Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am forced to rise again in opposition to the rule and the two underlying bills that are counterproductive and aren't dealing with the issues that our constituents sent us here to address. Each of these bills was brought under a restrictive process, one of them a completely closed rule that blocked all efforts from both sides of the aisle to improve the legislation.

Let's talk about the IRS bill first.

The IRS bill has a title that I think would engender broad bipartisan support. If we want to run a bill that prevents the IRS from discriminating against organizations based on their political affiliations, whether they are progressive or tea party or anywhere in between, I think there would be a way to come together in support, hopefully near unanimous support, around such a bill.

Like many Americans, I was outraged that organizations had been singled out based on the name of their organization for additional scrutiny.

That is simply not the right criteria that the IRS should be using. I hope they got the message over at the IRS loud and clear, and I hope we can move to fully implement the recommendations of the inspector general to ensure that this never happens again.

However, this bill actually undoes one of the very recommendations of the inspector general from the inspector general's own report. There is even a Republican bill in the Ways and Means Committee by Pete Roskam that would require the IRS Commissioner to implement all of the recommendations of the inspector general, including these very regulations that this other Republican bill is seeking to prevent the implementation of. So make up our minds here, folks.

If we want to move together to prevent the IRS from discriminating against any organization because of their political affiliation, let's do so, whether it is something binding, implementing in statute the recommendations of the inspector general, whether it is a sense of Congress, I stand ready to work with my colleague from Georgia and others to speak with a strong voice that that kind of discrimination has no role in the IRS. However, that is entirely separate from what this bill does, which guts one of the very inspector general recommendations that was designed to remedy this problem going forward.

As for the other bill, the ALERRT Act, it would slow down the regulatory process and increase red tape for agencies. It has been estimated that this bill increases reporting requirements for agencies by six times. This is a Republican bureaucrat welfare bill. How many more government bureaucrats are you going to have to hire to deal with six times more paperwork that is going to come from this bill?

You know, when I talk to my constituents in Colorado about what do we need to do, they don't say, ``You need to go to Washington and help bury government workers in more paperwork. I want more red tape.''

Yet, that is the bill we have here today, a Republican bill that would bury the Federal Government under six times as much reporting requirements for agencies. That is not what the American people want. That is why I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and this bill.

Look, there are some issues that we could be working on here today, Mr. Speaker. Let me talk about a few of those. These are the kinds of issues that I believe if my party had the opportunity to bring bills to the floor of this Chamber, we would be bringing those bills to the floor of this Chamber. One of those is immigration reform. Rather than spending time debating bills that are counterproductive and aren't going anywhere, let's consider legislation that would replace our broken immigration system with one that works.

The Senate, Mr. Speaker, was able to come together, 68 Members, Democratic and Republican, around a commonsense solution, securing our border, ensuring that people who are here illegally get in line behind those who are here legally, implementing mandatory workplace authentication of workers, making sure the future flow of workers is in line with the needs of our economy and America can continue to compete in the 21st century. We have a nearly identical bill in the House, H.R. 15, a bipartisan bill. I think if we brought it forward under a rule, it would pass. Let's bring that bill forward, Mr. Speaker.

Nearly a year ago, the New Democratic Coalition Immigration Task Force, which I cochair, released detailed principles on comprehensive immigration reform. I applaud the Republican principles that were issued on immigration reform. There is a lot that we have in common. I believe that we can work together to pass a bill to create American jobs, ensure that we are more competitive in the global economy, reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, and that reflects our values as Americans and reflects our values as people of faith.

Yet, the House majority has found time to shepherd dozens of bills through the Judiciary Committee to the floor of the House, including one that we are considering today, but the House hasn't dedicated a single moment of floor time to an immigration reform bill. We haven't even tried, Mr. Speaker. We haven't had a 3-hour debate, we haven't had a 1-hour debate, we haven't had a 1-minute debate on any immigration reform bill here on the floor of the House of Representatives. You don't get to ``yes'' without scheduling the time and the space for Democrats and Republicans of good faith to work together to solve a problem that the American people want and demand a solution for.

Across the country, business leaders, faith leaders, national and local editorial boards, and the law enforcement community are calling for real leadership on advancing immigration reform now. In fact, just yesterday, the Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to Speaker Boehner from more than 600 businesses urging Congress to pass immigration reform. The Chamber president, Tom Donohue, posted a blog post emphasizing the need to have a modernized E-Verify system, provisions that are included in H.R. 15.

Last week, a Wall Street Journal op-ed criticized the Republicans' failure to act on commonsense reform. Citing a recent study from the American Farm Bureau about the cost of failing to act, The Wall Street Journal wrote:

Republicans have killed immigration reform for now, but the

Farm Bureau study shows that in the real economy it is still

needed. The irony is that many Republicans who support

handouts to farmers oppose reforms that wouldn't cost

taxpayers a dime and would help the economy.

So instead of passing a bill that reduces the deficit, secures our borders, and makes the reforms we need, Republicans say let's bury the government in red tape, increasing the paperwork for agencies by six times, and let's give government handouts to farmers. Those are the Republican policies that we are seeing in this Congress, and it is why the American people hold this institution in great disapproval. The longer we delay in passing comprehensive immigration reform, the greater the cost of inaction becomes.

According to the Congressional Budget Office's nonpartisan analysis, passing immigration reform would increase our gross domestic product by 3.3 percent, raise wages by $470 billion for American citizens, and create an average of 121,000 jobs for Americans each year over the next decade.

So, rather than create jobs for Federal bureaucrats having to deal with six times as much paperwork, let's create jobs in the private sector, Mr. Speaker. Let's pass immigration reform to ensure that American companies can compete in the increasingly complex global marketplace.

If we have the ability, Mr. Speaker, to bring a bill forward to the floor, another bill we would bring forward is increasing the minimum wage to $10.10. Just before coming up here today to manage this rule, Mr. Speaker, I signed a discharge petition to bring that bill to the floor, a bill that I proudly cosponsor, a bill authored by my colleague, Mr. Miller of California.

Raising the minimum wage would help restore fairness for working men and women across the country. It would lift millions of Americans out of poverty. It would fuel demand and economic growth.

A letter from over 600 economists, including seven Nobel Prize winners, said:

At a time when persistent high unemployment is putting

enormous downward pressure on wages, such a minimum wage

increase will provide a much-needed boost.

It is no panacea, but if we are looking at helping Americans earn enough so that they don't have to be part of the social safety net or government welfare programs, we need to make sure that they can do that in the private sector because--you know what?--at current minimum wage levels, a family working full-time, 40 hours a week, earns about $14,000 a year.

Mr. Speaker, you try living on $14,000 a year. I couldn't do it. I don't think you could do it, Mr. Speaker.

Guess what? That is why we have a social safety net that helps Americans and supplements their income. Whether it is Medicaid, whether it is food stamps, Americans earning $14,000 a year don't live a great life, but they get a little help from us, and that is the right thing to do; it reflects our values.

Do you know what? If we can help them earn a little bit more, they will require less help from other taxpayers

in paying their rent, paying their bills, putting groceries on their table.

So we can be fiscally responsible in reducing the need for social safety net programs if we can help lift up more Americans out of poverty. One substantial step towards doing that will be to increase the minimum wage to $10.10.

Another issue that we would love to bring forward, Mr. Speaker, would be renewing unemployment insurance. Again, when unemployment insurance ran out with employment at high levels, it sucked money out of the economy, money that could otherwise go to create jobs and private sector growth.

In the past and in prior recessions and in prior times when we had this level of unemployment, this has always been a bipartisan issue. There has always been responsible governing majorities of Republicans and Democrats, in this Chamber and the other Chamber, that have put together extensions for unemployment insurance.

And yet, once again, it has run out, and we seek to bring a simple bill to the floor that ensures that we don't endanger our recovery by sucking money out of the economy in our time of need.

I will go on and on, Mr. Speaker, about bills we could be considering, but sadly, the truth is--and the American people see this--we are not considering those bills here today. We are considering a bill that adds six times as much paperwork to already overworked Federal workers, and we are considering a bill that guts one of the recommendations of the inspector general that was designed to help prevent the IRS from discriminating based on political affiliation and ensure that we have sufficient transparency, consistent with our Tax Code around entities in the political arena.

We can do better, Mr. Speaker. I encourage my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to do better. I am confident that, if they are not able to do better, Mr. Speaker, the American people will give my side of the aisle a chance to do better. Either way, Mr. Speaker, immigration reform doesn't solve itself. It takes the United States Congress to solve it.

While the President can move forward with his executive powers, as he has with the deferred action program, the only comprehensive solution can come from the United States Congress.

I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work in good faith towards addressing the flaws in our immigration system and replacing chaos with the rule of law, increasing our competitiveness, reducing our deficits, securing our borders, making America safer, and creating jobs for Americans.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before further yielding, I want to address some of the comments, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, this bill creates a backdoor increase in the Federal bureaucracy. When you are talking about increasing reporting requirements by six times and adding 60 additional procedural and analytical requirements to the rulemaking process, you know that this bill must contemplate increasing the size of the Federal bureaucracy to deal with these increased requirements.

As an entrepreneur who started a number of small businesses, I know the importance of having certainty and predictability in the regulatory process. The additional bureaucracy instituted by this ALERRT Act will simply not help businesses thrive and grow. This legislation would create headaches for businesses at a time when many small businesses are already struggling to recover from the recession.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 1010, which is legislation to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, in order to restore fairness for men and women across our country.

To discuss our proposal, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Speaker, we do. We have at least one speaker who is here and ready to go.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

I would inquire if the gentleman from Georgia has remaining speakers.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, these underlying bills are destined, if they pass this Chamber, like so many bills, for the Senate's bill graveyard. Why? Because they are counterproductive. They are not what the American people want. They don't do what they say.

If we had a bill that fully implemented the recommendations to prevent any kind of discrimination based on political affiliation at the IRS, we could pass that bill. That would be an important step forward in ensuring that the terrible embarrassment and pie on your face that the IRS had, the loss of confidence that it engendered among the American people, will not happen again.

That is a good issue to work on, but that is not what we have. Instead, we have a bill that actually guts one of the very recommendations of the inspector general designed to prevent this from happening again--the exact opposite of the title of the bill.

We also have a bill before us that creates more red tape in the Federal Government and regulatory agencies. I don't think the American people are calling out for more red tape. I don't think small businesses want regulators, whose approval they need, to be so buried with six times as many reports and 60 times more analytical requirements that they won't even be able to give routine approval for various things that small businesses and entrepreneurs need. It is a counterproductive step.

So instead of addressing the issues that the American people want us to act on, from immigration reform to raising the minimum wage to extending unemployment insurance, we are debating counterproductive, single-Chamber bills that will die in the Senate and would be harmful to the country if passed.

My colleagues Mr. Scott and Mr. Bishop gave eloquent testimony for the importance of raising the minimum wage. I certainly agree with my colleague from Georgia that it is not a panacea. Would that there were a silver bullet to lift people out of poverty, it would have 435 votes.

I do believe that the American people agree that when you work full time, you shouldn't need a government handout. You should be able to support your family at a very basic level. You shouldn't have to live in poverty if you are working 40, 50, 60 hours a week at a backbreaking job. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 will help accomplish that.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 1010, legislation to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, to restore fairness for working men and women across the country.

Someone working full-time, year-round at minimum wage earns just over $14,000. That is nearly $4,000 below the poverty line. It means that other Americans will need to subsidize that person through government support, welfare, or food stamps. Because, guess what. That $14,000 isn't enough to provide for a family, have a shot at the American Dream, or even to put a roof over your head and food on the table.

By raising the minimum wage to $10.10, we can help Americans become self-sufficient to support themselves and their families with pride and have a job that gives them pride to put food on their table and a roof over their head without the need for government support.

Increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 is simply a return to the level of the minimum wage in the 1960s. It would allow millions of additional American workers to support their families.

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

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Georgia said, this rule does not contain immigration reform and minimum wage, but I think it is important for the American people to know what it could contain, what it should contain with this Chamber under Republican leadership, what it would contain if this Chamber were under Democratic leadership.

The agriculture community, the faith-based community, the business community, the law enforcement community, and the fiscal responsibility community all speak with one voice on immigration reform. What we are doing now doesn't work.

There are over 10 million people here illegally. Companies violate the law every day. There is over close to 2 million deportations, each at cost to the taxpayers of $10,000 to $20,000.

It is time to replace our broken immigration system with the rule of law, reduce our deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars, create over 100,000 jobs

for Americans, finally secure our borders, and ensure that nobody works illegally in this country, potentially undermining wages for American workers. That is what we can accomplish. We recognize it would be a bipartisan solution.

H.R. 15, the Senate-passed bill, doesn't have everything that Democrats want in it; it doesn't have everything that Republicans want in it; but it would be good for our country. It would be great for our country and for the American people.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 487 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, you have heard me say it before, it makes me so happy to be a member of the Rules Committee because our entire resolution gets read down here. The entire Rules resolution gets read, and by golly, Mr. Speaker, if you are not proud of what you are doing in your committee, you better not sign up for a committee where every word of the work that you do gets read each and every time, but I am proud of the work we are doing in the Rules Committee.

The rule that we have on the floor today, Mr. Speaker, is going to make two bills in order. Both, I would argue, are incredibly important for providing

not just transparency to what goes on here in Washington but also to ensure that the people's voice continues to be heard in Washington.

House Resolution 487, this rule, is a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 3865. That is the Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act, Mr. Speaker. That is in response to what now every American understands to be the 501(c)(4) scandal, for lack of a better word; that for the first time in my lifetime, there are allegations that the IRS is targeting folks on the basis of their political beliefs for whether or not they are able to have their organization certified as a tax-exempt organization. That is not just a concern of groups on one side of the aisle or the other, Mr. Speaker, that is a concern of folks across the spectrum, and I would argue it is a concern for all Americans who believe that having their voice heard is important.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution provides for a structured rule for the consideration of H.R. 2804, the All Economic Regulations are Transparent Act.

Mr. Speaker, in that structured rule, we made in order 11 amendments. We had two Members come by and testify on behalf of their amendments last night in the Rules Committee. We made both of those amendments in order. In addition, we made four Republican amendments and five other Democratic amendments in order; so for a total of 11 amendments, four Republican amendments and seven Democratic amendments were made in order on that underlying bill. As is customary, it provides the minority with a motion to recommit on both bills.

Mr. Speaker, I sit on the Government Reform Committee. We just had a Government Reform Committee bill pass here on the floor of the House, and we have another one here today. It aims for transparency. There is just no question in my mind, Mr. Speaker, that we have replaced taxation in this country with regulation. Rarely does someone come down and say, ``I want to tax an industry.'' What they will come down and say is, ``I want to regulate an industry.'' In fact, in my great State of Georgia, Mr. Speaker, we are regulating jobs right out of existence. We don't have to tax them out of existence. We don't have to outlaw an industry. We just regulate it out of existence.

Perhaps there are some industries that need to be regulated out of existence, and we should have that full and open debate on the floor of the House, but what is absolutely certain is that the American people need to be able to understand the power of the regulatory process, and the impact that it has on jobs and economic development in their community.

Today in statute, Mr. Speaker, there is a requirement that the administration twice a year publish a notice of all of those regulations that are being considered and what their impact is anticipated to be, but we have had instances, as recently as 2012, Mr. Speaker, where the administration just ignored that statute altogether. Now understand, the requirement is that you must inform the American people twice a year, just twice a year, about the regulations that are coming through the pipeline that will impact them, their families, and their businesses, and yet, that has been ignored. There has been no ability for folks to understand the magnitude of those regulations.

So we came back in this piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, and said, listen, not only should you be doing that, you should probably be doing it once a month. If you have seen the Federal Register, Mr. Speaker, it is thick. It comes out every day of the week. It captures all of the new rules and regulations that are coming out. They are coming out like water out of a spigot. They are tough to keep track of. So this bill says let's do it not twice a year, let's do it once a month. Let's make sure that the American people understand in a volume that they can see and read once a month what those new rules and regulations are, and, if an agency chooses to ignore that requirement, that proposed rule and regulation will not go into effect such that the American people will get six months of notice about what it is that is going on.

I will give a good example, Mr. Speaker. It goes to the second bill we are considering, the Stop Political Targeting bill that is on the floor here today. There is a public comment period that is on right now. I don't know if most folks in America know that. I know everybody understands the IRS targeting scandal. I don't know if they know that the administration is involved in a rulemaking right now. The investigation is still ongoing into the IRS. The extent of the abuse is not yet understood at the IRS. The committees are continuing to work through that process, as the law requires, and yet the administration has released a rule that says we think we know how to fix this, even though the investigation is not done yet; this is what we want to do, and the public comment period ends tomorrow. The public comment period ends tomorrow.

Now, folks can go to www.regulations.gov. They can still go and file their comment if they believe that the people's voice being heard is important, but think about that, Mr. Speaker. A scandal that everyone in America understands, a scandal that I believe is offensive to absolutely everyone in America because it doesn't matter which party you are in, you shouldn't target folks who disagree with you; we should absolutely have an full and open debate and let the best ideas win. Yet the administration has proposed a solution to a problem that is not yet fully understood, and the opportunity for the American people to comment on it ends tomorrow. I don't think folks know that back home, Mr. Speaker.

This transparency bill we have on the floor today intends to address that, not just for this regulation, but for all future regulations, and the Stop Political Targeting bill that we have on the floor today says this and this alone: it says since we don't fully understand what is going on, and since we know with certainty that the IRS has breached the public's trust, not the entire IRS but just this one scandal here in the 501(c)(4) operations, since we know with certainty that the public's trust has been diminished, let's not have the administration, in the absence of a full understanding by the Congress, the absence of full comment by the American people, let's not have the administration completely re-regulate that area. Rather, let's put this off, not forever, Mr. Speaker, because we all agree that work needs to be done, but for 1 year and 1 year only so that the Congress can have a full understanding and the American people can have a full accounting of what it was that led to citizens' voices being silenced by the Internal Revenue Service in their applications for 501(c)(4) status.

Those are the two bills we have on the floor today, Mr. Speaker. Again, all of the germane amendments that were offered, and candidly, there were no germane amendments that were offered to the Stop Political Targeting Act, so that is a closed rule with just the one motion to recommit, and 11 amendments made in order for the government transparency bill on the floor today, only four Republican amendments, seven Democratic amendments, so we can have a full and open debate. I am very proud of this rule, Mr. Speaker.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), a freshman Member, a young Member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, in support of this legislation.

I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleague from Colorado if he has any speakers remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes to say, if you care about any of these issues that have been brought up today--and these are not issues that are involved in the rule, and these are not issues that are coming to the floor today--then you care about whether or not the American people are able to make their voices heard, because I am absolutely certain, as I have learned in my 3 years of having a voting card, Mr. Speaker, that the American voters still run this show. Now, the voters have a tough time having their voices heard, but if they can have their voices heard, they can make a difference.

We are talking about issues that we wish we could change, Mr. Speaker. Today on the floor, we have an issue that we can change. The administration is proposing regulations that will silence voices on these very issues that my colleagues are raising.

Let me read from Cathy Duvall, the Sierra Club's director of public advocacy and partnerships, who says this about the proposed regulations from the Obama administration's Treasury Department:

The proposal harms efforts that have nothing to do with

politics--from our ability to communicate with our members

about clean air and water to our efforts to educate the

public about toxic pollution.

Mr. Speaker, if you believe in this process as I do, if you believe in this Nation as I do, then you believe that it is paramount that the people's voices are able to be heard. That is the issue here today. If you believe that the priorities of this House should be changed, if you believe the priorities of this Nation should be changed, if you believe anything in this Nation should be changed, you must believe that we should preserve the power of the individual's voice.

That is why this rule moratorium is here today, Mr. Speaker. That is why the investigations must go on. That is why we must reject the administration's rush to judgment here and ensure that our priority continues to be that of the board of directors of this country--the American voters.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I say to my friend from Virginia I think he is absolutely speaking from the heart when it comes to sharing the voice of his constituents in Virginia. My constituents take a slightly different view. They look to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that said, yes, you can raise the minimum wage. You called it a modest raise. I think they called it a more than 40 percent increase in the minimum wage. But you can raise the minimum wage, as some are proposing, and that is going to lift 900,000 families above the poverty line and that is going to destroy 500,000 jobs.

I don't fault my colleagues at all for being concerned about those 900,000 individuals that are going to be lifted above the poverty line. I think we all want folks lifted above the poverty line. I don't want folks working a lifetime for minimum wage.

I want people working their way up the ladder. It is a ladder of opportunity that we ought to be building in this House. But to dismiss those 500,000 individuals that the Congressional Budget Office said will lose their jobs altogether are not partisan fights we have, Mr. Speaker. These are heartfelt discussions that we have about how best to serve the American people to whom we have sworn an oath to the Constitution that rules this land.

These are very difficult issues, but they are made better each and every time, I am certain, Mr. Speaker, if we preserve the power of the American people to have their voice heard in this debate. That is what is so important about this rule and why we must pass this rule today-- to bring to the floor the Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act--so that Americans' voices are not just silenced on the basis of their content, but not silenced period.

It is abhorrent that we would silence voices on the basis of their content, but I would argue, Mr. Speaker, it is abhorrent if we have an opportunity to stop voices from being silenced at all.

I believe this House will take that step today, and that is why I am proud to be here representing this rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I do not have any remaining speakers.

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

Mr. Speaker, you have heard a lot of heartfelt sentiments from my friends here on the floor of the House today. Unfortunately, what you haven't heard is what we are going to do together to ensure that the heartfelt sentiments of every single citizen of these United States can be heard here in Washington.

I fear my friend from Colorado is right. I don't say that lightly. He has a lot of good ideas, and I hope to collaborate with him on even more. I fear he is right that this is a single-Chamber solution. I fear that only the United States House of Representatives is concerned with protecting the voice of the people--not just people who agree with me, Mr. Speaker, but people from all stripes.

I have read from the Sierra Club earlier. Let me read from the ACLU's comments to the administration on this rule. This is what they say: ``Social welfare organizations praise or criticize candidates for public office on the issues and they should be able to do so freely, without fear of losing or being denied tax-exempt status.''

That is ``the heart of our representative democracy,'' the ACLU says.

``The proposed rule''--that is the administration's rule; that is the rule we are here today to stop--``threatens to discourage or sterilize an enormous amount of political discourse in America.''

Mr. Speaker, I have a chart here today. It lists what tax-exempt organizations are able to do. A 501(c) is that section of the Tax Code that deals with tax-exempt organizations.

You have 501(c)(3)'s that are able to do get-out-the-vote work, voter registration work, and candidate forums. 501(c)(4)'s are where the administration is regulating, and that is the source of the scandal: the targeting of American citizens based on their political beliefs. And 501(c)(5)'s are the labor unions in the country.

Mr. Speaker, what folks need to understand is that, as we sit here today, all of these groups can do get-out-the-vote work. All can do voter registration work and candidate forums. Why? Because it advances our Republic. It advances the cause of freedom and discourse in America.

But this, Mr. Speaker, is what the administration is proposing. For 501(c)(5)'s, or labor unions, it is proposing they continue doing all of that material. Also, for 501(c)(3)'s to continue doing all of that. But the 501(c)(4)'s--the very same 501(c)(4)'s that were targeted by the IRS on the basis of their political beliefs--those groups, and those groups alone, would be silenced.

Mr. Speaker, America is not advantaged by that rule. Maybe in some shortsighted way someone believes their personal political agenda is advanced by that scheme, Mr. Speaker, but we do not. We as a Nation do not. It is a shortsighted gain. That is why we put this bill on the floor today to delay these new regulations, this change of how American political discourse occurs, for 1 year--and 1 year only--while the investigation completes itself.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to read from the report that the inspector general crafted at the Treasury Department. He says, What were the words, what triggered this additional investigation that went on?

This is what they were, Mr. Speaker.

If you use the word ``Tea Party,'' you might get special scrutiny. If you use the word ``patriot'' in your name, you might get special scrutiny. If you were concerned, Mr. Speaker--and this is reading from the Treasury Department report--if you were concerned about government spending, government debt, or taxes, you could be subjected to special scrutiny. If you wanted, Mr. Speaker, to ``make America a better place to live,'' you could be subjected to special scrutiny.

The administration has gone far beyond that, Mr. Speaker. They are not just going to subject some groups to special scrutiny, as is the source of the scandal. They are silencing all groups. If you had a statement in your case file, Mr. Speaker, that criticized how this country is being run, you were subject to special scrutiny.

Mr. Speaker, that is not just our right, that is our obligation. Our obligation as citizens is to criticize the way this country is being run when we don't agree. Because, after all, Mr. Speaker, the President doesn't run this country. The Congress doesn't run this country. We the people run this country.

This rule to bring this bill is about one thing and one thing only, and that is making sure that those people to whom the Constitution invests every bit of power that the country has to offer, the American citizens have a voice with which to express their concerns and the information on which to educate that voice.

My colleague from Georgia was absolutely right, Mr. Speaker. There are so many things that happen on the floor of this House, you can't tell the difference between who is who regionally, politically, and what it is that folks believe. But this issue is one of those defining issues.

Do you believe that the board of directors of America, the United States citizen, deserves a loud voice and full information? If you do, you vote ``yes'' on this rule, you vote ``yes'' on the underlying legislation, you reject the administration's effort to silence the American people on both sides of the aisle, and you commit yourself to believing that a full and open debate is the only way in which this country will succeed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me the time.

One of the things that comes when we have these debates, and we have a lot of issues that come before the floor, we speak in terms of--and my good friend from Georgia, we talked about this before--we talk in terms of bill numbers; we talk in terms of rules, the good gentleman from across the aisle from Colorado often speaks of; and we all talk in the terms that we understand.

But many times, when you look at bills and you look at the things that are coming before the floor, it is a good idea to start painting the picture of those that are impacted by it. Mr. Speaker, when we begin to do that and when we begin to look at the bills on the floor today, I want to tell you a story.

The story involves Mr. Puckett. He owns a small business that has been creating jobs for over 100 years, a family-owned brick company. Mr. Puckett attributes the success of his business to their hard work and loyal employees.

Unfortunately, when I met Mr. Puckett, the conversation was not so optimistic. He testified before the Judiciary Committee on the first bill I introduced, H.R. 1493, which is now title IV of this legislation, because his company had just lost 50 jobs as a result of two regulations crafted behind closed doors.

In a Nation of over 300 million, 50 jobs may not seem like much, but in Mr. Puckett's town, that is the difference between 50 families having food on the table or going hungry; or for small towns, like I have in northeast Georgia, it means the difference in staying in their beloved part of the State or moving somewhere else to find a job.

Every State, every congressional district, has their Mr. Pucketts. No business has been untouched by the toll of costly and overburdensome regulations. That is why I rise today in strong support of this rule and the underlying legislative package.

Now, a lot will be said and has been said about this, in saying that we need to do other things, we need to go on to this project. I just heard from my friend from across the aisle. As I have done before from here, I will simply remind him, in that nirvana state of just a few years ago, when they had the choice to do whatever they wanted to do, they chose to leave immigration on the table while they fixed other things which we are fixing today.

But today, we are going to talk about the Mr. Pucketts of the world and the business owners, but not just the business owners, the folks who work for them, the folks that so many times are missed by what we are trying to do.

By reforming our Nation's regulatory system, we jump-start the engine of our economy. When our economy gets up and going, our families flourish.

A lot can be said about this whole package. There are other speakers who will speak later today about the different titles. I am speaking specifically to title IV, which is commonly known as ``sue and settle.''

I have talked to Members of both Democrats and Republicans who go home and have townhall meetings. One of the things that happens all the time is you begin to talk about regulation in bills and what does this do. I see this sense of many who are in the audience. All of a sudden, their eyes just glaze over, and they say: Here it comes, Washington speak; we don't get it.

Well, I am just a country boy from northeast Georgia, and I just want to put it in simple terms. This makes it very simple to understand the sue-and-settle legislation.

Two people have a problem. They don't get along. Something is not right. In one group, they have maybe a business or a group that have a disagreement on something going on, and they can't seem to find their solution, so the one actually says: Whoa, I see something here. There is a regulation that I can sue on. This is a government agency that I can go sue. So we have a third party in play.

So what we do is we take two people who have an issue--and I will just use ``people'' as the term here--and we have their outlet as saying: I will sue a third party--being the Federal Government--and while I am suing, I will work out a deal with the bureaucrats in this agency and go to a judge and get a consent order; and then, by the way, then that consent order is binding on the other person.

I grew up in a family with a brother. I have often kidded that I thought he was adopted, but he is not. He is actually my brother. It is like any other sibling rivalry, but when we would have a disagreement, it is sort of like him going to Mom and Mom only believing him, only hearing his side of the story, and then punishing me--which, by the way, for anybody watching today, that happened quite regularly.

I have spoken many times to my mom and dad about that. But is that fair? No, it is not fair. Both sides need to be heard. You need to have the opportunity. That is what sue-and-settle legislation does.

You can hear a lot, and I am sure there will be many folks who will come to the floor today and tonight saying: No, that is not what it does; you are gumming up the works. And I will get to that in a minute.

But when we understand what these do--the abusive use of consent and decree and settlements to coerce agency action is often referred to, as I have said, to sue and settle--it is the reason Mr. Puckett was losing these jobs. He did not have the input because of one of these decrees.

Agencies are failing to uphold their statutory rulemaking discretion and are allowing lawsuits from outside the groups to determine their priorities and duties. Between 2009 and 2012, the majority of these sue-and-settle actions occurred in the environmental

realm, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Endangered Species Act.

Again, when you come forward trying to make regulatory rules, we have, like we had testified into Rules Committee last night, that anybody threatening to say something about the regulatory action is wanting dirty water, dirty air, and baby cribs that fall apart, that is just a mischaracterization and not worthy of debate to the American people.

There is no one on this side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, that wants to breathe dirty air; there is no one on this side of the aisle that wants dirty drinking water; and there is no one on this side of the aisle that wants malfunctioning parts that hurt people. That is not worthy of this debate.

This is simply saying that we are having an issue of fairness. Our President talks fairness. He discusses transparency. We are calling on him to say: We agree with you, Mr. President, on this issue. Let's have transparency. Let's have fairness here.

But, when someone enters an out-of-sight backroom deal with unelected employees--bureaucrats--to establish when the EPA will meet its past- due responsibilities, it is effectively deciding how EPA will use its limited resources and, thus, creating policy priorities for the Agency.

If the EPA needs assistance in prioritizing its many regulatory responsibilities, I recommend they consult the States who must implement these regulations and the communities that will be impacted by them.

Unlike what some claim, H.R. 1493 does nothing to hinder the rights of citizens to bring suit against their government. Again, another ``let's throw up something against the wall to see if it sticks.'' This does nothing. They can still bring the suits. We are just simply asking for transparency.

Instead of buying into the mantra of special interest groups that benefit from these sweetheart deals, let's look at what it actually does. As I described before in basic terms, it allows fairness; it allows transparency; and it allows those with constitutional standing to be part of a suit so that they can have input into something that will affect them. I believe everyone can agree to that.

If you are being affected, you ought to--and especially when it comes to the United States Government--we ought to be able to tell what this bill and what these rules and regulations do to us.

This is good governance. Why should we let just a certain area and a certain group--Mr. Speaker, you know of this as well. There are areas in which they get into disagreements and only their views are put forward. Sue and settle works to eliminate that.

And then, also, the bill actually requires agencies to publish notice of a proposed decree or settlement in the Federal Register and take and respond to public comments at least 60 days prior to filing the decree or the settlement. Again, it is simply improving public participation.

This is what we are about here. This is what this bill does. This bill takes a measured and reasonable approach to the sue-and-settle problem. It ensures that settlements are conducted out in the open and impacted stakeholders can have a seat at the table.

That is good governance. That is putting transparency out there. That is doing the things that we are supposed to do here.

I also have to respond to my friend from Colorado. We have great debates down here. I enjoy listening to your perspective and coming down, Mr. Speaker, and having this kind of conversation; but I was amazed because I believe, today, the American people--there are many times I have very frustrated people in the Ninth District of Georgia who say: Both your Houses, Republican, Democrats, you are the same. I am tired of it all.

Well, today is one of those days, in this discussion right here, that you can honestly say: Here is the difference in governing philosophy. And it came out just a minute ago.

I am here with a bill and other parts of this bill today that are actually looking for transparency, openness, and willing to get regulations that are effective in a limited form of government which our Founders thought of, so that businesses can still be businesses, employees can still have jobs, moms and dads can still have paychecks and take care of the kids at home and take care of their families.

What I heard just a few minutes ago was the concern about the burden on the Federal Government. We are more concerned that this may cause extra work. Frankly, from my perspective, I believe this legislation can help because we can trim the size of the Federal Government and give roles and responsibilities where they need to be with States and others, and when we do so, that gives us the proper respect.

I think what we see here is a concern for the Federal Government. Our government employees are great folks--they do good work--but I am more concerned with the American business owner. More importantly, I am concerned with the workers who will lose their jobs, have lost their jobs, or who have had to change jobs.

This is the difference right now, Mr. Speaker. If you want to see governance philosophy that is different, I am concerned that government should do what it is supposed to do and that the burden they are putting on themselves should be removed. My concern is the business owner and the worker. My concern is Mr. Puckett. My concern even more is for the 50 folks who don't have jobs because the government, through regulatory backroom deals, has cut out their livelihoods.

Who do they see for that, Mr. Speaker? Who do they go and complain to? What government agency takes their phone calls when their government has, in essence, helped put them out of jobs?

No one on this side wants anything except an economy that is flourishing and people who are working and jobs that are secure. It is about the everyday man and woman who gets up and goes to work, but their business owners are having to tell them ``not today.'' We are being inundated with rules and regulations. I will stand with the American worker every day. I will acknowledge the role of our government in its limited form, but don't ever mistake there is a separate philosophy here, one that encourages Big Government and one that says, ``I am for the workers who get up every morning and go to work to take care of their families.''

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues in the House and I are here today to talk about another unintended consequence of the Affordable Care Act. We understand there is little appetite in this body to provide fixes to a flawed law. However, we believe that an unexpected and previously undetected problem with the law represents special and urgent circumstances.

This really took me by surprise. The fact that the Affordable Care Act could force volunteer fire companies to provide health insurance to their volunteers or pay a fine would burden them with unbearable costs and possibly cause them to reduce the number of volunteers they have or shut their doors altogether.

Simply put, this is a public safety issue. This is a problem today because the Internal Revenue Service currently treats volunteer firefighters as employees for Federal tax purposes. Under the Affordable Care Act, if they have 50 or more employees and they work 30 hours a week, then the employers have to provide health insurance or pay a fine.

Here is a key point that I want to make. Some fire companies may hear about this and immediately think: well, we only have 25 volunteers so we are safe, we don't have 50. Well, that may not necessarily be the case. Some fire companies are considered part of their local government. That could mean that if you take the number of firefighters paid and unpaid now considered employees by the IRS and add them to the number of other public employees, such as highway workers, police, code enforcement officers, health officers, clerical workers, you can easily reach 50, even in a small town.

This would be a very big deal in my home State of Pennsylvania. Ninety-seven percent of our fire companies are either completely or mostly volunteers. Nationally, 91.7 percent of fire companies use at least some volunteers and 86.2 percent depend on all or mostly volunteers. Those numbers come from the 2012 National Fire Department Census conducted by the United States Fire Administration.

So I wrote a letter to the IRS, just like many of my colleagues here, and asked them for clarification. To this point, as of this afternoon, we have gotten no reply from the Internal Revenue Service. They have said that they are ``reviewing'' it.

This should be very easy to clear up for the IRS. Just say that volunteer firefighters are just that--volunteers. But we are still waiting.

Let's be clear about this. This wrinkle in the Affordable Care Act will not provide health care to the uninsured; it will only shut down fire companies and cause a severe threat to public safety.

That is why I have introduced H.R. 3685, the Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act. The bill will specifically exempt volunteer firefighters and volunteers providing emergency medical services from the employer mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act.

I was happy to learn that there is a bipartisan Senate bill that is a companion to mine. I hope that we can see bipartisan support for this in both the House and in the Senate and that we can get through this quickly so that the President can sign it.

Mr. Speaker, this problem with the Affordable Care Act represents a clear and present danger to public safety.

I would like to invite my colleagues to offer their thoughts about this problem and how it relates to their own districts.

I would like to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick).

Thank you, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Now I would like to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

Thank you, Mr. Dent.

I would like to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meehan).

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, if you could just imagine the bookkeeping nightmare that these volunteer fire departments would face in determining whether or not the volunteer firefighters have worked 30 hours or not in order to be considered a full-time employee or less. Do they count the times that they have their pagers on as hours worked or the time that they are listening to a scanner or the 12- or 24-hour shifts that many of the volunteers would have to work and who would record this? It is the fact that these men and women who are volunteers to protect the communities that they love would be forced into doing things that we just know they wouldn't do. It would simply close firehouses or volunteers would no longer be volunteering their time.

I would like to yield to the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. David Joyce.

I thank the gentleman from Ohio.

I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from Kansas, Ms. Lynn Jenkins.

I thank the gentlewoman from Kansas.

I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr).

Mr. Speaker, may I have a time update, please.

I would like to yield at this time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Collins).

I thank the gentleman from New York.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stivers).

Mr. Speaker, may I have a time update again.

Thank you.

I would like to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Meadows).

I thank the gentleman.

I would like to yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. McKinley).

I thank the gentleman from West Virginia.

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

I yield to the gentlewoman from South Dakota (Mrs. Noem).

I thank the gentlewoman from South Dakota.

Mr. Speaker, I had sincerely hoped that we wouldn't have to be here this evening to take up the valuable time of this body, but the flaws in the Affordable Care Act and the deafening silence from the IRS on a question so basic and obvious compels our attention.

Over 1,000 different groups have received waivers from the Affordable Care Act, covering over 3 million people. Don't our volunteer firefighters and the communities they serve and protect deserve at least the same consideration?

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

Mr. Speaker, today the House will vote on H.R. 3865 the Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act, legislation to prevent the IRS from implementing newly proposed rules to restrict the First Amendment rights of certain non-profit groups. This legislation is an important step in holding the IRS accountable for its illegal targeting of conservative organizations in the run-up to the 2012 election.

Last year it was revealed by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration that the IRS used inappropriate criteria to review organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names and policy positions. Now the IRS wants to rewrite the rules to justify its inappropriate and likely criminal behavior. Congress should not let the IRS take ANY regulatory action until wrong-doers within the IRS are held accountable.

In April, top IRS official Lois Lerner revealed in a public forum that the agency had been discriminating against more than 75 groups with conservative sounding names in the run-up to November 2012. Ms. Lerner actually went so far as to plant a question in the audience about the issue in order to pre-empt the release of the Inspector General's audit.

When all this became public, Members of the Administration including the President and the Attorney General expressed their outrage and called it unacceptable. The Attorney General even went so far as to declare his intent to conduct a criminal investigation.

Furthermore, it's clear from testimony given during the various Congressional hearings over the years and correspondence with the IRS that officials there were not telling Members of Congress the truth. In March of 2012--a year before this story broke--then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman assured Congress: `there is no targeting of conservative groups.' On April 23, 2012, I joined with 62 of my House colleagues in writing the IRS Commissioner inquiring further about the possible targeting and we were assured that there was no targeting or delay in processing IRS applications submitted by conservative groups.

Ms. Lerner, a longtime federal employee and senior IRS official, has since asserted her Fifth Amendment Constitutional right by refusing to testify before Congress and tell the American people exactly what the IRS was doing and who had ordered these discriminatory actions.

To make matters worse, it was further revealed that IRS employees released confidential donor information and even private taxpayer records. Disclosing confidential taxpayer information is one of the worst things an IRS employee can do--it's a felony, punishable with a $5,000 fine and up to 5 years in prison. In fact, the Treasury Inspector General noted at least eight instances of unauthorized access to records, with at least one willful violation.

These are serious abuses but to date, not a single IRS employee has been indicted. The FBI has refused to file criminal charges. The Washington Post has reported that the investigation into this scandal is being led by Barbara Bosserman, a partisan who `donated a combined $6,750 to President Obama's elections and the Democratic National Committee between 2004 and 2012.' Furthermore, she does not serve in the Public Integrity Section that typically oversees these matters, but rather the Civil Rights Division, historically the most partisan office at the Department of Justice.

This week I am joined by nearly fifty of my House colleagues in writing to the Attorney General demanding the appointment of an independent special prosecutor to investigate the IRS's illegal targeting of conservative groups. Only an independent investigator who is not aligned with either political party will have the credibility to get to the bottom of this matter and hold wrong-doers accountable-- whoever they may be.

I have also introduced H.R. 3762 which would hold federal employees at the IRS personally accountable when they release private taxpayer information. Under this bill, individuals whose private information is released would have a personal right of action against the employee rather than simply hoping that the Department of Justice will take action.