1286 is languishing in the committees controlled by our Republican colleagues. We talk a lot about family values around here. If you really care

about them, then you would let that parent have a paid sick leave so they can care for their child.

Children, oh, we spend a lot of time talking about children, our future, the destiny of America, children. What can we do now to help every child in America? What can we do now to help every family in America?

Well, I would suggest that we take a look at H.R. 769, the Permanent Child Tax Credit Act. We have a child tax credit. It bounces up and down, depending upon the whims of Congress and the Senate and the President.

This would permanently increase the child tax credit so that every working family, from the top down to the bottom, those people that are on the edge of poverty, those people are not now earning $10.10 an hour, that are at just above the now minimum wage at the Federal level, say $7 an hour, so that those people would be able to at least have a little more income with the permanent child care tax credit.

How long have we known that, if you could give a child early education, pre-K, prekindergarten education, that that child, in the formative years of their brain development, would advance faster and longer in the development of their mind and their capabilities to address the challenges that they will have out ahead?

We have known this for decades. We know that, if you can get your child into pre-K, into early childhood education, that that child can be advancing faster, be better able to handle first grade, second grade, and on, all the way through college.

This is not just an American issue. Around the world, countries that want to advance their economy, countries that want to have social justice, countries that want their families to have economic opportunity, they want early childhood education.

So we put forth H.R. 3461, the universal pre-K education act. Universal pre-K, can we afford it? Of course, we can. When you consider the benefit to this Nation and when you consider the benefit to that individual child, you would say of course we can afford it, and, alternatively, we cannot afford not to do it. We cannot allow a large percentage of our children to not succeed in school, to not be able to keep up, to go into a classroom ill-prepared, whether it is kindergarten or first grade, to begin behind on the first day of school. It is not uncommon--I don't know, the percentage is probably somewhere less than 25 percent of the children in America are able to get pre-K education.

But I will tell you who is able to get it: those families that have the upper income, those families that are not worried about the gender pay gap, and those families that are not worried about the minimum wage. Those families are able to send their kids to early childhood education courses of all kinds. And so when those children enter kindergarten, when those children begin the first grade, they are the ones ahead. They are the ones that are likely to stay ahead. And for those children that don't have this opportunity, they are the ones that are behind. They are the ones that are going to fail. They are the ones that will drop out and likely to become the troublemakers of the future.

So why not give every child in America an equal opportunity to succeed? Can we afford it? You bet. We cannot afford to not do this. This is critical. This is our agenda. When women succeed, America succeeds. This is a family value agenda. This is an agenda where, if you care about the American family, if you care about its success, if you care about its health, then these are the issues that we ought to be pushing: the gender pay gap, equal pay for equal work, the Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 377; raise the minimum wage, H.R. 1010.

I would ask our Republican colleagues who care deeply about family values--and I know they do--to consider these two pieces of legislation. And if you don't want a Democratic author, find a Republican author and we will support it. We don't care who carries the bill. We just want paycheck fairness, equal pay for equal work. We just want the minimum wage to provide enough for a family to at least survive and thrive.

If you care about family values, then you will want to talk about paid sick leave so that a mother or father doesn't have to make a choice between their job and their child's health.

H.R. 1286, let's give every family a chance. Let's give this a hearing. Let's give this bill a hearing in committee.

And, finally, all of us will stand here on the floor and we will talk for hours about our children, but are we willing to actually do something? Are we really actually willing to fund early childhood education? And are we willing to make permanent a tax break, a child tax credit? Or are we just willing to yap and talk?

Here is something positive. Here is something real. Take up H.R. 769, the Permanent Child Tax Credit Act. Take up universal pre-K education, H.R. 3461. If you are not willing to take these bills up, if you are not willing to introduce something similar to address these issues, then it is all talk. It is just a lot of hot air, for which there is justifiable belief that that is most of what is done around here.

Give the American family a chance. Give American women the opportunity to succeed. Let's do it. And we can. So this is our agenda. This is part of the Make It In America agenda when we talk about labor, when we talk about education, we talk about women in the workforce, and we talk about their opportunity. We can Make It In America. We can make things. We can make locomotives, we can make solar cells, and we can make windmills. But if we want the American people to make it, if we want them to be able to take care of their families, if we want children to thrive, and if we really want the American family to make it, then we had better be thinking about women, and we had better remember that when women succeed, then this country will succeed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous materials on the subject of our Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, this month is Women's History Month, and the Congressional Black Caucus is pleased to come during this Special Order hour to bring attention to the important issues that particularly face women this month, but we shouldn't be fighting for equality just 1 month out of the year.

It is a constant effort. We are here tonight to encourage everyone to get engaged in making equality a reality.

As President Obama made clear during his State of the Union Address, when women succeed, America succeeds. So tonight, we, the Congressional Black Caucus, gather to discuss the ways in which we can help women succeed, rather than continuing to turn back the clock on women's rights.

I am pleased to start this hour with our chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, the person who brings these issues forward each and every day on behalf of her constituents in Ohio and on behalf of constituents all across America, the gentlelady from Ohio, Representative Fudge.

I thank the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus for your dynamic leadership as the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. It has been my honor to serve with you this legislative Congressional session and look forward to the many achievements ahead on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, so much of the focus tonight is on the history that women contribute to our great Nation. We have many dynamic women who serve in our delegation in the House of Representatives. It is part of that representation that ensures that these issues that are important to women, as they are important to all Americans, are brought forward.

We have none other than a champion for women in her district in the northern part of California, but also around the world. She is someone who needs no introduction because she brings so much experience and education and knowledge to these issues. I would like to yield now to the gentlelady from California, Representative Barbara Lee.

Thank you to the gentlelady from California. Thank you for that great historical overview and perspective and for bringing those profound remarks to the floor this evening.

I would also like to yield to a dynamic colleague. We have had the great honor and privilege to get to know each other as freshmen in this congressional session. She is the gentlelady from Ohio. She brings so much talent and perspective, energy and focus to the issues that she works on here in the House of Representatives on behalf of her constituents and those around the country. I would like to yield now to the gentlelady from Ohio, Representative Joyce Beatty.

I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio, Representative Joyce Beatty, for those illuminating topics that were covered, and for highlighting all the various ways, both historically and currently, that women make a huge impact in our society, in the home, in the workplace, in education, and throughout all aspects of life. So thank you, Representative Beatty, for your ongoing contributions to these important issues.

I am so proud to be joined here by the Representative from New York (Mr. Jeffries), my coanchor of this hour. I look forward to his remarks.

I want to also highlight in addition to all of the national leaders and women who have run for office, whether it be here in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, or as President, we also have many unsung women who toil everyday but who make a huge impact.

It is only fitting, Mr. Speaker, that during Women's History Month that I recognize a Nevada leader, an icon, Ms. Ruby Duncan, who is an inspiration in my home State to many.

Ruby to me is the personification of the word fight. She is someone we can all learn from each and every day. Her history is a lesson in never giving up and staring down the specter of inequality. Nothing was ever handed to her, but much was taken.

Ruby's life began in the middle of the Great Depression. Where she grew up in rural Louisiana, people were already poor for a long time. Ruby had three brothers and a sister, all but one passing from accidents or illnesses. She lost her parents before she was 4. She spent most of her youth moving around Tallulah, living with relatives.

The school that she attended, a school for Black children, was located in a church miles from home. There was no transportation. She walked every day until she left school after the ninth grade for full- time work. Actually, it was more than full-time work. For years she was a waitress making about $9.50 a week. Yes, that's right, $9.50 a week. Her work weeks were long, over 80 hours a week.

When she heard her aunt in Las Vegas was making $40 for similar work, she moved there. When she arrived, she discovered her aunt living in a cardboard shack in the desert, sharing a community wash house with others. She discovered a de facto segregated community there, separate schools, housing, and zoning in the community resulted in a system of clear disenfranchisement.

Blacks were not welcome at the Las Vegas Strip hotels. There were colored sections designated in movie theaters. Still, Ms. Ruby Duncan persevered. She survived. She did day work as a maid in homes around the area. In 1959 she worked as a hotel maid but was fired later for attempting to organize other maids to protest the inhumane treatment and workload.

For a while her only income for herself and her children was the aid to dependent children grant that she received from the State welfare system. Like those struggling today, she did not rest. She was not lazy; she worked. She searched for work and was hired in the pantry of one of the Strip hotels in Las Vegas.

After an accident, she learned she could no longer do the heavy work that she was performing. When a State program that was supporting her was cut, she was contacted to join a group of mothers going up to Carson City, our State's capital, to protest substandard grants from the Nevada Legislature.

Ruby marched and spoke at a hearing with no prior experience in public speaking. She did it because someone had to say something for those who were struggling. Someone had to stand up for what was right.

After Mrs. Duncan's trip to Carson City, she was elected president of the Clark County Welfare Rights Organization. As president, she led the nationally publicized 1971 marches on the Las Vegas Strip, protesting the purge of thousands of needy Nevada families from programs designed to help the poor and allow them to keep their heads above water.

From that she has fought to provide basic necessities to families in need--food, shelter, health services, and education. Her organization that she created, Operation Life, has had an impact on health screening centers, libraries, food programs for women, infants and children, child care, and the list goes on.

Ruby Duncan represents hope. In a country plagued by inequality and discrimination of the worst forms, Ruby fought and won many decisive battles that affect the lives of so many in Nevada and across this Nation today.

Not everyone wins their battle with poverty. For so many, circumstances beyond their control take over their lives. For many born poor, they stay poor. For many born just above the poverty line, they dip below and enter a cycle of living paycheck to paycheck, if they can even find one.

The poor are not poor because of a weak character. They are not lazy. Many are poor because no one ever gave them a chance. It is people like Ruby Duncan that I am here to represent. The people who had less than a hand up, but they still persevered. She is strong, and she is an inspiration to me, and someone who I wanted to recognize during this recognition of Women's History Month. Congratulations to Ms. Ruby Duncan.

I would now like to yield to the coanchor for this hour, my colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries). It is always great to be here with you, to bring this hour of power of information to the constituents throughout the United States who are listening. I thank you for your friendship, for always working hard, for including me, and it is great to serve with you in this 113th Congress.

I yield to my good friend.

I thank the gentleman from New York. Thank you for

that very insightful background on your district and the leadership of the district. It speaks to why there is so much impact that comes from Representatives from your district and the area and the neighborhoods that you represent.

I know that you cannot fully fill those shoes, but you are doing your part in bringing forward the message that so many others carried and that we follow now on their shoulders, so thank you for that historical perspective.

In addition to the historical perspective that women offer in this country, the House Democrats also have a legislative agenda that focuses on when women succeed, America succeeds. It is an economic agenda for women, and it is one that was created by the women in the House Democratic Caucus that is sponsored and supported by men.

As a man, I support this economic agenda for women because, as a husband and a father, I want for every woman what I want for my own wife and my daughter. As a brother and a son, I want for other women what I want for my two sisters and my mother. So this economic agenda for women focuses on a number of areas.

The first, of course, is equal pay for equal work. It is appalling, Mr. Speaker, that in the year 2014, we are still struggling to pay women the wages that they deserve. They are still not receiving equal pay for equal work. That, on its face, is wrong.

Women in my home State of Nevada are paid about 85 cents for every dollar paid to men; and while that is better than the 77-cent national average, we still have a long, long way to go.

As my colleagues have already explained, for African American women and Latinas, this pay gap is even larger. African American women, on average, earn only 64 cents; and Latinas, on average, earn only 55 cents for every dollar earned by White, non-Hispanic men.

In my home State of Nevada, the pay gap between men and women is, on average, $6,316 per year. Now, that is real money, and it makes a real impact in the lives of families. Nevada women lose approximately $2 billion per year because of this wage gap.

Now, what can $6,316 pay for, for families in my home State of Nevada?

$6,316 is about 46 more weeks of food. $6,316 per year is 4 more months of mortgage and utility payments. $6,316 per year is 7 months of rent. $6,316 per year is an additional 1,681 gallons of gas.

So if we thought that the wage gap was just some rhetoric that was being talked about out there, all you have to look at is the real impact of lost economic benefit to women. If we closed the wage gap between men and women, we could cut the poverty rate in half for working women and their families.

It is the right thing to do, to treat people equally, to pay them equal pay for equal work. That is why 125,000 households in Nevada, who are headed by women, expect this Congress to support the Paycheck Fairness Act, invest in job training and educational opportunities, and make sure that we protect pregnant workers from discrimination in the workplace.

Now, another area that we have to address is raising the minimum wage and giving America a raise.

Mr. Speaker, low-income workers continue to struggle to provide for their families, while the rich continue to make record profits in the millions.

It is important to remember who earns the minimum wage in this country. They are women. Women make up the majority of low-income workers. In fact, nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women. These are our mothers. They are our sisters and our daughters.

Can we really expect for women to provide for their families when they are making the minimum wage?

Let's talk about what $7.25 really means as a national wage for women. That is $14,500 a year. Can people really survive on $14,500 a year?

Particularly, more than a majority now of women who are the head of their household, the primary breadwinners, can they provide for themselves and their families on $14,500 a year?

That is why House Democrats, in this economic agenda for women--when women succeed, America succeeds--we understand that by lifting the Federal minimum wage to $10.10, that if it were adjusted for inflation, compared to what it was in the 1960s, it would be well past time, Mr. Speaker, to address this pay gap for women.

In addition to increasing the minimum wage to help 1 in 3 adult women who are currently living in poverty or on the brink of it, this would help lift those women out of poverty, helping 30 million Americans see an increase in their wage, a million Americans being lifted out of poverty.

These are the real impacts and the benefits on the economic agenda for women.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, Mr. Jeffries, to elaborate further on these points, and then I can close us out.

I thank the gentleman, my coanchor, for joining me this hour.

Mr. Speaker, as we come to a close, to just highlight some of the major reasons why the Congressional Black Caucus along with the House Democrats believe that, if we are really going to honor the role of women in this country, then we need to start by honoring them through equal pay. We need to honor them through an economic agenda that supports their needs and the needs of their families.

And as my colleagues have already ably laid out, women now make up half--47 percent--of the general workforce and some 62 percent of the minimum wage workforce, which is up from about 30 percent in the 1950s. Twelve percent of workers in the United States have access to paid family leave through their employers, and fewer than 40 percent have access to personal medical leave through employer-provided short-term disability insurance.

So one of the other cornerstones, in addition to giving women equal pay for equal work, for increasing the minimum wage, is providing a work-family balance by allowing women to be able to take off work when necessary to care for a loved one without losing their earnings and a paycheck.

Laws providing paid family leave and medical leave allow workers to continue to earn a portion of their pay while they take time away from work to address serious health conditions, including pregnancy, to care for a family member with a serious health condition, and to care for a newborn, newly adopted child or a newly placed foster child.

You know, we should be encouraging the growth of strong, healthy families. And so often my colleagues on the other side talk about family values. Well, if you won't pass legislation that allows workers to spend time with their families, then what kind of a family value is that?

Over the average lifetime of a woman, by the age of 65, they will have lost $431,000 because of the earnings gap. That is something that the House Democrats, along with the Congressional Black Caucus, are working to address. We have legislation, When Women Succeed, America Succeeds, the economic agenda for women that we have laid out here tonight that would close this earnings gap, provide women the support they need to make more, helping their families and helping our economy as a whole.

So in closing, Mr. Speaker, when we talk about Women's History Month, we hope that it will resonate in this Chamber and in the Halls here in Washington that the decisions that we make impact the lives of all of our constituents. And it is time that women have a fair shot to the full opportunity that this country has to offer, and it starts by providing them with the earnings that they deserve. This is good not only for that woman and her future, but it is good for the family as a whole.

As I said earlier, I want for every woman what I want for my wife and my daughter: to be able to have the same opportunities and to be treated the same way as a man is treated in this country. I want for every woman what I want for my two sisters and my mother: to have the same equal opportunities to pursue their dreams and to be paid the same for pursuing that dream.

So these are the issues that we have laid out tonight, Mr. Speaker. We look forward to continuing to work with our colleagues on the other side. We would like to thank the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Representative Fudge, and all of the members of the CBC and those who were able to speak tonight. When women succeed, Mr. Speaker, America succeeds.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, my friend, Ms. Foxx, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, we continue down this path of considering bills that are going nowhere. I sincerely wish my friends on the other side of the aisle would stop this Conservative merry-go-round.

The majority leader called this week ``stop government abuse week.'' Abuse? Really?

My friends on the other side of the aisle have continued to ignore the plight of middle class and working poor Americans, immigrants hoping for a better life for their families, and denying the undeniable impact of climate change, just to name a few.

This is even after shutting down the government for purely political purposes and playing a game of chicken with the debt limit; and yet, my Republican friends are calling routine government work ``abuse.'' That seems like a stretch to me.

Abuse is when underregulated industries spill unknown chemicals into the West Virginia water supply. Abuse is when coal ash pours into the waters of North Carolina, when Wall Street bankers crash our economy after taking advantage of underfunded and overworked regulators; that is exactly the kind of abuse that the government needs to stop.

You want to talk about abuse? Let's talk about today's measure.

This bill will not make the regulatory process more balanced or transparent. It will strangle it in red tape. It will not make rulemaking more fair. It will tip the scales in favor of businesses with the most resources.

Under this measure, improving access to health care and restraining the financial institutions that have unleashed havoc on our economy will become even more difficult.

It is nothing more than poorly disguised political fodder aimed at stymieing the executive branch's rulemaking power in favor of some corporate interests that run amuck on the environment and American workers.

Most egregious is the requirement for agencies to provide the private sector early consultation on major rules.

This would give well-funded industry an unfair advantage not afforded to the general public and other stakeholders like public interest, taxpayer, and environmental groups.

Clearly, the interest in amending UMRA only extends to certain privileged parties.

If my friends on the other side of the aisle want to see what happens when you allow private interests to run rampant without any government regulations, they need only look to the smog-filled skies above China.

This bill also politicizes independent agencies designed to protect the rights of hardworking Americans. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Securities Exchange Commission, National Labor Relations Board, Consumer Product Safety Commission, as well as the Federal Communications Commission--I might add they kind of left out the Federal Reserve for some reason I don't understand--but all of those other agencies will all have to answer to the whims of politics.

It also forces agencies to choose the cheapest regulatory option over the

best. This is legislating the answer to the same kind of question that a homeowner has to decide when hiring a contractor: Do you want it done cheap, or do you want it done right?

Look, I get it. I understand where we are in the Congressional cycle; but I think that it is unfortunate that my friends across the aisle would rather score political points and write bumper stickers than actually legislate.

While I think it is a good thing that most of these partisan measures will never go anywhere, I can't help but point out that we should be making better use of our limited time here.

We should be raising the minimum wage in order to give millions of hardworking Americans the pay they have earned.

Nearly 5 years have passed since the last increase in the Federal minimum wage.

Currently, a full-time minimum wage worker makes less than $16,000 per year, which is below the poverty line for a family of two or more.

This is unacceptable. It is time for Republicans to end their relentless obstruction and to join Democrats in an effort to provide for the middle class.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I would advise my good friend from North Carolina that I have no further requests for time and that I am prepared to close or to reserve as she sees fit.

Mr. Speaker, does my colleague want me to go forward and close or does she want me to reserve?

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

I thank the gentlelady.

I indicated I was prepared to close, but I have been advised that we need to occupy a little time as well. So I yield myself such time as I may consume, and we will try to be slow about it.

Mr. Speaker, in this particular legislation, the minority views that were developed allow, among other things, the following:

The Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act would be an assault on health, safety, and environmental protections. This legislation would erect new barriers to slow down the regulatory process, and it would give corporations an unfair advantage in the regulatory process;

Section 5 of the bill would repeal language that excludes independent regulatory agencies from the reporting requirements of the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act, with the exception of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Open Market Committee. I spoke to that earlier. I found that passage strange.

The Office of Management and Budget is responsible for overseeing the UMRA process. Since the independent agencies would be under the direction of OMB for purposes of UMRA compliance, this could compromise the independence of those agencies.

Section 7 of H.R. 899 would create a new point of order in the House of Representatives for legislation containing an unfunded mandate, making it more difficult to enact legislation.

Section 8 would incorporate a cost-benefit requirement from Executive Order 12866, but it would not include language from the same executive order directing agencies to perform these assessments to the extent feasible.

Section 10 would require agencies to provide impacted parties in the private sector--but not other stakeholders--with an advanced opportunity to provide input on proposed regulations. It would require agencies to conduct consultations with private sector businesses as early as possible, before the issuance of a notice of proposed rulemaking. Expanding this consultation requirement only to the private sector could allow businesses to have an advantage over other stakeholders, as I mentioned previously, such as taxpayers and environmental groups, with reference to the development of regulatory proposals.

During consideration of this bill by the committee, one of the Members offered an amendment that stated that any opportunities or rights afforded to a corporation under this section shall also be afforded to any interested individual. The amendment was rejected.

My good friend on the other side mentioned the fact that I pointed out that we continue to have one House legislation that goes nowhere in the Senate. And she pointed correctly to the fact--and I stand with her if it needs to be corrected--that there were 76 measures that reached the President's desk, and that 64 of them came out of the House of Representatives. Not knowing all of the statistical imperatives, my belief would be that of that 64 that came out of House of Representatives, a substantial number of them had companion legislation. I questioned whether or not this particular measure that we are addressing today has companion legislation in the Senate, and that is why I feel that it is not going to go anywhere.

Listen, one side is arguing that we need to start the 2014 election right now and don't do anything else that is going to allow for both bodies--it is true, as my colleague said, that the Constitution mentions the House of Representatives first, but it does not give the House of Representatives autonomy in the sense that they, and they alone, can pass legislation. So there is a requirement here that has not been being met, and that is that the Senate and House confer on matters of legislation and then offer it up to the executive branch.

We seem to have circumvented that process. And what we are doing, rather than pass, or at least address--I am fascinated by the fact that I don't believe my colleagues have the courage of their convictions. If we were to put a flood insurance measure on the floor not on suspension, I doubt very seriously that it would not pass. It will pass if it were to come to the floor that way.

I believe that if we offer up a reasonable minimum wage, I don't think anybody in this country can say that $16,000 for a family of two or more people is sufficient in order for them to be able to meet requisites having to do with food and rent alone, let alone educating their children or providing daycare.

I don't think anybody really is against those who paid into the employment system receiving unemployment compensation, and yet we find ourselves here repeatedly addressing a significant number of matters.

Someone wrote the other day, if they got a stain on their tie, it would be because of ObamaCare. My goodness gracious, people, we are a legislative body. We could be about the business of serious legislating. That kind of legislating would require, among other

things, not just bipartisan activity as this legislation has manifested itself as being bipartisan, but it would allow that we would really sit down and talk through the things that are needed in this country.

There is nobody around that doesn't believe that we have bridges that are in disrepair. I haven't found anyone that said that if we invested in infrastructure, that it would not create more jobs in this country. The people want us to do this, and not to do one-sided, one-way measures that are not going to go anywhere anytime soon.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I will insert in the Record the Statement of Administration Policy, and I will only lift one paragraph, and that is the last paragraph and sentence.

``H.R. 899 would unnecessarily add to the already robust analytical and procedural requirements of the rulemaking process. In particular, H.R. 899 would create needless grounds for judicial review, unduly slowing the regulatory process. In addition, it would add layers of procedural steps that would interfere with agency priority setting and compliance with statutory mandates.''

I guess, not surprisingly to my friends on the other side, ``If H.R. 899 were presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.''

Mr. Speaker, contrary to my friend's favorite rhetoric, the free market does not solve all problems. Markets fail. We have seen that, have we not? Government is the actor of last resort when the market does not create the necessary incentives for businesses and individuals to protect the public good.

What is more, Federal regulations are not strangling the economy or preventing growth. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

As the Office of Management and Budget has reported, major Federal regulations issued over the last 10 years resulted in annual benefits from $193 billion to $800 billion, while costs are only between $57 billion to $84 billion.

It seems to me that an $84 billion investment with an $800 million return is not a bad thing.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule to bring up legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and give at least 25 million Americans a well-deserved pay raise.

A business in the constituency that I serve did this on their own. Jaxson's Ice Cream Parlour in Dania Beach raised it because they said they feel the pain of the people that work with them and that they made a fair profit and wanted to share it with them.

The American people are calling for an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.

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 to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. Vote ``no'' on the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Statement of Administration Policy

H.R. 899--Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act of 2013

(Rep. Foxx, R-NC, and 4 cosponsors, February 27, 2014)

The Administration is committed to ensuring that

regulations are tailored to advance statutory goals in a

manner that is efficient and cost-effective, and that

minimizes uncertainty. By layering on additional, burdensome

judicial review and other unnecessary changes to the

regulatory process, H.R. 899, the Unfunded Mandates

Information and Transparency Act of 2013, would introduce

needless uncertainty into agency decision-making and

undermine the ability of agencies to provide critical public

health and safety protections. Accordingly, the

Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 899.

When a Federal agency promulgates a regulation, the agency

must adhere to the robust and well-understood procedural

requirements of Federal law, including the Administrative

Procedure Act, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the Unfunded

Mandates Reform Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, and the

Congressional Review Act. In addition, for decades, agency

rulemaking has been guided by executive orders issued and

followed by administrations of both political parties. These

require regulatory agencies to promulgate regulations upon a

reasoned determination that the benefits justify the costs,

to consider regulatory alternatives, and to promote

regulatory flexibility.

The President's regulatory approach has been consistent

throughout his Administration. We don't have to choose

between protecting the health, welfare, and safety of

Americans and promoting economic growth, job creation,

competitiveness, and innovation--we can do both. To this end,

Executive Order 13563 requires careful cost-benefit analysis,

increased public participation, harmonization of rulemaking

across agencies, and flexible regulatory approaches. Through

executive orders and other presidential directives, agencies

must ensure that they take into account the consequences of

rulemaking on small businesses. And, through Executive Orders

13579 and 13610, the Administration has also taken important

steps to promote systematic retrospective review of

regulations by all agencies, including encouraging

independent agencies to conduct such a review. Collectively,

these requirements promote flexible, cost-effective

regulation.

H.R. 899 would unnecessarily add to the already robust

analytical and procedural requirements of the rulemaking

process. In particular, H.R. 899 would create needless

grounds for judicial review, unduly slowing the regulatory

process. In addition, it would add layers of procedural steps

that would interfere with agency priority setting and

compliance with statutory mandates.

If H.R. 899 were presented to the President, his senior

advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the Progressive Caucus. The Progressive Caucus wants to discuss with the American public issues that are important, that are timely, and that should be happening in this current Congress.

Tonight we are here to talk about a number of issues, one being the very important need to raise the minimum wage in this country.

Before we start that dialogue, we also want to talk about another issue that has happened just recently in this country and that has a little bit to do with my background growing up.

I grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Kenosha, Wisconsin, was a company town. We had one very large employer, American Motors Company. We made Pacers and Gremlins and a bunch of cars that maybe were unique for their time and may be collectable now, but certainly stood out in history. But American Motors did something really amazing for the community I grew up in. We were able to grow up in a strong, middle class community. People had family-supporting wages. And the reason they had family-supporting wages is not only because of American Motors Company and later Renault and Chrysler, but also because of the United Autoworkers Union, a union that worked very collaboratively with the companies that were there in Kenosha and made sure that not only did people get a good, fair wage to support their families, but also they worked hard and they made sure those companies were profitable and delivered a very good quality product for the American people.

So, that was my experience growing up. My neighbors, my family, my friends all wound up having someone in their family working with American Motors Company or a company that fed into that, and we had good wages and people had a good chance to grow up in a middle class environment.

Unfortunately, all too often we see these attacks across the country on unions making it harder and harder for people who work for a company to have a voice in their company. What happened just 2 weeks ago was there was a union election at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. They had an election that was conducted by the National Labor Relations Board where workers were deciding whether or not they were going to have a voice, collective voice in their workplace. They were deciding whether or not they were going to unionize and join the United Auto Workers.

There were two extraordinary things about this election: First, the company was neutral. The company had made the decision to stay out of the choice because, after all, this was a decision to be made by the workers. We have seen time and time again how employers can easily interfere with this choice by workers. After all, they write your paycheck; they can decide whether or not you get that promotion; they can fire you. So an employer can wield an immense and powerful influence over the workers who are trying to make a decision whether or not they want to unionize, and they can wield that power lawfully and sometimes they wield it unlawfully. In this case, the employer of Volkswagen said: You know what? This is the workers' decision. Let's leave it up to them.

That doesn't happen very often in this country. For that reason, the employer chose to embrace the notion that its employees had the freedom to choose. That happened in Chattanooga.

There is a second extraordinary thing that happened in this election, and that is, despite the fact that the employer was neutral, a free and fair election was still rendered impossible because of interference and threats from outside parties. What we saw here was unprecedented, and the shameful actions by outside parties interfered in a private decision by some 1,300 workers on whether or not they would organize for a better life.

I yield, yes, absolutely, to Mr. Miller from California.

I thank my friend from California.

What you said is worth repeating. Volkswagen put out a formal denial of the claim, making clear that there was absolutely no link between the vote and the placement of the SUV facility in Chattanooga, yet this elected official went out and did it again. He moved to discredit the company, astonishingly suggesting that the company was using old talking points, suggesting that he had the company's new secret talking points.

What happened here wasn't someone just expressing their view. What happened here was someone communicating a promise of benefits if workers voted one way, backed up by some mystery assurance. What happened here was someone communicating a thinly veiled threat that jobs would be lost if the workers voted another way, again backed up by some mysterious assurance.

The National Labor Relations Act is our Nation's premiere worker rights law. Like many of our civil rights laws, many heroic Americans in the last couple of generations gave their lives to secure the right to freely associate, to take considerate action to improve their lot collectively, to bargain collectively for better wages and better job security, for health care, for fair wages, and for a safe workplace.

These workers were all brave, and they did not give in to thugs and battles. This National Labor Relations Act outlaws bribes and threats in the midst of union elections. It does so for a reason. Those acts are not speech; they are more than speech. They render a free and fair election impossible.

In the case of UAW and Volkswagen in Chattanooga, since voting was already underway when the acts were committed, there was no opportunity to cure them. The votes were cast, and after 3 days the election was over. After an election, there are now three nonunionized Volkswagen plants in the world: one in Russia, one in China, and one in Chattanooga.

Thank you.

While we definitely want to make sure we are talking about all the issues that are important to this country, and minimum wage is one that we want to also talk about tonight, we wanted to take this time just to highlight what happened, this travesty two weeks ago, and we hope that this will be cured.

Outside officials, regardless of their perspective, shouldn't be involved in the election, but we want to make sure we are highlighting what happened, because that election was not fair.

Thank you very much, gentleman from California, for all your many years of service on this.

At this point, we would like to also discuss tonight something that is very important. The Democrats, this week, took on what sometimes is considered a very unique measure in this House, it is called a discharge petition, because we have been fighting for over a year to try to raise the minimum wage in this country.

There is a bill introduced by the gentleman from California and Senator Harkin from Iowa that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 within 3 years.

If we had kept up with inflation since 1968, the minimum wage right now would be something like $10.60.

Instead, we are at $7.25, and people can't get by. You certainly can't be in the middle class on that wage, and certainly it makes it hard to aspire to be in the middle class on that minimum wage.

We need to do everything we can to help lift that rising tide for everyone who gets that minimum wage because 16.5 million people will immediately get a pay increase, and another 8 million people will very likely get an increase because they are at that margin already and their wage will be lifted already.

These aren't numbers coming from the Democrats. These are numbers coming from the Congressional Budget Office, our nonpartisan entity that provides us facts and figures.

By giving the Nation a boost in the minimum wage, we help the economy, we help those who are in the middle class and aspiring to be in the middle class, and we can make this country a lot better for everyone trying to get by.

At this point I would like to yield to one of my colleagues from the State of Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright), one of my freshman colleagues who has also been the president of our freshman class.

Would the gentleman from Pennsylvania yield to a question?

So what you just said, talking about the buying power, putting that much money back into the economy, you know, I look at it this way. If you are someone who is making minimum wage and you get your wage increased to about $10.10, that extra money is not going to go into a savings account for something in the future. You are probably going to be buying things right now. You are going to buy a sofa maybe.

The average CEO now makes 354 times what the average worker makes. Back in the late eighties it was about a 40-1 ratio. Now it is 354 times.

When we put money into an average low-wage worker, that money goes immediately into the economy. They can buy a sofa.

But when the gains that we have had in this country have gone, largely, to the top executives, the top 1 percent, the top 1 and 2 percent, how many sofas can you buy at that rate? How does that affect the economy?

Do you have any idea how many sofas you think you could buy if you are a CEO to try to keep up with and help stimulate the economy?

Thank you very much again, gentleman. I appreciate it.

I would also like to yield some time to another one of my colleagues, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan). He is a freshman, but a returning freshman from the State of Minnesota, my neighboring State, from the great iron ranges of Minnesota.

Mr. Nolan, I think what you are referring to is exactly what the Democrats are doing this week. We are initiating a discharge petition. We need to get 218 Members of this House to sign that to force a vote.

The House leadership has refused to let us have a vote on giving America a pay raise; and because of that, we are taking what is generally a pretty unusual motion--in other words, to discharge--to actually get enough people to sign and say: we want to vote on this, so we can pass it.

And I completely agree with you, Mr. Nolan. If we put this on the floor, it will pass, unless the Republican leadership doesn't allow us to get this up here.

So I thank you for all of your efforts, not only just to get people to sign the discharge petition, but for all of the middle class families of Iron Range, Minnesota.

One of the things that we have talked about tonight is the value of why we want to increase the minimum wage, why it is going to put money into the economy right now. Again, this isn't the Democrats saying that. These are economic experts. These are some of the economists of the country.

The Economic Policy Institute has said that, if we raise the minimum wage, we would actually create 85,000 new jobs, in their calculation, within 3 years and put a $22 billion boost to the economy; and that means $500 million alone to the State of Wisconsin--$500 million to my State and $22 billion to the overall economy.

And what is more, you would lift 900,000 Americans out of poverty, according to the Congressional Budget Office. So we would lift people out of poverty, give people the ability to support their families and the ability to actually have a chance at living in the middle class.

Right now, on the minimum wage, your monthly gross salary is about $1,250. Now, how many of you think you could live paying your rent or mortgage, paying for groceries, paying for your utilities, paying for gas or a bus or however it is you get around?

Think about the bills you have. Could you live on $1,250 a month? And that is what the minimum wage is right now, less than the real value in current dollars that it was in 1968. It should be up to $10.74, I believe, if we kept up with inflation.

There are a lot of myths out there. You are going to hear people on the other side of the aisle say: well, this is all for teenagers. Why are we going to lift the wage?

The average person who receives minimum wage is 35 years old. What percentage of the people earning minimum wage are teenagers? Twelve percent. Again, that is not the Democrats saying that. The Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan agency we go to for numbers, says that.

So if we raise the minimum wage, we will lift 900,000 people out of poverty, directly support 24.5 million workers, about two-thirds of those people directly with an increase in wage at the minimum wage level and another third who are at the $10 level, who will also see a ripple effect of a boost in wages.

We will help the economy right now by putting that money into the economy in all the ways that were talked about tonight, and we know that this will not have a detrimental effect on the economy.

Now, some will say that it is going to cost jobs. I will tell you, in my State of Wisconsin, I spent 14 years in the legislature before I came to Congress; and every time we raised the minimum wage, there was an increase in jobs available. More people went into the workforce because we were actually offering a greater wage and people are given an incentive to get into the workforce.

There are studies that compare State by State, county by county, where one

had a minimum wage increase and one didn't; and there has been no ill effect in the county that did versus didn't, based on raising the minimum wage.

There are 600 economists, including seven Nobel economics prize winners, who agree that it will have no or negligible effect to the increase of jobs; but everyone agrees, it will help those people who are currently either living in poverty, working for minimum wage--two, three jobs to get by--or those who are just making above it and will see that ripple effect.

So there is no question, we need to give the workers of this country a pay raise. For all too long, we haven't done it. For all too long, we haven't kept up with inflation. You simply can't get by on roughly $15,000 a year. That $1,250 a month is impossible.

We are not talking about teenagers. We are talking about the average person being 35 years old, heads of households who are working one, two, maybe three part-time jobs just to get by.

So the Progressive Caucus is here tonight. And this is why we are talking not only about what happened at the union election in Chattanooga, but about raising the minimum wage.

The Democrats in this House have initiated a discharge petition to force a vote. Let us vote, Mr. Speaker. Let us vote on raising the minimum wage because if you let us vote, I know there are enough fair- minded Republicans that will join with the Democrats in this Chamber; and we will raise the minimum wage, but only if we are allowed to.

We are making every effort, and the Progressive Caucus will continue to do this. We were the ones who went and asked the President to raise it for people who get Federal contracts, and the President made that order. We are very happy the President did that.

But we are going to continue to push this in every way possible, so that people can live comfortably in the middle class and those who aspire to can get into the middle class.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I thank you for allowing the Progressive Caucus to have this time this evening, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 530 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from 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 may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 530 provides for consideration of a critical piece of legislation passed out of the Ways and Means Committee designed to address a critical flaw in the Affordable Care Act, which is causing workers to lose hours at their job and thus lose wages to help put food on their tables and feed their families and pay their utility bills to heat their homes in the winter and cool their homes in the summer.

H.R. 2575, the bipartisan Save American Workers Act of 2014, fixes this flaw by changing the newly created labor rule in the Affordable Care Act, which defines full-time work at 30 hours per week and places that definition back where the American public has always believed it to be, at 40 hours per week.

The rule before us today provides for 3 hours of debate. That is triple the standard hour of debate that most bills before this body receive. This is done in order to fully discuss this important labor issue affecting so many Americans.

To maintain this targeted focus--the exact kind of fix that the President claims he is interested in discussing with Republicans in order to make his law more workable--no amendments were made in order. This allows the House to fully debate this crucial issue without the possibility of unrelated issues being brought into the debate.

Indeed, this bill is so targeted, dealing with one single provision in the Affordable Care Act, that it does not repeal the Affordable Care Act--a charge I have no doubt we will hear several times over today-- but in fact simply changes a definition in the bill.

Moreover, during the markup of this legislation in the Ways and Means Committee, no amendments were offered by either the majority or the minority. As always, the minority is afforded the customary motion to recommit on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, as a result of the Affordable Care Act's requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees provide health insurance coverage to those employees working 30 or more hours a week, employers across the Nation--from schools to universities to municipalities to restaurants--are being forced to cut workers' hours or face unsustainable employment costs to their businesses and organizations.

As we are seeing--and indeed, as many on this side predicted prior to the controversial and contentious passage of the Affordable Care Act-- the bill fundamentally changed labor law in this country, creating a new standard called the 30-hour workweek, a standard 30-hour workweek, a shorter workweek than even imposed by the country of France.

As a result, workers' hours are being cut and productivity in this country, a country that has always prided itself on the work ethic of its citizens, will decrease over time. This is what an onerous government regulation can and will do--suppress innovation and disadvantage our businesses.

Many members of the Democratic Party have been outspoken in clamoring for an extension to long-term unemployment benefits, which would extend government assistance to unemployed Americans well beyond a year's worth of benefits; yet there is something that can be done today which will have the actual, practical effect of putting more money into people's pockets.

We have heard story after story, from every State in the Union, that employers are dropping workers from even 39 hours per week to 29 or fewer hours, potentially 10 work hours a week that workers won't see in their paychecks, which could mean hundreds or more dollars that men and women won't have to feed their families or pay their bills. Increasing workers' hours increases the money that people have in their disposable income.

The Affordable Care Act fundamentally changed labor law in this country, and the repercussions of this might not be felt for years to come. This is indeed the prototype of the dangerous, slippery slope.

What other labor laws will be reinterpreted to define full-time employment at 30 hours per week? Do people intend to impose overtime rules on employers who employ people for over 30 hours per week? It is yet another regulation which would only result in businesses cutting more hours.

What will the National Labor Relations Board reinterpret, knowing that the very fabric of labor law is based on a 30-hour workweek, instead of that previously established standard of 40 hours per week?

Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, employers were already overwhelmingly providing health insurance to their employees working 40 hours a week.

Making the change contained in Mr. Young's legislation will cause the least amount of disruption in the labor market, and I would submit, with the economy as it is today, making the least disruptive change in the labor market would be desirable.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the total number of hours worked by about 1.5 percent to 2 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024. This is almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor.

Because of this, the Congressional Budget Office projects a decline in the number of workers of about 2 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024, all as a net result of the Affordable Care Act.

The latest Congressional Budget Office figures show that the Affordable Care Act will increase spending by almost $2 trillion-- double the estimate from 2010. The Joint Committee on Taxation states that taxpayers will be on the hook for another $1.1 trillion over the next decade.

Americans earning as little as $25,000 a year will pay more because of the law, even after accounting for the $1 trillion in premium cost- sharing subsidies.

Mr. Speaker, let's be clear about what is happening here today. This bill before us does not repeal the President's takeover of health care in this country. It does not undermine the Affordable Care Act.

It does not take health insurance from a single person in the country. It is a fix to a fatal flaw contained within the law, similar to the seven fixes that have passed both Houses of Congress and were signed into law by the President.

Does anyone miss the 1099 paperwork regulation, which was repealed early on after the passage of the Affordable Care Act? Does anyone legitimately miss the CLASS Act, which was repealed on the very last day of the last Congress?

I think not. Had I not reminded you of those two parts of the bill, I doubt you would remember them.

This is no different from those 37 unilateral fixes that the President and his Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Treasury have made on their own, with no input from either legislative body. It is a fix to stop legislation that will cause people to lose their work.

If all sides cannot agree to fix a provision within the Affordable Care Act that is preventing people from working, then it is simply empty rhetoric to claim that the President or the other body or this body is interested in any fixes at all.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds for a response.

Of course, the President did come out for a big photo op and press conference in the Rose Garden yesterday and talked about a number of 7 million. Discounted in that is the 6 million people who lost their health insurance in October, November, and December of last year who have now, thankfully, reclaimed insurance.

So, the actual numbers, we will see those posted later in the year; but isn't it interesting, the President can have a press conference, but they cannot provide our committee with the actual detail on those numbers, which we have been asking for for months.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), the chairman of the Rules Committee.

I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, a very important point of what we are doing here today-- look, when the junior Senator from my State stands up back home and says that he wants to repeal every syllable of ObamaCare, I will stand on my chair and cheer because I think that is the right approach.

But that is not what we are doing today. We are fixing a problem, as it exists in the body of the law, that is redefining full-time work as 30 hours per week. We are fundamentally reestablishing the relationship that occurs with America's working class.

Now, I would submit that in Politico magazine, on March 26, 2014, there was an opinion piece written, ``How to Fix the Affordable Care Act.'' And who was this opinion piece written by? Well, it was written by Members of the other body, Democratic Senators who had voted in favor of the passage of the Affordable Care Act in the first place. But they have proposals that they put forward in an opinion piece on how to fix the Affordable Care Act.

One of the things they say is, maybe we ought to allow selling across State lines. Maybe we ought to allow for a catastrophic policy to be sold again because that has, after all, been prohibited under the Affordable Care Act. They are valid suggestions. They are trying to fix the problems contained within the Affordable Care Act because they recognize it is unsustainable and unmanageable. Perhaps they are a little bit embarrassed because each one of them was the 60th vote that allowed the Affordable Care Act to come back over to the House and be passed.

Now, today we are talking about a fix to a problem within the Affordable Care Act that allows full-time employment to be reestablished and redefined at 40 hours per week.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Your colleague always has more speakers as long as he is seated in the House. But I see no one else waiting, so we can proceed.

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

Mr. Speaker, to the issue of jobs created in the last 5 years, let me point out that the State of Texas has been responsible for the creation of about one-third of those jobs. It is our robust oil and gas business and the manufacturing sector in the State of Texas that have been responsible for that job growth.

So when the President comes in front of a joint session of Congress for the State of the Union address and wants to talk about the jobs created since he became President, my belief is, he should say in the next statement, May God bless Texas, because Texas is responsible for that job growth, and it had nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act.

Let me talk briefly about why we are here today. Of course the gentlelady mentioned about the passage of the Affordable Care Act. She mentioned the detailed analysis that was done by Democrats, who were then in the majority, how they pored over every word in the legislation.

Let me read you the paragraph that is under question today. I am reading from section 1513 of the consolidated Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: ``The number of full-time employees for any month otherwise determined include for such month a number of employees determined by dividing the aggregate number of hours of service of employees who are not full-time employees for the month by 120.'' Period, end of sentence.

What does that mean, Mr. Speaker? Well, fortunately, we don't have to wonder what it means because we have a rule that was promulgated by the Department of the Treasury which came out this past February. It is about a 55-page rule based upon what I just read

to the House. It is a long recitation. It contains a lot of things, but here is the bottom line: For employees who average at least 30 hours of service per week during a measurement period, who thus must be treated as full-time employees during an associated 6-month stability period. That is the bottom line.

I don't know how we went from 120 per month to 30 hours per week, but they figured it out at the Department of Treasury at some great expense, I rather suspect, because here is this rule that came to the American people in February of this year when the actual law was passed almost 4 years prior. Nevertheless, we have the rule, and people are welcome to read it in the Federal Register. It was published on Wednesday, February 12, 2014, 2 days before Valentine's Day. We love you, America.

Mr. Speaker, the rule that governs the debate on this bill before us today keeps that fundamental contract with employers and their workers that full-time employment will be 40 weeks. If you accept the definition from the Department of Labor that it is now 30 weeks and an employer is trying to reduce the cost of providing employment, they may make the logical assumption that if someone only works 28 or 29 hours, then they are not full-time; therefore, they do not need to be providing health insurance.

And what we have done is, we have shifted that entire equation and robbed people of 10 hours of employment every week. That is a significant change in their take-home pay.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for consideration of a critical bill to ensure that Americans are not forced to work fewer hours than they otherwise would without these draconian labor laws included in the Affordable Care Act.

I want to thank Mr. Young for his thoughtful legislation, working across the aisle to offer a bill that both Republicans and Democrats have accepted in the committee by passing it through the committee with no amendments. He has bipartisan cosponsors, and he has public support.

I urge my colleagues to support both the rule and the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 497 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from 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 may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Res. 497.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 497 provides for consideration of two bills, one of which addresses the country's worsening health insurance situation due to the Affordable Care Act; the other addresses the Environmental Protection Agency's attempts to cripple our economy with costly regulations which have dubious health benefits.

The rule before us today provides for 1 hour of debate for each bill, controlled by the primary committee of jurisdiction. The committee made in order every amendment submitted for consideration to H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act, including three amendments offered by Democrats and five amendments offered by Republicans. Finally, the minority is afforded the customary motion to recommit on each bill, allowing for yet another opportunity to amend the legislation. This is a straightforward rule for consideration of two very important bills.

H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act is a bipartisan response to the Environmental Protection Agency's wrongheaded approach to our energy future. It was carefully crafted by Democratic Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia and the Republican chairman of the Energy and Power Subcommittee, Ed Whitfield from Kentucky. The bill requires the Environmental Protection Agency to acknowledge within its greenhouse gas regulations that different sources of fuel--such as natural gas, such as

coal--require different approaches to the regulatory sphere. Further, it prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from unilaterally imposing new regulations on existing power plants--those power plants that are already up and running, providing heat to our Nation, which is currently under the throes of a significant cold snap. This limitation exists until Congress has weighed in and passed a law specifying an effective date for the regulations to begin.

Finally, as is just good government, the bill requires strengthened reporting requirements from the Environmental Protection Agency.

One of the most frustrating parts of the EPA's new venture in regulating our existing energy infrastructure is that the EPA has actively blocked proper congressional oversight from receiving the science and calculations used in crafting these new costly regulations. That simply must end. If the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing new regulations because they believe they will truly make Americans healthier, let them share the data. Let them share the data with the United States Congress so it can be peer reviewed. Both the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Science Committee have continually been ignored when requesting such data. That is unacceptable. That must end. This legislation is a step toward bringing accountability to an agency that for too long has run roughshod over our economy.

The second bill contained in this rule, H.R. 4118, Suspending the Individual Mandate Penalty Law Equals Fairness Act, addresses the disparity that President Obama and Secretary Sebelius have created between big businesses, which have been given a reprieve from having to comply with the mandates in the Affordable Care Act, and individual Americans, who have been given no such help by this President. Just this week, the press reported that the administration will delay yet another provision of the Affordable Care Act by allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet the Affordable Care Act's minimum coverage requirements. It is becoming so commonplace for this administration to waive or ignore provisions--by their own admission, this is their signature law, and they continue to waive provisions. The American people cannot seem to get an even break, and no one even seems to notice anymore. There is little doubt that this is exactly what the President is hoping for.

In the last 8 months, the President has delayed or modified overly 22 provisions in his signature health care law. We are all familiar--we have all seen the headlines: delays in the preexisting program; delays in the employer mandate; delays in the reporting requirement; changing the rules under which Congress has to buy insurance; delay, delay, delay, in his own law. The President has been quick to fix parts of the law that have political consequences for his allies and to protect his own talking points.

Yet, where is the President's protection for the American people?

Under the health care law, Americans who don't have health insurance and refuse to purchase a government-approved insurance policy will face an annual fine--an annual fine--that increases every year.

However, purchasing a government-approved plan also means you have to pay big premiums. You are forced to navigate a dysfunctional Web site. You may lose the doctor you like and place your personal information in jeopardy on an unsecure Web site.

Today, Republicans are offering a legislative solution to help Americans get out from under the crushing weight of the so-called Affordable Care Act. H.R. 4118, also known as the Simple Fairness Act, will give hardworking Americans the same relief that the President has already given to big businesses across the country.

The administration has no problem delaying the employer mandate, not just once for 2014, but a second time for another full year for employers with 51-100 employees. Shouldn't that same relief be provided to rank-and-file Americans?

The President has refused to work with Congress to change the law so today, we are moving ahead and doing what is right for the American people. The Simple Fairness Act will eliminate the penalty for 2014 for those individuals who chose not to purchase a government-approved health care plan.

It is clear that H.R. 4118 offers the only feasible lifeline to millions of Americans who are faced with purchasing an expensive health care plan that does not meet their needs. It is Congress' job to protect the American people. I urge my colleagues to pass this rule so Washington can stop making decisions about American's health care and instead individuals can be free to decide for themselves. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bills.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes for a response.

Mr. Speaker, there have been 36 changes to the Affordable Care Act since it was signed into law. It has been a little over 3 years since the bill was signed into law. Thirty-six changes means one a month.

How does the breakdown of those 36 changes occur? According to the Galen Institute published this morning, 15 times, Congress has passed and the President signed legislation changing the Affordable Care Act. Twice, the Supreme Court modified the Affordable Care Act, but 19 times, President Obama made a change unilaterally.

We are here today debating a delay on the penalties under the individual mandate, but it might interest the Congress to know that the President himself delayed the individual mandate. The administration changed the deadline for the individual mandate by declaring that customers who had purchased insurance by March 31 will avoid the tax penalty.

Previously and by law, they were required to purchase that insurance by Valentine's Day, February 14, so there has already been a 6-week delay. We are simply trying to place in code what the President is doing unilaterally.

You want to talk about a closed process where people don't have an opportunity to participate? That is governing by executive fiat. That is what we are trying to stop today.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I would just emphasize there have been changes by administrative action, some 19 that President Obama has done all on his own, without any influence from Congress.

Now, if the gentleman were truly interested about an offset for repealing the medical device tax, perhaps he might look more favorably on the bill before us today, H.R. 4118. The Congressional Budget Office scores a significant savings by passing H.R. 4118.

Perhaps there are some other things that could be done with that money as well; but nevertheless, the President has, on his own, delayed employee reporting, delayed subsidies through the Federal exchange. He closed the high-risk pool.

He has doubled the allowable deductibles. He has required self- attestation and eliminated the reporting requirements under the law that he signed in March of 2010.

He last fall said: Okay. I give up. Insurance can offer plans that we just told you were illegal, that they were crummy insurance, and now, we are going to allow them to be offered again.

All of these were actions taken by the executive under a closed process. With no input or oversight by the people's House--by the United States House of Representatives.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, here is the Affordable Care Act. The President says it is the law of the land. How does it describe the effective date for the individual mandate? Under section 1501, subparagraph D, effective date:

The amendments made by this section shall apply to the

taxable years ending after December 31, 2013.

Pretty unambiguous, pretty easy to understand. It doesn't seem to have a lot of flexibility or wiggle room written into it.

How does the language read that describes the effective date for the employer mandate? Well, that reads under section 1513, subparagraph D, effective date:

The amendments made by this section shall apply to the

months beginning after December 31, 2013.

It doesn't sound as if there is a lot of flexibility; yet the President, on his own, found the flexibility only within the executive branch to say that effective date is no longer valid.

We are simply saying for Mr. and Mrs. American--for the average American, we should be able to delay the effective date of the penalty because this law has been a disaster from start to finish. Stories about the Web site are now legion.

We should give the same relief to the average American that the President gave to his friends in Big Business.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

It sounds as if the gentleman is going to vote for the bill under consideration today because, after all, it is an opportunity to give long-suffering Americans an opportunity to be out of the penalty part of the Affordable Care Act.

Let's be honest, I mean this thing is one of the most coercive pieces of legislation that has ever been passed by the United States Congress. I might just remind people here in the House of Representatives that this law, which was H.R. 3590, was actually not subject to any hearings or any markups in the United States House of Representatives. Maybe it was when H.R. 3590 first passed the House when it was a housing bill in July of 2009.

But remember, what became the health care bill was a housing bill that was amended. The amendment read over in the Senate: ``strike all after the enacting clause and insert.''

And what was inserted was language written by special interests over in the Cloakroom of the Senate Finance Committee, was passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve, and then thrown back over here to the House.

Since the House had passed H.R. 3590 as a housing bill, not as a tax bill like the Affordable Care Act was but as a housing bill, the question before the House then became: Will the House now concur in the amendments to H.R. 3590? It took 3 months for the Speaker to cobble together the 217 votes that she needed to pass this thing, but H.R. 3590 was never heard as a health care bill in my committee, the Committee on Energy and Commerce. It was never heard in the Ways and Means Committee. It was never heard in the Education and Labor Committee. That was H.R. 3200. H.R. 3200 is long gone--no one has seen it for years--but H.R. 3590 is what is embodied in the President's health care law.

So, really, to say that everyone had a chance to participate in this and to debate it, that is, in fact, hypocritical. What is really hypocritical is that H.R. 3590, when it came back to the House, was presented to this House under a closed rule. That is a fact, and that is a fact that should be recognized by the minority. This bill was the product of a closed rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, seeing no other speakers on my side, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

Talk about doing the will of the people. There was an election in Texas yesterday. There was a question on the ballot--to support or oppose the President's takeover of the health care industry in this country. Ninety-two percent of the people were recorded as being in opposition to the President's takeover of health care. So, in fact, in the district I represent, that is a significant amount.

Today's rule provides for the consideration of two bills to provide relief for hardworking Americans who are faced with the administration's expensive and restrictive mandates both in the health insurance and energy sectors.

I want to thank my colleagues Lynn Jenkins from Kansas, the Republican Conference vice chair, as well as the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, Mr. Whitfield from Kentucky, for their thoughtful pieces of legislation.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bills.

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