SAFE Bridges Act of 2013

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 322 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend, the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of H.R. 367, the REINS Act; H.R. 2009, the Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act; and H.R. 2879, the Stop Government Abuse Act.

The rule provides a structured rule for consideration of the REINS Act, allowing debate time for 12 of 23 amendments submitted. In addition, the rule incorporates a technical correction to the bill from Chairman Sessions. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

Additionally, the rule provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 2009, the Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act, and provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Furthermore, the rule provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 2879, the Stop Government Abuse Act, and provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the rule provides floor management tools to be used during the August recess.

Mr. Speaker, America's job creators have struggled against strong headwinds to recover. In fact, since President Obama took office, 131 new major regulations, costing at least $70 billion, have been added to America's regulatory system.

Under current law, Congress only has the power to disapprove regulations put forward by the executive branch. H.R. 367 flips that presumption on its head. Any major regulation estimated to cost over $100 million would need to be approved by Congress and must be given an ``up-or-down'' vote within 70 legislative days.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said:

To reduce barriers to growth and investment, when we find

rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will

fix them.

H.R. 367 does just that. It allows Congress to decide whether major rules place unnecessary burdens on job creators.

The second bill covered by this rule, Mr. Speaker, would prohibit the Treasury Department, including the IRS, from implementing or enforcing any provision of ObamaCare. In the last few months, the American people have learned that the IRS has targeted and intimidated Americans exercising their First Amendment rights. Given the recent scandal and the massive amount of sensitive information the IRS is required to collect under ObamaCare, it's completely inappropriate for the IRS to be given this responsibility.

A recent poll showed that 53 percent of Americans want ObamaCare repealed entirely. Mr. Speaker, health care decisions should be made by a patient and his or her doctor, not Washington bureaucrats.

The final bill covered by this rule, H.R. 2879, was extensively debated on the floor yesterday. In fact, it combined three bills, all aimed at limiting government and returning that power back to the people. This bill accomplishes three major objectives:

First, it caps bonuses for Federal employees at a maximum 5 percent of their salary through the end of fiscal year 2015. With Federal officials furloughing employees due to sequestration, the government should not, at the same time, be handing out millions of dollars in bonuses to other employees;

Second, this bill allows for senior Federal officials under investigation for serious misconduct to be put on unpaid leave. Under current law, agencies have little recourse but to put officials on paid leave, where they can collect a paycheck for months or even years while the investigation occurs;

Finally, this bill allows for citizens to record their meetings and telephone exchanges with Federal regulatory officials. In my home State of Oklahoma, along with 37 other States, this is already the case. However, 12 States require all parties involved in the conversation to consent to recording. This bill would allow individuals in all 50 States to record their conversations when meeting with Federal officials acting in their official capacity.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 367, H.R. 2009, and H.R. 2879 all express the views of my constituents. They're increasingly concerned and opposed to an intrusive and expansive government that seeks to tell them what they can and cannot do. These bills seek to stem the tide of crushing regulation and rein in an overbearing Federal bureaucracy.

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

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

I want to quickly respond, if I may, to a couple of points my good friend made.

First, I want to begin by agreeing with her because, quite frankly, as I've stated publicly on many occasions, I don't believe a government shutdown is a good idea either. I think that's not a responsible political tactic. And while my good friend has been concerned that some people in my party have advocated that, I would also express a similar concern, quoting press reports that some advisors to the President have recommended that, should we send a so-called ``continuing resolution'' that funded the government that did not repeal sequester, he should veto it and that would shut down the government.

So I think there's been a little bit of irresponsible discussion about shutting down the government--which, with my friend, I agree, is never a good idea--that's come from both sides of the aisle.

In terms of her observations about sequestration, as an appropriator, again, we probably find some common ground here. I would like to see us also get rid of sequestration, but I'd like to do it by redistributing the cuts to the nondiscretionary side of the budget where I think they belong. We need to keep the savings--that's why the deficit is coming down--but there are certainly smarter and better ways to do that. And if the President is willing to do that, I suspect he would find a willing negotiating partner on our side of the aisle.

In fact, though, many of my friends advocate what is effectively a third tax increase this year. We had a tax increase with the so-called ``fiscal cliff.'' When all the Bush tax cuts ended, the President used that to raise taxes. We have a tax increase this year associated with his health care plan kicking in that's major. And now my friends on the other side of the aisle want a third tax increase to keep the government open and operating. We think we can spend money better and smarter, and that we ought to continue to reduce spending, not increase the burdens on the American people.

Finally, I want to talk to my friend, who discussed ObamaCare, and she's absolutely right; we certainly would like to repeal it, and we certainly have tried to make that point repeatedly. Frankly, her disagreement is not with us so much as it is with the American people. This is an extraordinarily unpopular law. No poll has ever shown that more people like it than dislike it; quite the opposite. People would like to see it repealed. It's simply not a very good idea. Frankly, we're seeing signs of that right now. The President himself, in a signature piece of legislation, had to ask that the business mandates actually be pushed back by a

year. We would like to help him in that, and we'd like to do it for individuals as well, but that suggests this was certainly a bill not ready for prime time.

A former Presidential candidate--I very seldom quote Howard Dean in agreement, but he had an interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal this week on why the central cost-control mechanism of ObamaCare--the Independent Payment Advisory Board--simply wouldn't work. Now, that's not us; that's criticism from somebody that probably supports a national health care plan of some kind.

Finally--and I think this does get overlooked in a debate, and I want to end my comments on a point of agreement, because while we have voted repeatedly to repeal, there have actually been times that we have, on both sides of the aisle, agreed--and agreed with the President--about changing this bill.

In the last couple of years, we have actually passed seven pieces of legislation when we were in the majority--they obviously had to go through a Democratic Senate and to the President's desk--that changed or modified ObamaCare--and saved, by the way, about $62 billion. My friends, after ramming that legislation through, looked at the so- called 1040s that were going to be attached to every $600 purchase and said, you know, you guys are right, that's a really bad idea. The President thought so too. And we got rid of it.

We also got rid of the assisted living portion of it, the so-called ``CLASS Act'' that was just financially unsustainable. Why? Secretary Sebelius looked at it and said, you know, this really isn't going to work. And I'll bet you sooner or later we'll get a medical device tax elimination down here on this floor--people on both sides know it's nuts to be taxing people's wheelchairs and oxygen cans because they're sick and use that to fund health care, and I'll bet you we can probably find common agreement on that.

So, while we would like to repeal, we certainly are willing to work when we find common areas and continue to try and improve a very flawed product.

With that, I'd like to yield such time as he may consume to my good friend and fellow Rules Committee member from Florida (Mr. Nugent).

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

My friend--and he is my friend--I think is really one of the great speakers of this Chamber. I mean that with all sincerity.

But this isn't the Senate. We don't have unlimited debate over here, so he's kind of stretching it a little bit, but it's always worth listening to.

I will certainly yield to my friend.

And I want to say, my friend, the gentleman, exercised it to the extreme, but he's always worth listening to.

I want to underscore a point my good friend made, because I do agree with you very much about government shutdown. I don't think that's a responsible tactic. I've seen it advocated from time to time from people on both sides of the aisle. We've had reports of it from advisors to the President. I certainly wouldn't suggest the President would agree with that. But I hope we don't get there, and I will pledge to work with my friend to make sure that we do not.

I also think, though, that we ought to recognize that we have worked together on some occasions. My friend and I worked together on the fiscal cliff, we worked together on violence against women, we worked together on Sandy, we worked together, actually, on the CR in March. So there are times when we can come together.

We are working together now. I suspect the President will soon sign the Student Loan Act, an act that was originated on our side--problems were on the Senate side--and passed. Eventually, they came around and saw the same thing the way the President and we saw it on this side of the aisle.

We did. I appreciate that, and we found common ground. I hope we can again.

But also when we're lectured a little bit on rules--and, look, we both wear

these hats occasionally--I will remind my friends, when they were in the majority, the rules under which they brought a massive health care bill to this floor with almost no debate, a massive stimulus, billions of dollars, with essentially no debate and no consideration, the Dodd- Frank rule.

So whatever sins have been committed on our side of the aisle, I would suggest this is one where you need to look at the log in your own eye in terms of the size and scope of that legislation and the rules that accompany them.

I will yield to the gentleman on that.

Reclaiming my time, I seriously doubt that you have never said we wouldn't do this. I've heard the same thing when we talk about debt ceiling where we know the rules get reversed from time to time.

So I think this legislation--and I think it's very significant legislation--but I don't think it ranks with either of the three examples that I gave in which this body was not given the opportunity. Frankly, I think the Republican majority is here today largely because that's the way the House was operated the way the last time my friends had an opportunity to do that.

But regardless of that, I appreciate my friend's remarks as always. I always enjoy the exchange, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we did have a referendum on ObamaCare. Do you know what we got? We got a split decision because, while the American people certainly reelected the President, they also reelected a Republican House. That's a hard thing to achieve in what my friends would regard as a great Presidential victory. We had 435 different referendums about this. So the American people, for whatever reason, either wanted the debate to continue or certainly didn't want to leave the President, as they did in 2009 and 2010, with essentially total control over the legislative branch. They didn't like what they saw then, and I don't think they would like what they would see if that were to happen.

As for our friends in the Senate, letting them decide what the agenda is going to be in the House, I think, is, quite frankly, a mistake. They don't get a lot done over there. Every now and then, though, they'll surprise you.

I remember hearing these same arguments about the Student Loan Act in that, gosh, what we were planning and proposing, even though it was relatively close to what the President proposed, was never going to happen. In fact, if you'll remember at one point and if I recall correctly, I think the President, himself, issued a veto threat against the legislation. So, had we followed our friend's advice, everybody's student loans in America would be skyrocketing right now.

Every now and then, you just have to go out and fight for the things that you believe in; and, amazingly, sometimes the United States Senate will come around, and, occasionally, the President of the United States will change his mind or at least will decide this was close enough to be good enough.

So I would suggest we just continue to get up every day as we all do, to work as best we can for the things that we believe in, and at the end of the day--believe me--the American people will make a judgment, and we'll see what happens.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to a number of points my friends have made about the issue of sequester. I simply want to remind them whose idea it was. If they have any doubt, they should read the Bob Woodward book, ``The Price of Politics,'' or follow the lively correspondence that came after the book was published.

The reality is that the idea of sequester was the President's proposal. He proposed it; he advocated for it; he signed it into law. Now we hear from our friends, gosh, the Republicans won't undo it or we didn't really mean that it would actually ever happen.

We've had this discussion before. The simple truth is that we are willing to renegotiate where the cuts come from. We actually agree with our friends on that. What they're not willing to do is to actually reduce spending. That's essentially what the debate is about.

This is the method that the President recommended, signed and advocated for. If he wants to undo it--something, by the way, this House twice in the last term did, but our friends in the Senate never picked it up, and the President never came up with a counteroffer, so we're sort of still waiting over here--and if the President would like to redistribute the cuts, I have no doubt the Speaker would like to talk to him. But the idea that we're just going to simply undo it and lose all the savings, I think, is also unlikely to occur.

So let's sit down. We all know there are better ways to do this. We're willing to do that on our side, but we are not willing to raise taxes, and we are not willing to lose savings.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I do not have any more speakers, and I'm prepared to close whenever my friend is.

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

In closing, I want to begin by reminding my friends whose idea sequester was. It was the President of the United States.

The President likes to take some credit--and in some ways he deserves some--for our budget deficit coming down. Frankly, after four trillion- dollar deficits in a row, a Republican Congress came into office and that deficit is now moving down. It's about half of what it was. We've worked with the President to actually achieve something he said he wanted to, which is lower the deficit. He likes to take credit for it.

Second, I'd like to also remind my friends, Mr. Speaker, in closing, that I think these bills really are good bills. They provide important checks on the expanding power of the executive branch. How many times have all of us gone home and been regaled with tales of bureaucrats that are simply out of control or rules that make no sense or have an enormous economic impact? It happens all the time. That needs to change.

Senator Daniel Webster described the Federal Government as ``made by the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.'' I would suggest we've forgotten the last of these three phases, ``answerable to the people.'' That's what these bills are about, trying to make the Federal Government more responsive and more answerable to the people. The underlying bills recognize just that and restore the power of governance to elected officials, not to unaccountable Washington bureaucrats.

I would urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, when the Committee on Rules filed its report (H. Rept. 113-187) to accompany House Resolution 322 the Committee was unaware that the waiver of all points of order against consideration of H.R. 2879 included:

A waiver of clause 9(a)(2) of rule XXI , prohibiting consideration of a bill or joint resolution not reported by a committee, unless the chair of each committee of initial referral has caused a list of congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, and limited tariff benefits in the bill or a statement that the proposition contains no congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, or limited tariff benefits to be printed in the Congressional Record prior to its consideration. The required statement from the chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the primary committee of jurisdiction, was printed in the Congressional Record dated July 31, 2013. However, the required statement from the chair of the Committee on the Judiciary, which also received an additional referral, was submitted for printing on August 1, 2013. Both statements provide that H.R. 2879 does not contain any congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, or limited tariff benefits.

A waiver of clause 11 of rule XXI, prohibiting the consideration of a bill or joint resolution which has not been reported by a committee until the third calendar day (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, or legal holidays except when the House is in session on such a day) on which such measure has been available to Members, Delegates, and the Resident Commissioner. While the text of the bill is substantially identical to the three bills previously debated in the House on July 31, 2013, H.R. 2879 was not introduced until later that day.

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

I thank my colleague for yielding me the 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this is the final week that the House will be in session before we begin our recess. I don't like to call it recess since we work as hard at home, but this is probably the last time we'll get together until we come back in the fall. As the clock runs out on another legislative session, we are voting for the 40th time to repeal or to undermine the Affordable Care Act.

By now, we all know how today's debate will end. The majority will pass the bill, the Senate will refuse to take it up, and we will have wasted, again, the public's time and their patience. And then they will adjourn for August recess, only to return in September with issues like jobs, immigration reform, and sequestration left unsolved, as they are today.

The other night, I was watching comedian Stephen Colbert on his program. He was talking about the number of times we've voted to try to repeal health care. He had a good idea for the Republicans. He said, Obviously, you're not going to be able to do it if you say you're going to repeal health care, so he suggested that a bill be written that is titled, ``This is Not Another Repeal of ObamaCare, We Swear, But Don't Look Inside It, Just Sign It Act.'' If you put that act out, maybe you would get somewhere with it.

Some speculated the GOP is desperate to get rid of this law because they know it is working and will work better as it gets fully implemented and they know they have firmly planted their feet on the wrong side of history once again. I can't comment on their motivation, but it's clear that millions of Americans are using this law because of the incredible benefits that it provides.

I was really stunned by the last speaker on the 1-minutes this morning talking about Maryland, because we just got the statistics from Maryland. The health plans are better than ever. Just last week, Maryland announced their rates are going to be among the lowest in the country, and not, as he said, a 20 percent increase.

Nevada announced a young adult will be able to purchase a catastrophic health insurance plan for less than $100.

And I said last week, when we had the other vote to get rid of health care, New York had just come out with wonderful news on the exchanges. Seventeen insurers had applied to provide insurance in the State of New York, and it would cause those premiums to fall by more than 50 percent. And we join 11

other States with the same kind of news. It's happening all over America.

For those States that decided not to do an exchange and are going to let the government do it, fine. I think they'll do okay there. Maybe we'll move closer to single-payer, which is what we should be doing.

Sixty-two days from now, those new exchanges will open their doors and they're going to provide millions of Americans with secure and affordable health care. For the very first time, insurers are going to be barred from denying coverage because of a preexisting condition and barred from placing lifetime and yearly limits on an individual's health care. They are sending checks back to customers all over the country, because the new law requires them to spend 80 percent of the premium dollar on health care. And since far less than 80 percent is spent, many companies are doing rebates, and people are getting those checks.

I really can't go on much further without talking about what it is we are doing here today. I think it's somewhat historical, but it may not be the first time. It's probably not. I have not had the pleasure before of doing a rule which consists of five bills with very little in common being stuffed into one because the House, basically, imploded yesterday. I've done all of the rules on health care repeal. If I had a machine, I could just press ``repeat'' and walk out of the room and do the same speech over and over again.

The other day I asked Dr. McDermott, who's a psychiatrist, ``What do you call someone or one group that does the same thing over and over and over again, anticipating a different result?'' and he gave me the psychiatric definition for that.

We all know that today's vote is not a single thing except another cynical attempt to score political points. As we go to our districts this August, the question is whether or not the majority will double down on their failed agendas in September and continue the irresponsible attempts to repeal the health care law. If they do, they will be escalating their brinksmanship to a new level and risking a government shutdown simply because they don't want to compromise.

Already, as you know, Members of the majority are threatening to shut down the government if the Affordable Care Act is not repealed. That does show kind of an act of desperation, doesn't it? In fact, a dozen Republican Senators have signed a letter vowing to vote against a continuing resolution--that we have to have because nobody got their work done--that funds the Affordable Care Act, and more than 60 House Republicans have called on the majority's leadership to defund the Affordable Care Act in any continuing resolution that comes before the House.

Instead, I want the majority to make a change here. My fellow Kentuckian, Hal Rogers, who is the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, yesterday made it plain to everybody that this is all a hoax. He talked about sequestration and the impossibility of bringing a transportation bill that scarcely has enough money to maintain what roads we have, and it imploded on the floor when nobody would vote for it. While we're out on recess, please think about this, and think about what sequestration is doing in the United States.

I hope you read former Senator Byron Dorgan's article in The New York Times talking about the devastation on the Indian reservations because of the money that we owe them by treaty, which is being lost through sequestration; the people who are doing health research at the National Institutes of Health, where they tell me in the human genome project that they are very close to finding a cure for cancer, but now they have to stop it. As a scientist, I can promise you, you do not turn research off and on like a faucet. And think of all the people who can't get their treatment because of sequestration. Think of all the people who live in this area and work for this government and keep this government working, many of them two members of the family on the Federal payroll, who have suffered as much in that family as a 40 percent pay cut.

And the bills that are in here today, again, saying to the Federal employees: We don't value you for anything. We've already passed legislation in here that hurts their pensions. They haven't had a raise in 4 years. What we're saying now, if this bill passes today, is that they can be fired without cause and that their phones will be tapped by any citizen in the United States. I really am concerned about what's going on here.

We talk about too much regulation. I want to close with something I mentioned last night at the Rules Committee because I realize most Americans don't know it. But let me talk about under-regulation.

In the food market, chickens are inspected 100 at a time--100 a minute going through the conveyor belt. They're covered with barnyard debris and feces and whatever else. One person is inspecting them as 100 of them go by. So what's going to happen now they have decided to regulate? They will have to do 140 chickens a minute.

Recently, The Washington Post had a front-page story that stunned me to the core. It said that a young food inspector, working for the government, his lungs bled out and he died from the chemicals that he inhaled from his chicken inspection days. Now, after the chicken goes through a conveyor belt, it goes into a bath of cool water and Clorox. Then it's ready to be packaged and all plastic-ed up and have it for dinner. Is that overregulation? For heaven's sakes, give me more regulation than that.

But I want to urge my colleagues today to vote ``no'' on this rule, the underlying legislation, and quit this farce in the House of Representatives.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me take just a second to say another case of un-regulation is the fertilizer plant blowing up in West, Texas, that had not been inspected in over 20 years.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

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

I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

I yield an additional minute to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to a member of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Michelle Lujan Grisham), a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus), a member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth), a member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, we will offer on our side an amendment to the rule that allows the House to consider the SAFE Bridges Act, which funds emergency repairs and creates countless American jobs. We are about to go into a 5-week break; and so far, the Congress has done nothing to end sequestration or to create jobs for the country. My amendment will prevent the House from going home until we have done the job we were sent here to do.

To discuss our proposal, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. Larsen), a member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

May I inquire if my colleague has more speakers?

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

As we speak, sequestration is hitting very hard in communities all across the country. Federal employees are furloughed; important investments in science, technology, public health, and defense are being curtailed; children are being shut out of Head Start. Meanwhile, the majority has repeatedly refused to repeal the sequester and have failed to pass a single job bill creation into law.

The American people need us to stop these political games and get down to work creating jobs and rebuilding this economy. Now is not the time to adjourn Congress, and we should not leave here until we have produced real results for the American families that are truly struggling to get by.

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

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' to defeat the previous question and to vote ``no'' on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I thank the ranking member of the Rules Committee, my friend, Ms. Slaughter, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman from Oklahoma. But I say that this House is not working. And the American people are angry with all of us, 100 percent of us.

The gentleman from Florida just said ``surely we can find common ground.'' The gentleman talked about shutting down the government being an unreasonable response, although many in his party promote that. The President's not promoting it; the President is against it. You know our side is against that. Surely, we can reach common ground.

Yesterday, we had eight bills on the floor on suspension. The public doesn't know process, I understand that--they're not too interested in hearing about process. But suspensions make for short debates and no amendments, no ability to make changes in those bills. That's why they were offered on suspension.

Apparently, three of those bills were pulled because they didn't think they had the votes. I don't think they had the votes either-- ``they'' being the majority.

So what did they do in their pursuit of a transparent ``let the House work its will'' pledge that they had made to the American public when they sought control, being in the majority? They've gone to the Rules Committee. One rule, five bills. How can you debate five different bills with rules, whether the rules are correct? And what are those rules? Closed, no amendments, limited discussion.

Yesterday, we had an appropriations bill on the floor. It was pulled. It was pulled, as I predicted it would be, because the Republican majority cannot get its act together. It disagrees with itself. It is a deeply divided party.

I was just on television, and they played a clip of Rush Limbaugh before that, and Rush Limbaugh said ``we ought not to compromise because we don't have anything in common with them''--meaning Democrats. My response was: ``Oh, I think Rush Limbaugh is wrong.''

We are all Americans, and we are all elected here by Americans to serve

them and to serve their country, to serve our communities and our neighbors, and to try to do things that make sense. Americans elected all of us from different places, different interests.

I say this because, Mr. Speaker, the American people need to know what's happening.

They pulled the Transportation-Housing bill. I wasn't for that bill as it came out of committee, nor were any Democrats that voted on it in committee, but they brought it to the floor and then pulled it. Nine days from tomorrow, nine legislative days from tomorrow, we are going to have that issue of how we are going to fund government and keep it running.

The Senate just a few minutes ago refused to allow the Senate-- because the Republican Party voted ``no'' on bringing debate to close after days of debate and discussion, and they voted ``no'' to take the HUD bill up for discussion.

So in both Houses the Republican Party has abandoned the appropriations process. Now, I've just said that.

Hal Rogers, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, a conservative Republican, says this:

``I am extremely disappointed with the decision to pull the bill from the House calendar today. The prospects of passing this bill in September are bleak at best, given the vote count on passage that was apparent this afternoon. With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted'' without a single Democratic vote.

He went on to say--Mr. Rogers, conservative, Kentucky, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Republican:

Thus, I believe that the House has made its choice:

sequestration--and its unrealistic and ill-conceived

discretionary cuts--must be brought to an end.

The Ryan budget was unrealistic when it was considered on this floor. Mr. Rogers voted for that budget. He knew then it was unrealistic. He knew then it could not be implemented.

I predicted then that if you took every Democrat out of the House and every Democrat out of the Senate, that that budget could not be implemented through the appropriations process and through the Ways and Means process, and I was right.

Yes, we need to seek common ground. We are hurting the economy, we are undermining the confidence of the American people and, indeed, we are undermining the confidence of our international partners.

Tom Cole sits here representing the Rules Committee. I want to tell everybody in America Tom Cole is a reasonable Member of this House. He's been a leader of this House. He wants to see common ground, in my view, so I do not criticize him.

But I say, Mr. Speaker, as you tap the gavel, time is not only running out on Steny Hoyer, time is running out on this House, time is running out on America, time is running out on the patience of Americans that their House is not working.

Mr. Speaker, we are witnessing on full display the utter failure of Republicans to govern as the majority.

Yesterday, after the Speaker and Majority Leader pulled the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development appropriations bill from the floor, because they didn't have the votes to pass it, chairman Hal Rogers of the Appropriations Committee--that is, Republicans' top appropriator--issued a scathing rebuke to his party's own sequester strategy.

He wrote:

With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the

implementation of the very budget it adopted just three

months ago. Thus, I believe that the House has made its

choice: sequestration--and its unrealistic and ill-conceived

discretionary cuts--must be brought to an end.

Not my words, Mr. Speaker, but the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

What a shame that we are now harming our national security and limiting our ability to protect the most vulnerable people in America through this sequester process.

It is also hurting our economic recovery, as the nonpartisan CBO has estimated it could cost us as many as 1.6 million jobs that would have been created by the end of the next fiscal year--and 1.3 percentage points of added GDP.

The sequester is a result of Congress stalling on tough decisions and an insistence by tea party Republicans on divesting from America and dismantling the foundations of the American Dream.

And it has been embraced by the Republican leadership as their singular approach to deficits.

But the sequester is not a rational or responsible solution.

It was never meant to be.

The mere threat of sequester was intended to be so severe that it would compel both parties to cooperate and find a balanced alternative.

Now, like Chairman Rogers, many Republicans are growing tired of the sequester and are ready to compromise.

But not the Republican leadership, and that is very sad.

The complete implosion of their appropriations strategy demonstrates that, in order to pass appropriations or any substantive legislation, Republicans will have to compromise and work with Democrats in a bipartisan way.

It is sad and shameful that we are about to adjourn for a 5-week district work period, leaving critical business to create jobs and tackle deficits unfinished, while Republicans waste this Congress's time on a 40th vote to repeal ObamaCare.

When we return in September, I hope Republicans will see this week's appropriations debacle as their own appropriations chairman has--and abandon their reckless support for the sequester.

Let us focus now on seeking bipartisan compromise and the big, balanced solution that will restore fiscal sanity and give American families and businesses the certainty they deserve.

I thank the gentleman.

Will the gentleman yield?

I used to be the majority leader, and the thing that I hated losing most was my magic 1 minute, because as the gentleman will recall, it was an unlimited 1 minute.

If the gentleman will yield, I say respectfully to my friend, we think the President sent down a piece of legislation similar to yours, correct. But we both worked together; you're right.

Will my friend yield on that point?

The gentleman is correct. Both sides have done it. But you will recall, your side criticized us very substantially and said you would not do it. That I think is the difference. But both sides, you're absolutely correct, have brought rules that have been closed and limited in their scope.

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

In its current form, I am.

Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill. If adopted, it won't kill the bill. If adopted, the bill will proceed to final passage immediately, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with many of those on the other side on much of the underlying bill. Let's open our public lands to recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting. Let's make it easier to maintain public shooting ranges. No argument from me. But we can and should make this bill better, and my amendment will do just that.

Preserving our public lands and common spaces also means investing in the critical infrastructure that allows us to bring our families there safely. That is why the bipartisan SAFE Bridges Act should be in this bill to ensure that our Nation's highways and bridges are safe.

But the biggest omission in this bill is the failure to protect our citizens from toxic spills that would threaten our water supplies.

A few weeks ago, we all woke up to learn that 300,000 people in West Virginia couldn't drink their water. A mother trying to put her child in the bathtub couldn't turn on the faucet. A father mixing baby formula for an infant couldn't trust what came out of the tap.

For more than a week, families couldn't do things that each of us do every day. Hundreds were hospitalized. Because businesses had to lock their doors, even people making the meager Federal minimum wage of $7.25 couldn't go to work. Businesses were shut down, and they couldn't provide for their families.

Schools shut down. Anxious and worried residents by the thousands lined up every day for National Guard troops to supply them with safe water.

This happened right here in America, and not in some foreign country. It happened for a reason. It happened because one greedy operator thought it made sense not to inspect and maintain a storage tank with thousands of gallons of a toxic chemical right next to the water supply.

You can't tell me that the free market took care of that problem. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of West Virginians who can't drink their water.

Mr. Speaker, my amendment ensures companies making chemicals with the potential to contaminate water supplies are simply required to report the hazards of these chemicals. It is pretty simple.

In my neck of the woods, the New York City watershed delivers approximately 1.4 billion gallons of water to my district, supplying it to millions of people every day. If this spill on the Elk River had happened on the Hudson River, we would be talking about a different problem in the order of magnitude that would affect millions and millions of people.

Have we lost so much faith in ourselves acting together that we can't protect the American people from this kind of toxic spill? If this House isn't doing this and if we aren't protecting a mom or dad trying to give baby formula to their child, what are we doing here?

Again, I join many of you in supporting the underlying emphasis of this bill. Let's get government out of the way for our hunters, anglers, and sportsmen. A dad should be able to share that first marksmanship experience with his son or daughter, like my dad did with me and my brothers.

To preserve these freedoms, government needs to get out of the way at times, but surely it must also protect us at times from those who would destroy these treasures for profit.

It was Teddy Roosevelt, after all, who said:

Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders,

cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and

romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your

children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy

interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its

romance.

If we really want to protect the national beauty of our country, it starts with protecting something as fundamental as our water.

Mr. Speaker, if we don't do this, we are doing nothing, and if those on the other side will not use that gavel in this House to protect the American people, then some of us on this side would like to borrow it for a while--because we will.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank my good friend on the Rules Committee, a member that I have the pleasure of serving with.

Today, I rise in support of House Resolution 322 and the underlying legislation, H.R. 367, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Security Act. I want to thank my friend for bringing this forward as the rule. But this is better known as the REINS Act. The underlying legislation would bring much-needed reform to our broken regulatory process.

Now, my good friend from New York (Ms. Slaughter) talked about chickens--and she mentioned it last night. But the issue really, what she's talking about when you're talking about the number of chickens being observed by the USDA, this is the President. They want to increase the number. They want to go to a private system. So I agree that it's a bad idea. But maybe the REINS Act could actually help in that particular instance because you could bring it back to this House to talk about it because, as a valued member of the Rules Committee, she brought up a good idea.

But somewhere along the line we have lost sight of what Congress' responsibility in the role of regulation is all about. Through the years, we have delegated away our responsibility. We gave it to unelected bureaucrats to make decisions that have far-ranging effects on the American people. I'm pretty sure that our Founding Fathers really didn't envision us doing that; that bureaucrats are going to decide the fates of small businesses and industries. That's exactly what we let happen because it was easy--it's easier. And all too often, in making regulations in D.C., we just aren't in touch with how that actually affects real Americans, real jobs in this country.

We all hear from folks back home about how regulations passed in D.C. are preventing their businesses from growing and expanding. It's a common refrain, Mr. Speaker.

The REINS Act, however, would return us to the vision our Founding Fathers had for this institution and for this Nation. It does so by ensuring that any major rule--that's a rule that has over $100 million in impact to our economy--receive approval from this body and from the Senate before it actually goes into the process of regulation.

Certainly, regulations with an impact this large deserve to have our attention, our review, and ultimately our blessing by our vote. Frankly, they deserve more than just a public comment period that regulatory agencies give the public. For that reason, I urge support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

I'll just give you one anecdote, Mr. Speaker. Back home, we have a cement kiln that produces cement for use all over the United States; employs 200 people right there. And I come from a county today that still has unemployment of 8.9 percent. What the EPA is looking to do is put those businesses out of existence.

When I talked to the folks that actually run the cement kiln, they said, Rich, we can just go across the border into Mexico, where they don't have any restrictions on air pollution, and we can do it cheaper because we don't have to have the pollution controls. But you know what, that air doesn't stop at the border, it comes back into the United States. So when you force companies out--and we have some of the strongest and most stringent EPA requirements for air and water--when you force those companies to leave our country, take the jobs with them, we still breathe dirtier air than we would have. So there has got to be a common ground.