HHEATT Act of 2014

Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come, and I yield to my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Cantor.

I thank the gentleman for the information he has given to me.

I want to comment on one of the statements he made, with which I agree, in which, Mr. Speaker, you just told us--again, I agree--America doesn't work if middle class families are taking home less. I would urge him, consistent with that statement, in recognition of the fact that America works better when working families are making better wages, that we would hope the minimum wage could be brought to the floor.

As the gentleman I am sure knows, in 2013 dollars, the minimum wage would now be $10.57 if it were at the same level it was over 40 years ago in 1968. The minimum wage has eroded very substantially in its purchasing power and its ability to give middle class families, as you say, and America a decent take-home pay. We believe both the minimum wage and unemployment insurance extension for the 1.8 to 2 million people who have lost that safety net is both hurting the economy and obviously hurting families. So we agree very strongly with the gentleman's statement.

Obviously, the bills he refers to he believes will also have an effect on this issue, but I would hope that you would seriously consider bringing the minimum wage and unemployment insurance to the floor. We believe--although, frankly, I don't have a precise count on your side of the aisle, which I am sure does not shock you--that both of those bills would have the votes on this floor, as the Speaker has indicated, to work its will and to pass those pieces of legislation. So I would hope the gentleman would consider that.

Secondly, Mr. Leader, we are pleased that flood insurance is moving ahead, we hope, and we want to thank you for your efforts that you have made on behalf of this. I know that Ms. Waters from the Financial Services Committee has been working very hard on our side. We very much want to see the relief extended to those who have been confronted with these extraordinary increases in premiums which are unsustainable, particularly for middle class families, but for almost everybody; and we appreciate the work that you have done with Ms. Waters to try to make sure that the protections that are extended are sufficient, certainly in the short term, but hopefully also in the long term, to meet both the objective of making it sustainable for families, but also, over the long term, fiscally sustainable for the Nation.

So I want to thank you for that. We look forward to considering that next week and hope that will be on the floor next week.

If the gentleman wants to comment further, I yield to him.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Let me say to him that I will ask my staff--and they usually do what I ask them to do--next week to sit down with your staff and to talk about the SKILLS Act. We have significant differences. It was passed on a largely partisan vote, as the gentleman knows, but I agree with him. As you know, I have an agenda that we call Make It In America, and it deals with skills, and it deals with a 21st century workforce education, and so the objective we agree upon. I will certainly look forward to working with him on the specifics to see if we can get an agreement, a consensus, so that we can pass a bill which accomplishes those objectives, because we share those objectives.

Let me say, Mr. Speaker, it is interesting, I talk about the minimum wage. The majority leader answers, Mr. Speaker, that yes, the value of wages has decreased, but if we increased the Affordable Care Act to a 40-hour criteria, and less than that, 39 hours, no health care would necessarily be available to those workers, but you would increase their salary by 25 percent. Now on that theory, Mr. Speaker, perhaps if we increased the work to 80 hours a week, we would double their pay. Or perhaps we could triple their pay if you increased it to 120 hours a week. But, very frankly, it has eroded. The minimum wage is not worth what it was, and, very frankly, in 1969, the economy was not going bust. We weren't hemorrhaging jobs. We were doing pretty well.

Very frankly, CBO has said that some 25 million Americans, some directly and some indirectly, would be advantaged by increasing the minimum wage and paying a wage that did not leave a worker in the richest country on the face of the Earth in poverty working 40 hours a week. That is not an acceptable alternative in America, and we have raised the minimum wage periodically. We raised it last, of course, when Democrats were in charge in 2007. We raised it to $7.25 over time, now $7.25, but it is substantially less and it replaces 36 percent of average wage, as opposed to in 1968, replacing 54 percent of average wage.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would hope that yes, we can take other steps that the majority leader has pointed out that I think we perhaps can reach agreement on, but that we ought to recognize that we expect people who can and are able to do so work in America, but they also expect us to pay them a wage on which they can have some degree of financial ability to support themselves, a family, and to live decently in America. So I would hope that we could do that.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, let me discuss a bill that we believe will help the economy greatly. The Chamber of Commerce believes it will help the economy greatly. Farm owners believe it will help the economy, and it is the broadest coalition that I have seen in the country on an issue in many respects: evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Jews, other faiths, all have said, 70-plus percent of America says we ought to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Mr. Speaker, Speaker Boehner came forward with some principles in my State just a few weeks ago for moving forward on comprehensive immigration reform. We were very positively impressed with those principles. We may not have agreed on every jot and tittle of the suggestions, but we thought it was a very good basis to move forward on which to have a discussion and bring comprehensive immigration reform to the floor.

As Tom Donohue, the president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, said it was absolutely essential, I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that we could bring that to the floor, have a debate and have consideration of it. My view is it has the votes in the people's House to pass if it were brought to the floor. I would hope that could be done.

With that, I yield to my friend, the majority leader.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, frankly, I have heard this trust argument before. That would be an argument for not doing anything because you don't trust the administration to execute the laws and, therefore, don't pass any laws. I think that is a make-wait argument, Mr. Speaker. And, very frankly, there is a way to see who is right on this, I tell my friend, the majority leader. The majority leader says he doesn't believe that it has the votes on the floor. There is a wonderful way to test that-- bring it to the floor, and we will see who is right.

The American people, over 70 percent of them, believe that we ought to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Polls on their side of the aisle and polls on our side of the aisle and independent polls largely agree: over 7 out of 10 Americans believe we ought to pass this bill. In fact, seven, or very close to 7 out of 10 of their representatives in the other body voted for comprehensive immigration reform. They had a vote. They brought it to the floor. It passed overwhelmingly. It has sat here for months, unattended, but maybe that is our alternative.

Very frankly, there have been alternatives passed out of the Judiciary Committee and out of the Homeland Security Committee by the Republicans, and they are not on the floor either, Mr. Speaker. So no immigration alternatives have been offered for a vote on this floor, the people's House, a

House in which the Speaker said when he took the gavel here, the people's will will be reflected because they would bring things to the floor. They accused us of not doing that. That was their right to do so, but now I suggest they are following a policy that they have severely criticized and said was wrong. So if they were sincere then, we would simply ask the majority leader to bring the bill to the floor and see if he is right or if I am right; to see whether we have the votes or we don't. The American people deserve that vote because they are overwhelmingly for that vote, and then they can take their own view from there as to who they agree with and who they don't agree with.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland, the Democratic whip, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. Votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour and noon for legislative business. On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. The last votes of the week are expected no later than 3 p.m. On Friday, no votes are expected.

Mr. Speaker, the House will consider a few suspensions next week, a complete list of which will be announced by the close of business today. Of note, I expect one of those suspensions to be the bipartisan flood insurance bill.

In addition, the House will consider a number of bills to address the middle class squeeze brought on by the increase in home heating costs. This winter has been one of the coldest in recent memory, and people are running their heaters longer to keep their families warm. Last fall, the Energy Information Administration predicted that 90 percent of U.S. households would see higher home heating costs this year, and low-income families already spend 12 percent of their household budget on energy costs.

America does not work if middle class families are taking home less. To lower the cost of heating a home, to increase paychecks for middle class Americans, and to build an America that works, the House will consider the following bills:

H.R. 4076, the HHEATT Act, authored by Chairman Bill Shuster, to make it easier to transport propane to areas with shortages;

H.R. 2641, the RAPID Act, sponsored by Representative Tom Marino, to expedite Federal permitting for energy construction projects;

H.R. 2824, Preventing Government Waste and Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America, authored by Representative Bill Johnson, to protect coal mining from excessive and unnecessary Federal regulation; and

H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act, sponsored by Representative Ed Whitfield, to protect electric utility plants from excessive and overly burdensome EPA regulation.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, given all the problems Americans are facing with the rollout of ObamaCare, the House will consider the Simple Fairness Act. This bill will provide relief and fairness to individuals, just as the administration has done for business, by making the individual mandate penalty zero dollars for the remainder of the year.

I thank the gentleman for his comments about the issue of flood insurance and the need to sustain the effort to return to actuarial soundness in that program, at the same time to have affordable and sustainable increases in premiums, which is important for the actuarial soundness of the program. So I appreciate that and look forward to the bipartisan effort next week on the floor with that.

As to the gentleman's comments, Mr. Speaker, about the minimum wage and unemployment insurance extension, it is interesting, if you look at the constituents that we need to focus on, those individuals who struggle to get through the month to pay the bills, those struggling at their job each week with wages that have not increased in real terms in a decade, we could do something on the floor of this House that would be as beneficial, if not more so, to the economy and would address the concerns that we have about decreasing wages, and that is we could roll back the 30-hour workweek rule under ObamaCare. If we were to do that and return it to the 40-hour workweek again--that is a 25 percent increase in wages--we could do that, and

the wage earner at minimum wage would be about $2 off from where that wage earner would be if you followed what the gentleman is suggesting in raising the minimum wage, as the President wants, to $10.10. But the added benefit is, as CBO has warned, you don't have to go about harming job creation prospects at the same time, which means, an increase in minimum wage, as CBO suggested, could very likely result in less jobs being created.

So we can do this without harming the prospects for job creation and help those constituents right now who have been struggling for so long. That is how we can make America work again. Let's get America back to work, more Americans working.

So as far as the gentleman's suggestions about UI, at the end of the day, what we need to do--and I think what most of our constituents who are out of work would like, is they would like a job. And what we know today is there is a mismatch in terms of the job openings and the skills that those who are unemployed have.

We passed a bill on the floor of this House called the SKILLS Act, and it is something I have spoken to the President about and I have spoken to the Vice President about. I would like to work with the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, to see if we can resolve the differences on that bill that has passed this House to get the Senate to act so we can finally get the chronically unemployed in this country back on a path to productivity and give them a hope so they can get a job again. They need the skills.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I would like to underscore and respond to that, that I don't believe there is the requisite number of votes in the House to pass the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill. We have taken the position on our side of the aisle that we are not for that bill. The gentleman rightfully points out that the Speaker and our leadership put out some standards to provide a path for discussion about how we go about addressing a very broken immigration system.

The problem is, Mr. Speaker, we don't have a lot of trust on our side about how this administration will implement the laws we pass; nor do I think, Mr. Speaker, one can blame us given the track record of this administration in seemingly unilaterally making decisions on how to implement a health care law when it doesn't work. This is the frustration and lack of trust that has resulted from those kinds of actions.

We do need to restore the trust in our government for the people that put us here. We do need to address a very broken system, but the administration or anyone's insistence that somehow everything has to be addressed right now our way is not something that is going to sit well, especially given the fact that there is not a lot of trust given the lack of what we believe would be full and faithful execution of the laws as to what is going on with the health care law and others on the part of the administration.

So I don't in any way accept the status quo, I would say to the gentleman on immigration, but we have got to work to see a way forward that can provide a better way.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4076) to address shortages and interruptions in the availability of propane and other home heating fuels in the United States, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 4076.

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

I was proud to introduce H.R. 4076, the Home Heating Emergency Assistance Through Transportation Act of 2014. This bipartisan legislation will provide relief for millions of Americans suffering from the current propane and home heating fuel emergency.

An exceptionally cold winter has increased demand for propane, which is used for heating approximately 12 million homes in the United States, and for other home-heating fuels. In my district, more than 9,000 households rely on propane for home heating; and across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there are more than 200,000 households that do the same.

So according to the National Propane Gas Association, supplies are expected to remain tight through the end of the winter because the infrastructure to deliver propane to high-demand areas is insufficient.

On February 5, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a temporary emergency declaration to allow tank truck operators delivering propane and other home heating fuels to drive longer hours in order to speed up deliveries to the affected States. However, these emergency declarations can only last 30 days at a time, creating great uncertainty and limited relief.

Extreme weather conditions are not expected to subside any time soon, threatening the lives and livelihoods of those with homes, farms, and businesses that depend on heat from propane and other home heating fuels. Just yesterday, we saw another severe winter storm.

H.R. 4076 provides a guaranteed extension of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's emergency declaration until May 31, 2014. This certainty is required to address the transportation distribution issues to give much needed relief to the affected States.

Should the crisis subside prior to May 31, 2014, the Secretary of Transportation, in consultation with the Governors of the affected States, can determine that the guaranteed extension is no longer needed.

I would like to thank the National Propane Gas Association and the New England Fuel Institute for supporting this legislation. I will be entering their letters of support into the Record.

This bill has strong bipartisan support, and I urge all my colleagues to support H.R. 4076.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

First, I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota for his kind remarks. I appreciate it greatly and look forward to continue working together with you on many other legislative endeavors.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).

I now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Mullin), an important new member of the committee and someone who really knows about infrastructure firsthand because he actually builds it out there in Oklahoma.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly).

Mr. Speaker, I again thank the gentleman from Minnesota for his work on this.

I also thank the original cosponsor on this bill, Mr. Ryan from Ohio, who may be stuck in the snow out there, or maybe it has slowed down his progress to get to Washington; but the gentleman hails from eastern Ohio, right on the Pennsylvania border.

I know that this is going to impact his district, and I was glad that he and I were able to work together on this commonsense piece of legislation that is going to help hundreds of thousands of people--if not millions of people--all up and down these corridors who have had a very, very difficult winter.

I know that, looking at The Weather Channel or one of the weather stations out in Minnesota, they may need propane until the end of May because of the kind of winter they have had up there. There have been very, very, very cold, extreme weather conditions.

Again, H.R. 4076 provides the ability of the Transportation Department to extend this and help with this crisis and, as we have all said here today, strong bipartisan support; so I would urge all my colleagues today to vote on H.R. 4076.

I now yield 2 minutes to another gentleman from northwestern Ohio (Mr. Latta).

I thank the gentleman from Ohio and encourage all Members to support H.R. 4076, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, as described by my good friend and colleague, the chairman of the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, S. 2086 automatically suspends Federal Motor Carrier Safety rules for up to 90 days after a Governor of an affected State declares a state of emergency due to a shortage of residential heating fuel.

Mr. Speaker, it is true that last winter there were parts of the United States which experienced extraordinarily cold temperatures and extreme winter weather. I hate to predict this, but until we do something about climate change, we are going to see these vast contrasts of the kind we have never experienced before. At that time, of course, if people are experiencing unusually cold weather, there is going to be a demand for propane and other home heating fuels.

I also, of course, fully support maximum flexibility to ensure timely delivery of fuel to heat homes across the country, and certainly in a time of crisis. In fact, the House acted swiftly in March during that crisis to pass Chairman Shuster's HHEATT Act, H.R. 4076, but of course today most of the country is in the middle of a heat wave.

Most of the States have their eyes looking elsewhere. They are watching the Congress to see when we will shore up the highway trust fund. They are running out of money. Already they have slowed up their investments. And of course, in a matter of just a few weeks, we will be running on empty on the highway trust fund.

But I was not asked to come to the floor today to ensure that construction projects around the country employing hundreds of thousands of Americans will continue to be reimbursed so that workers can stay on the job and communities can upgrade their infrastructure. I was asked to come to the floor today to pass an exemption for home heating fuel, even though it is close to 90 degrees outside in much of the country.

Last winter, during the actual time of emergency, FMCSA acted promptly to issue exemptions to allow truck drivers delivering home heating fuels to drive for additional hours to get supplies to customers as quickly as possible. Then they acted promptly to extend the exemptions after the initial 30-day period.

Therefore, I must say I do not see any evidence of why this legislation is needed or warranted. Further, by automatically waiving motor carrier rules for up to 90 days, the legislation removes any safety consideration from the exemption decision.

Mr. Speaker, our surface transportation system has pressing needs, as I speak, that require congressional action in the immediate term-- yesterday, perhaps. Instead, we keep coming to the floor to chip away at truck safety rules?

I will not oppose the legislation under consideration, but I do believe calling up this legislation today is unnecessary and unproductive while we are staring at a deadline--and I must say, I think it is more aptly called an emergency every day--for replenishing the highway trust fund.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know about global warming, but virtually every scientist with any expertise agrees that climate change is occurring, not just in the colder parts of the country, but all over the world. The only debate now is whether it is too late and whether we can manage it, not whether it is occurring.

If the gentleman thinks it was cold in Wisconsin last winter, let us keep delaying doing anything on climate change and let's see if he will be in a position to do anything for his constituents.

I remind the Speaker that every time there has been a need, the Department of Transportation has not only acted, it has acted promptly. That is what an administrative agency is for. That is why we have administrative agencies. You can't keep running to the floor where you need two Houses in order to deal with a crisis.

Nevertheless, we do not oppose this legislation, but we do think it is our duty to remind the House that there is an emergency pending and that, if we go home certainly for August recess without attending to it, the bottom will fall out of the highway trust fund.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I rise in support of H.R. 4076, a commonsense bill. I would also like to thank the chairman for always striking the proper balance between safety and the smooth operation of commerce, and the gentleman explained it very clearly.

For many of us, especially in rural areas of the Midwest, propane is the fuel of choice for heating their homes, and to get an idea of what happened here, regular folks on a regular budget would spend about $600 to fill up their tank during the winter.

They got a refill, got a bill, and saw that it was over $1,900 in some cases. The shock to them was one thing; but then the situation, as the gentleman so clearly stated, was exacerbated by the inability to deliver when we needed it.

And propane, while there are many factors at work here, is not like other commodities in terms of--it is not a nice-to-have thing. It is a necessity.

So the chairman's bill, this bipartisan piece of legislation addresses one of the issues here, making sure we have the trucks on the road to deliver the propane, making sure the supply is enough to start making sure these things are filled until the end of winter, and doing so in a safe manner.

I want to applaud the folks over at the FMCA that did do what they needed to do in issuing some of the waivers, but the gentleman is exactly right. A 30-day waiver is not long enough. Winter is still deep in the Midwest, and we don't need to have the waiver expire on March 15, go through it again, and have the uncertainty.

So this piece of legislation simply does as the gentleman stated. It allows an exemption without sacrificing safety to allow for the movement of propane into the markets where it is most needed, specifically the rural Midwest.

These trucks are coming from Texas. It keeps the people on the roads. It keeps the trucks running. It keeps the propane tanks full, as those things start to happen and the market starts to stabilize a little bit, and the prices will come down.

I do think the gentleman hit on a bigger point here. The infrastructure for the delivery of propane is something we need to look at. This is a short-term emergency measure that will address the problem this winter. We need to look further down the road on some of the long-term solutions on this.

So I encourage my colleagues to support this commonsense piece of legislation, support it for all the right reasons, and then join together as we move forward to look at some long-term solutions.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, once again, I thank the chairman for a smart piece of legislation. It is simple. It strikes that proper balance between safety on our roads and a smooth flow of commerce.

This is a matter of life and death. It has been a bitter cold winter, as you have heard. 21 people in Minnesota have died as a direct result of the weather. We have 250,000 people who get their heat from propane. Many of them are in rural areas.

I have been in homes across southern Minnesota. These are folks doing everything right, paying the bills, working hard. If they can afford to get the propane, that is one thing. They simply can't get the propane, in some cases.

So this is one first step. Alleviate the crisis. Do it in a safe manner. Get it out there. Start to balance things out. Then move forward because, as we said, again, keeping stability in the heating oil markets is absolutely critical, and we can get this right.

So with that, I congratulate the chairman. I thank him for bringing this, and I yield back the balance of my time.