Bring Jobs Home Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank my good friend from Florida for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Today, we are taking up the very serious issue of the constitutionality of separation of powers, but the rule also covers the deregulation of pesticides. I think that should be noted here as well, because one is as ridiculous as the other.

This is a ridiculous lawsuit of one House of Congress seeking to sue the President for not implementing a law they have tried everything to kill.

The majority has wasted time, money, and energy on legislative proposals designed to distract us from the real problems of the United States.

Instead of tackling climate change, ensuring that college is affordable, and modernizing our crumbling infrastructure, the majority wants to sue the President for doing his job. The record is clear. This has been judged the most recalcitrant and useless Congress in history.

This lawsuit will be a monumental waste of time, energy, and funds. This is a political maneuver timed to peak as Americans go to the polls in November for the midterm elections. This lawsuit is a drumbeat pushing Members of the Republican Party to impeachment.

Last week in the Rules Committee, Democrats attempted to amend this resolution. In the pursuit of transparency and accountability, we offered

several amendments that addressed the cost of this lawsuit.

The majority in the Rules Committee voted down every amendment that the minority offered. With this closed rule, we have set a new record, by the way, for the most closed rules in a single Congress. On the committee level, on the House floor, and in the minds of our citizens, this is a closed process, a partisan maneuver, and nothing but a political messaging opportunity.

This lawsuit is a gimmick, which even legal scholars of the majority's own party say will fail, including the conservative writer and former Justice Department official Andrew C. McCarthy. He wrote about this lawsuit and said it is:

A classic case of assuming the pose of meaningful action

while in reality doing nothing.

Democrats in the House and the American people could not agree more.

The House minority has three main concerns about this lawsuit: first, the cost; second, the partisan nature; and third, the lack of legal standing and the implications for our constitutional separation of powers.

First, the cost. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which not a single Republican voted for, the majority has mounted a Herculean effort trying to repeal, dismantle, and discredit it. It seems that they will spare no expense attempting to take health care away from millions of Americans.

Not only did they shut down the government to deny Americans health care, it took from this economy $24 billion to pay for that shutdown. In addition, with over 50 votes on the House floor to undermine the Affordable Care Act, the majority has spent more than $79 million on that voting effort.

When the minority of the Rules Committee requested from the majority the proximate costs of this lawsuit, we got a response that read: ``A lawsuit is a small price to pay.''

Cost is not a hypothetical question, because there are real consequences for our country.

The minority and the American people still would like to know how much will this cost and where will the money come from. We asked directly through letters and by offering amendments to the resolution, and we have gotten no clear answers.

What cuts will come from what programs that Americans depend on to pay for this ridiculous lawsuit? The majority will spend money on more than 13 hearings, 50 briefings, 25,000 pages of documents produced, and allocated $3.3 million for a Select Committee on Benghazi. All that money for Benghazi, but they won't give us a concrete answer on where the funds will originate to pay for the lawsuit.

In a similar lawsuit, when Republicans defended the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, they paid their lawyers $520 an hour. I choke over that figure. At that rate, we would have paid over $1 million a year for a 40-hour workweek. If we are spending that kind of money, we ought to do it out in the open, and that amendment was defeated on party lines.

The majority does not intend to make this lawsuit anything but another opportunity to attack the President, which leads me to our second concern: its partisan nature.

As I said, no Republican voted for the Affordable Care Act. After strenuous efforts to take health care away from millions of Americans, the majority plans to file a lawsuit that, if successful, would result in the faster implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The inconsistency is breathtaking. Let me reiterate that. After not a single vote for health care, with over 50 votes to kill it, they are suing the President of the United States because he did not implement it faster. I don't know if anybody can make sense out of that, but all this effort to derail a law that is working. Just 2 days ago, The Washington Post reported in an article, titled ``Medicare finances improve partly due to ACA, hospital expenses, trustee report says,'' that the Affordable Care Act has extended the life of Medicare by 4 years because of the savings, and that will only get better.

I would like to insert this article from The Washington Post dated July 28, 2014, into the Record.

[From the Washington Post, July 28, 2014]

Medicare Finances Improve Partly Due to ACA, Hospital Expenses, Trustee

Report Says--Outlook for Social Security, However, Remains the Same

(By Amy Goldstein)

Medicare's financial stability has been strengthened by the

Affordable Care Act and other forces that have been subduing

health-care spending, according to a new official forecast

that says the fund covering the program's hospital costs will

remain solvent until 2030--four years later than expected a

year ago.

The annual report, issued Monday by trustees overseeing the

government's two largest entitlement programs, found little

change overall in the finances of Social Security. The

trustees warned, however, that the part of Social Security

that pays monthly benefits to people with disabilities is

especially fragile and, without changes, will start to run

short of money for benefit checks in 2016.

Taken together, the findings provide a nuanced portrait of

the fiscal future of these two programs, which act as

cornerstones of social insurance--and a buffer against

poverty--for older people and other vulnerable Americans. The

trustees welcomed the improved financial prospects for

Medicare but acknowledged that the underlying reasons are not

yet entirely understood. At the same time, they exhorted

Congress to take steps to prevent both programs from

collapsing in the long term.

``Neither Medicare nor Social Security can sustain

projected long-run program costs,'' the trustees said in a

message accompanying their reports.

For the past few decades, Democrats and Republicans have

fretted about the unsustainability of the Medicare and Social

Security programs. They have appointed high-level

commissions, proposed legislation and tried to stoke public

fears that benefits might not be available for their

parents--or themselves. But Congress has not restructured

either program to withstand long-term fiscal pressures, and

the issue has been absent lately from the agendas of both

parties.

At a news briefing Monday, Cabinet secretaries and two

public trustees reiterated the call for Congress to act.

``[We] must make manageable changes now, so we do not have to

make drastic changes later,'' Treasury Secretary Jack Lew

said.

``It is getting very late in the game'' to find a

bipartisan consensus, said the trustees' only Republican,

Charles P. Blahous III, who worked on Social Security and

other economic issues as an aide to President George W. Bush.

``A solution much further delayed is a solution much less

likely to occur.''

Both programs are being strained by the nation's

demographics. As more baby boomers reach retirement age,

people 65 and older are making up an increasing percentage of

the country's population, with proportionally fewer working-

age Americans chipping in payroll taxes.

Medicare's finances are facing other pressures, too,

including from scientific advances that lead to new treatment

and therapies, the report said.

The trustees' forecast said that the trust fund that pays

for hospital care--Medicare Part A--has been strengthened

significantly, with the date when it is predicted to start

running short of money extended by 14 years since the

Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. The report also

predicted that the insurance premiums that older Americans

pay for the portion of Medicare that covers doctors' visits

and other outpatient care would probably remain the same for

a third year in a row.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell

said that it is impossible so far to gauge how much of that

trust fund's improved fiscal health was due to the health-

care law as opposed to other changes in the health-care

system that are slowing cost increases. She said both had a

role. The ACA, for instance, is slowing payments to Medicare

Advantage, the part of the program in which older Americans

join private health plans, while other provisions focus on

curbing hospital readmissions.

The report said that spending on hospital stays last year

was less than expected, although trustees noted that analysts

have not determined whether this trend reflected broad

economic trends or stemmed from specific changes in the

practice of medical care.

If Medicare is unchanged by 2030, the year it is projected

to become insolvent, it would then be able to pay 85 percent

of its beneficiaries' hospital bills, a proportion that would

slip to 75 percent by 2047, the forecast said.

For Social Security, the trustees predicted that the

program's two separate trust funds will, combined, have

enough money to pay all the retirement and disability

benefits it owes until 2033, the same time horizon as in the

last two annual forecasts. They forecast that Social Security

will be able to afford checks for retirees and workers'

survivors until 2034--nearly two decades longer than the part

of the program that pays disability benefits.

Social Security's expenditures last year exceeded its

income from payroll taxes, as it has each year since 2010,

the report says, although interest so far is making up the

difference.

This year, President Obama backed away from an idea he

broached in his budget last year to save money for Social

Security by changing the basis on which inflation is

calculated for the program. But his 2015 budget proposal

reprises the idea of charging more for care under Medicare to

older Americans who are relatively well-off--an idea that

Congress has not touched this year.

In calculating Medicare's future finances, the trustees for

the first time acknowledged that Congress has each year

overridden scheduled reductions in Medicare doctors' fees--

cuts that, if adopted, would lower payments for doctors'

services by 21 percent in 2015. In the latest report, the

trustees assumed that such cuts would continue to be waived.

The trustees noted that their new forecast was released 49

years to the week that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the

law that enacted Medicare, a major component of the Great

Society programs of the mid-1960s. Social Security was a

response to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Last year, Medicare insured 52 million Americans, including

43.5 million age 65 and older and nearly 9 million younger

people with disabilities. Social Security last year provided

benefits to 41 million retired workers and their families, 6

million survivors of workers who died, and 11 million

working-age people with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, a recent poll from the Commonwealth Fund found 77 percent of people were pleased with their new coverage. Republicans themselves have a 74 percent satisfaction rate with the new plan that they have bought.

The House majority is going to spend unknown millions of dollars coming from somewhere to stymie a law their own party Members support.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert this article from Talking Points Memo, citing a survey from July 10, 2014, entitled: ``Survey: Most Republicans Who Bought ObamaCare Coverage Like Their Plans,'' into the Record.

[From Talking Points Memo Livewire, July 10, 2014]

Survey: Most Republicans Who Bought Obamacare Coverage Like Their Plans

(By Dylan Scott)

About three-quarters of Republicans who obtained health

insurance under Obamacare are satisfied with their coverage,

according to a survey published Thursday by the Commonwealth

Fund.

The survey found that 74 percent of Republicans said they

were very or somewhat satisfied with their new coverage.

Overall, 78 percent of Americans said they were satisfied: 73

percent of those enrolled in a private plan and 84 percent of

those enrolled in Medicaid.

There was a minimal difference between the previously

uninsured and the previously insured: 79 percent of the

former were satisfied and 77 percent of the latter were,

according to the survey by the group, which is generally

supportive of Obamacare.

Those surveyed also reported being better off: 58 percent

said that they were better off now than they were before,

while 9 percent said they were worse off. And 81 percent said

that they were optimistic that their new coverage would help

them get the health care they need.

Some of the survey's broader findings, on the overall drop

in the number of uninsured and the percentage of Obamacare

enrollees who were previously uninsured, generally fell

within other findings. It found that the uninsured rate for

adults under 65 fell from 20 percent to 15 percent since

Obamacare enrollment began. It also found that 63 percent of

Obamacare enrollees had been previously uninsured.

The survey, conducted from April 9 to June 2, covered 4,425

U.S. adults.

Mr. Speaker, it is also obvious to the American people that this is a political stunt. A recent poll, commissioned by CNN, shows 57 percent of us oppose this lawsuit. That is right: the majority of this country recognizes it for what it is: a political scheme. They recognize that there is no basis for this lawsuit.

And our third concern is the legitimacy of standing, in the legal sense, as well as the constitutional principles that the Supreme Court has said limit the kind of disputes that a court can consider.

Perhaps the best authority for the inadequacy of the majority's claim to standing is one of the majority's own witnesses at our Rules hearing, the Florida International University College of Law professor, Elizabeth Price Foley. Professor Foley wrote in a February article:

When a President delays or exempts people from a law--so-

called benevolent suspensions--who has standing to sue him?

Generally, no one. Benevolent suspensions of law don't, by

definition, create a sufficiently concrete injury for

standing.

That's why, when President Obama delayed various provisions

of ObamaCare, his actions cannot be challenged in court.

Congress probably can't sue the President, either.

If the majority's own witness doesn't think that Congress has standing, what judge will?

Finally, one of the most dangerous possible consequences of this lawsuit would be an unprecedented transfer of powers from the legislative to the judicial branch.

This concern for maintaining the separation of powers as it was written into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers is exactly why courts have established what is called the ``political question doctrine.''

It says that courts should stay out of fights between the other two branches of the Federal Government and should defer to the other branches when the Constitution says the matter to be resolved is the responsibility of the President or the Congress. That couldn't be clearer, Mr. Speaker.

The mismanagement of our Nation's funds is deplorable, the partisan nature of the stunt is a abundantly clear, and our constitutional balance of powers is in jeopardy. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the closed rule which, yet again, distorts the legislative process and stifles debate even on the most important issues.

Mr. Speaker, we will ask the House to defeat the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to bring up four bills: first, the Bring Jobs Home Act; second, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which pays women equal to men for the same job; third, a bill to increase the minimum wage to $10.10; and finally, the Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, which makes it easier for young people to pay their college loans.

These are the priorities of the American people, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and align themselves with those priorities instead of this lawsuit, which is surely a waste of time, money, and resources.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my colleague on the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Hahn).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Chu).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Nolan).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal- Allard).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I am pleased to yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green).

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond to the fact that only Democrats are speaking of impeachment.

Just today, The Hill newspaper announced that a most respected and admired member of the Republican Conference said of the lawsuit, spearheaded by John Boehner:

Theater is a show. Why not impeach instead of wasting $1

million to $2 million of the taxpayers' money? If you are

serious about that, use what the Founders of the Constitution

gave us.

He was referring to impeachment.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

I yield the gentlewoman another 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

I will place into the Record an exchange of letters between myself and Chairman Sessions and between Ranking Member Brady and Chairwoman Miller of the House Administration Committee. This exchange of letters catalogs our repeated requests for an estimate of the projected cost of this partisan enterprise and the identification of accounts that will be cut to pay for it. As you will note, the responses to our letter provide no information about the cost estimate and no indication from where the funds will come.

House of Representatives,

Committee on House Administration,

Washington, DC, July 14, 2014.

Hon. John A. Boehner,

Speaker of the House, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Boehner: Within the draft resolution to

initiate a lawsuit against the President, we learned that you

intend to seek authorization to ``employ the services of

outside counsel and other experts.'' Such authority clearly

falls under the jurisdiction of the Committee on House

Administration, and as such, I am writing to express my

expectation that Republicans will be open and transparent

about the use of taxpayer money in pursuing this highly

dubious and partisan lawsuit.

As evidenced by House Republicans' conduct in the $2.3

million failed effort to defend the discriminatory and

unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act in the courts,

strong bipartisan oversight is clearly necessary in any plan

to hire outside counsel. The Republican majority must not be

permitted to use taxpayer dollars as a slush fund to award a

no-bid contract to high-priced, politically connected

Republican lawyers without any transparency or accountability

to the House or the American people.

Our opposition to the deeply partisan basis of your lawsuit

in no way diminishes the need for normal oversight of the

terms of any contract signed by Republican Leadership

obligating the House to pay millions of dollars to private

attorneys. Therefore, I expect you will honor regular order

through my committee, even with this highly irregular

lawsuit.

The American people deserve to know how and where their tax

dollars are being spent, and House Administration Committee

Democrats insist on regular consultation and transparency in

the selection criteria and process, cost, and lobbying

connections of any counsel or experts hired in the name of

the House.

Sincerely,

Robert Brady,

Ranking Member,

Committee on House Administration.

Mr. Speaker, if people are supposed to think that this is really a genuine concern by the House of Representatives and not a partisan gimmick, then why didn't the majority consult with Democrats or the Senate beforehand and say: We want to do this on behalf of Congress. Will you talk with us about participating?

That idea of joint participation is long gone from here, and I regret to say that.

But that didn't happen. It was cooked up in some meeting where we probably discussed how to win back the Senate, or whether to impeach the President, or how the campaign fundraising is going and so forth.

You are not fooling anyone. This is about politics and the elections, and you know it and I know it and, polling shows it, all the people in the country know it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

I yield the gentleman an additional 20 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to ask: Why did the majority shut off all amendments to this resolution? And more importantly, why have they even blocked a traditional motion to recommit? That is something that we generally always give to the minority on both sides of the aisle, a motion to recommit.

Now, I think the reason is--you know, being somewhat cynical, and I will admit to that after what we have been through here--but the cynic would say that they don't want us to have a motion to recommit because our side might bring up a motion, which it would be our privilege to do, that might put the Republican Members on record on impeachment. Now, I don't know that. We got no answer as to why we were not given the privilege of a motion to recommit.

But there is one thing we do know. We know that this lawsuit is going to cost unknown millions and will be an unconscionable waste. We know that that cost is going to come out of programs that have already suffered grievous cuts over the last few years and on which people oftentimes depend for their very lives.

We know that it is pretty partisan because the Democrats were never consulted at any point on this issue, and we know that it is flawed because experts have told us that there is no way in the world that the House of Representatives has any standing on this issue and that a good Federal judge will send it back to us almost immediately.

We know it is a distraction, and we know that what it distracts us from are the serious, serious issues that all of us hear about every day from our own constituencies.

Do you think anybody ever calls me up and says: Why don't we impeach the President or go after the President because it is raining today and it surely is his fault? No, we don't hear that.

I hear about, I am having a hard time getting a new job. I need help to pay for my child's education. I hear a lot of times, my daughter's unemployment benefits have run out. She is facing eviction. I don't know what I am going to do. I hear from people who talk about the children who have come to this country--many of them unaccompanied, by themselves--in an absolute inhumane wave of human suffering that we need to pay some attention to.

I know that out there today, we have had floods in my part of the country in upstate New York that have devastated entire water projects and sewer projects, and something needs to be done. But we won't do that.

So, Mr. Speaker, I am going to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' to defeat the previous question and please vote ``no'' on the rule. This is one of the

most important issues that we have ever faced during our time in Congress.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 347 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), 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 that all Members have 5 legislative days in which they may revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution provides for a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 761, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act. It provides one hour of general debate, equally divided between both sides. It provides for five amendments, four of which are Democrat amendments and one is a Republican amendment. So this rule is fair to a fault and it is totally generous, and it will provide a balanced and open debate as long as we, as Members, structure our remarks to the merits of this particular bill and don't go off on tangents.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to stand before the House and support this rule. It's a good rule.

I also support the underlying bill, H.R. 761, and I want to congratulate the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Amodei), as sponsor of this particular piece of legislation, as well as the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings), for his leadership in this particular effort.

Mr. Speaker, our Nation is blessed with an abundance of resources, which has made us a leading world economy and industrial power, and we have only scratched the surface, literally, of what we can potentially develop.

We have energy potential such as coal, oil shale, and natural gas deposits, as well as various critical minerals that we, as a Nation, need and should be developing.

But unfortunately, much of this development of our domestic mineral resources has actually been stymied by a combination of special interest politics, as well as bureaucratic red tape, particularly under this administration. It is a pain we have all seen coming.

Twenty-five years ago, 20 percent of all money that was spent for development and production of critical minerals was spent here in the United States. Today that's down to only 8 percent, as other nations have replaced our efforts, unfortunately.

This has meant an increase in our trade imbalance, dollars going overseas, escalating prices here at home for both energy and commodities. It means job losses here in the United States. And ironically, these jobs that we are losing are some of the highest- paying middle class jobs that are available. Bureaucratic delays are causing this, and they are causing us to see a change, both for manufacturing and defense.

Twenty-five years ago, there were 30 minerals that we actually had to import to this Nation that were considered critical minerals. Today that number has gone from 30 to 61.

Twenty-five years ago, there were 16 minerals that we imported a great majority of. Today that number that has gone to 24.

It affects manufacturing, such as electronics and metal alloys, ceramics, glass, magnets, catalysts, everything. It affects our defense as well, as our Defense Logistics Agency tries to

stockpile these minerals so the demands are there when we actually need them.

Unfortunately, as we've illustrated, more and more of these are being purchased from overseas. They are critical to our weapons development system, including such things as night vision equipment, advanced lasers, avionics, fighter jet components, missile guidance systems, and it goes on and on.

Look, the Constitution tells us that our first responsibility is to provide for a common defense. This bill steps us into the right direction so we actually can provide for a common defense and do it intelligently and avoid unnecessary and frivolous delays.

There are some that will criticize us for the kinds of minerals that we are placing in this restriction area. There was a study in 2009 that was done called the Great California ShakeOut, which was a mock of what could happen if the big earthquake actually hit that area, and it found out that, in an effort to try and rebuild the infrastructure that would be necessary, there's a whole list of things we normally don't consider as critical that would, in that situation, be critical, including sand and gravel, that we simply would have a frightful deficiency of if we were trying to rebuild under those types of critical situations.

This bill anticipates that, and makes sure that we will not be found lacking, either in defense, or in manufacturing, or in critical civilian needs in case of disaster.

This bill doesn't predetermine anything. It simply says, make a decision, yes or no, on whether this project should go forward; simply make a decision, and do it in a timely fashion.

We still, today, average between 7 and 10 years in which those decisions are made. This bill says that that is unrealistic, and it simply says, you've got 30 months--2\1/2\ years--to make a decision, yes or no. If you have to have an extension, it provides for that on common agreement, which is only rational to do. But for heaven's sakes, finally make a decision.

It is based on not only what we are talking about here, but it's based on what we are doing in our transportation area. It's based on a Presidential concept; when the President established an Executive Order No. 13604, which talked about the importance of trying to streamline reform and reference our process.

This is the basis of what we are attempting to do in this particular bill as well. This implies that whenever there are agencies, multiple agencies involved in a project, that there must be a lead agency which must take the responsibility of actually getting the job done, so that any kind of environmental statement should be being done currently, not sequentially, that we can make sure that any kind of lawsuit does not stop the process of making a decision.

Once again, this is one of those things that simply is logical. Just make a decision. You have plenty of time to do it. Make a decision. There is no reason we cannot make a decision on whether to go forward on a project in 2\1/2\ years, none, none whatsoever.

The fact that we are dragging our feet is simply done from bureaucratic excess that is illogical and irrational. We have done this in other areas. This is the time to do this in this area as well.

If, indeed, we could do this process, it would be very clear that this Nation would prosper. We could have good-paying jobs, and we could make the desert blossom.

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

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

I just want to make a couple of comments before we go on with the discussion of this particular rule, which, once again, is a fair rule and is a good rule.

This bill is one of those bills that has no significant cost to the budget. At no time does this stop any of the NEPA requirements. All it says is, do your job and do it on time. Nothing big about that, simply what those regulations are.

And it is obviously one of those things that takes place that we desperately need, both for the manufacturing sector, as well as for defense.

Look, I'm old. I still use legal pads. I trust those. They never crash on me. But if you have an iPhone or an iPad or any of that other kind of new stuff that my kids like to have, you're going to

have these critical minerals. And if we are not proposing and developing them here in the United States, we are paying more to develop them out of country, and we're putting ourselves, manufacturing-wise, in a significant deficit situation. And obviously, with the defense, what is happening is even more critical.

This is simply taking the executive order and saying, yeah, it's good for infrastructure; it's also good for our critical mineral development system, and saying, do the job. Do it well, do it quickly, get it done in a reasonable period of time, and don't drag this stuff out by sequencing the issues and the actions one after the other. You have a period of time. Do your job.

It's an amazing concept of asking the bureaucracy of this Nation to actually do their job, but it's important.

Yes, it was passed in the last session by an overwhelming bipartisan vote. It's a bipartisan bill. The fact that the Senate did not take it up is another indictment to Senate leadership, admittedly, an oxymoron, but it's another indictment for the Senate leadership for ignoring the significant issues that we have to face in this Nation. It's another indictment that they should actually do their job.

Just because the Senate leadership decides to sit on these type of issues does not mean we have to sit on them as well. This is something we have to have, and it needs to go over to the Senate. If it has to go over every week to the Senate until the Senate finally decides to actually do something, then that is our responsibility, and we should do it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Obviously, I am prepared to close. It depends on how long your closing goes.

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

I appreciate the opportunity we have of presenting this particular rule to the body. I've always appreciated the opportunity of sharing this time with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), who is a good friend and a very colorful orator. And I always like to hear his orations here on the floor.

You'll forgive me if I want to try and refocus on the matter that it is hand, for, indeed, I recognize the statements that have been made by the last two speakers that deal with the significance of jobs. What we simply have to have is a policy in this country that promotes private sector jobs, not just government sector jobs.

By promoting private sector jobs, we actually expand the economy and build upon that concept. That is one of the reasons why this particular bill is here. But all of a sudden you go from 30 minerals that we had to import from other areas to 61 minerals that we now have to import from abroad. That means there are a bunch of minerals that we used to be producing in good, high-paying jobs that no longer are there.

So this is one of the areas that we can move our country in the proper direction and not just simply say, Okay, let's create some kind of make-work program that actually adds particular jobs. It needs to be the right kind of jobs to move our country forward.

One person once told me the people sitting here is the entire universe with which we talk. We will not make ourselves rich by paying each other to take vacations. At some time, someone has to add real wealth into the equation. That's what this bill is trying to do. We have critical mineral wealth in this country. It needs to be added to the equation so that we can create those good-paying mining jobs that will spin off into good-paying manufacturing jobs in the private sector. That's everything we are attempting to do.

I would like to take one issue and try to put it to rest as to the idea that these companies who would be receiving benefit from this are somehow getting off and not paying taxes or royalties. They are not paying Federal taxes, but sometimes we forget that we're not the only equation out there. Every one of these pays significant royalties and severance taxes to State and local governments.

The Federal tax that is proposed by some of the amendments to this bill would be on top of that. It would be a form of double taxation. Its goal would be to raise money, which is a nice goal, but simply because you found a potential effort for the Federal Government to try and raise more money doesn't mean you need to rush into that, especially when it has a negative aspect somewhere else. It would have a negative aspect on State and local governments. It would also have a negative aspect on those companies that some people don't want to have any empathy for the situation they're in.

If you actually put an additional Federal royalty on top of the State and local royalty which they are paying and the severance tax that you are paying, in a traditional company you could pass that tax burden on to the consumer. In a world market, you cannot. That just doesn't happen. It has to come out from the company itself.

The companies who are involved in here have clearly said that they are not opposed if we could put some kind of net proceeds up. But these kinds of proposals that we will be hearing in the debate today are not net proceeds tax; they are an unparalleled, unprecedented gross tax. Nothing has ever gone to that level in which the amendments would try to put on this program.

So once again, what we're trying to ask you to do is look at this in the overall view of what we are trying to do to develop real and good private sector jobs.

The underlying element still goes back to the fact that, look, what we need is to go through the permitting process but to do it in a way that is legitimate. It should not have to wait 7 to 10 years to actually permit something. That is just unrealistic.

I apologize, Mr. Speaker. I am an old schoolteacher. As a schoolteacher, we had 9 months to do something. If you couldn't get it done in 9 months, you didn't get it done. There was no idea of just postponing it to a future date. If a principal came to me and said we're going to have to have our testing done on Tuesday for the standardized test, I couldn't say no, I can't do that; let's wait for 2 weeks and maybe--maybe--I will be ready to help you with the testing data. In any education system, when the time is up, the time is up. You have to do the work, and you back-schedule to make sure that you actually do the work. That happens in

almost every element of society except for here in government.

When I was in the State legislature, we had a constitutional end of that State legislative date. We had 45 days to make a decision. Often those decisions are not easy and you make the better of the bad choices that you have, but we had to make a decision.

I contrast that with what is happening here in the United States Government in which the Forest Service was asked to do a study on a potential bridge that we could transfer from Federal ownership over to State ownership. They said yes, in about 4 years we would be able to do that study. Four years to do a simple study? We give ourselves these unreasonable and inexcusable time references, and we do it all the time.

I had a bill that we passed a couple of years ago and which mandated that a certain agency of government had to give a piece of property over to the local entity of government. Congress passed it. They mandated it. Now here, 2\1/2\ years later, the agency still has not transferred that land. They are going through their surveys. They are taking their time. Even the local government had to pay for all these time-consuming surveys. What Congress mandated, 2 years later, still has not happened. That is unrealistic. In the private sector, no one would tolerate that. In our State government, no one would actually tolerate that. In the education community, no one would tolerate that. Yet we look at that as the norm, 7 to 10 years, as an average, to actually permit these things?

That is why what this bill is trying to do is say, look, go through the process, use the NEPA process, but do it in a fair and rational way and make a decision. You don't drag things out just for the fun of dragging things out. If the decision is yes, fine; if the decision is no, fine; but for heaven's sake, make a decision.

Some elements of government, whom I will not make caricatures about even if it's true, some elements seem to like to drag out decisions. This is an area that should not be. So this simply says, if you're going to deal with this area, you've got 30 months to make a decision. You can do that in 2\1/2\ years. There is no reason why it cannot be.

We are doing this in other areas of the government. The President, in his executive order, said this has to be the way we move forward. This bill moves us forward.

This bill does a good thing. It was right that it passed in the last session by a huge bipartisan vote because it's the right thing to do. It's the right message. It's the right program. It moves us forward. It's the right thing to do this year. And we will continue to push this until at some point we have succeeded in making sure that we are moving forward with hard deadlines so that decisions are made and we're not just piddling and piddling and waiting and delaying time after time.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very good bill. It was a good bill last time we passed it. It's still a good bill. We need to pass this bill again. It's also a very good rule. It's a fair rule. It's a rule for which we can be proud.

I would urge my colleagues to make sure that we vote for this rule so we can move forward on a bill that should have been passed by both bodies a long time ago. But we need to, once again, start this process and continue going forward because it is the right thing to do. It will provide us with resources; it will provide us with jobs; it will provide us, more importantly, with decisions. Finally, we can actually have an agency that makes a decision in a timely manner.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Florida is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 347 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Florida

At the end of the resolution, add the following new

sections:

Sec. 2. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the

Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare

the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on

the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.

851) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to encourage

domestic insourcing and discourage foreign outsourcing. The

first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points

of order against consideration of the bill are waived.

General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not

exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair

and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and

Means. After general debate the bill shall be considered for

amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order

against provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion

of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee

shall rise and report the bill to the House with such

amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question

shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments

thereto to final passage without intervening motion except

one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the

Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to

no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day

the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of

business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the

Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.

Sec. 3. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of H.R. 851 as specified in section 2 of this

resolution.

the vote on the previous question: what it really means

This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous

question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote.

A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote

against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow

the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a

vote about what the House should be debating.

Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of

Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the

previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or

control the consideration of the subject before the House

being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous

question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the

subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling

of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the

House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes

the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to

offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the

majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated

the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to

a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to

recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said:

``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman

from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to

yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first

recognition.''

The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous

question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an

immediate vote on adopting the resolution. . . [and] has no

substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.''

But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the

Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in

the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition,

page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous

question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally

not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member

controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of

offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by

voting down the previous question on the rule. . . When the

motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the

time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering

the previous question. That Member, because he then controls

the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for

the purpose of amendment.''

In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of

Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special

Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on

such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on

Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further

debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues:

``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a

resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control

shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous

question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who

controls the time for debate thereon.''

Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does

have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only

available tools for those who oppose the Republican

majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the

opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

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

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 680 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Madam Speaker, on Wednesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of two measures, H.R. 3393, the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act, and H.R. 4935, the Child Tax Credit Improvement Act of 2014.

The resolution provides a closed rule for consideration of these two measures, as is customary with tax legislation. In addition, the resolution provides for 60 minutes of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means for both H.R. 3393 and H.R. 4935. And it provides for a motion to recommit on each bill.

Finally, Madam Speaker, the rule combines both H.R. 3393 and H.R. 4935 before sending it to the other body.

Madam Speaker, with tuition prices continuing to climb, more Americans are struggling to plan for and afford higher education. Today's broken Tax Code makes it even harder to pay for college, with 15 complicated, overlapping education provisions that take the IRS 90 pages to explain.

We need to simplify education tax benefits so families can actually use them, and we need to get our economy back on track so students and families are earning enough to afford a good education.

H.R. 3393 takes a good first step. It consolidates four current tax benefits for higher education, the American opportunity tax credit, the Hope Scholarship credit, the lifetime learning credit, and the college tuition deduction into a new, simplified and, most importantly, permanent tax credit.

In addition, H.R. 3393 also includes strong antifraud provisions requiring taxpayers to include on their tax return the name and taxpayer identification number of the student and the employer identification number of the applicable higher education institution.

In addition, this rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4935, which modernizes and improves the child tax credit. Originally created in 1997 to help ease the financial burden that families incur when they have children, this credit has failed to keep pace with the cost of raising a child. Initially, it provided a maximum credit of $400 per child. However, under the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, this credit was expanded to $1,000 per child, was made partially refundable, and was indexed for inflation.

Unfortunately, some of these good changes expired in 2010. I would note for my colleagues that even with these increases, since 1960, the cost of raising a child has increased by approximately 4.4 percent a year.

H.R. 4935 would index the child tax credit for inflation, eliminate the marriage penalty, and would require an individual to include their Social Security number on their tax return to claim the refundable portion of the child tax credit.

Current estimates suggest that at least $13 billion in improper refundable tax credit payments are made each year. This provision would help to combat that growing problem.

Madam Speaker, the cost of raising children increases every year, but the current child tax credit fails to take these increased costs into account. In addition, the current tax credit penalizes married couples.

By making these commonsense changes, we can ensure that the credit truly serves its intended purpose.

Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation, which continues our targeted approach to updating, improving, and modernizing the Tax Code.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my friend. We do agree conceptually on quite a bit in terms of the Tax Code. I think both of us individually, and both sides collectively, honestly want to do things that make it easier for people to pursue a higher education.

Certainly, I think we are all interested in eliminating the marriage penalty as well. So I think we are moving broadly in the same direction, even though we have some disagreement.

I will point out to my friend that it is not unusual that tax legislation would come to the floor in a closed rule. As a matter of fact, that is almost always the way it is done, simply because you have to be able to score the items, and you have to understand what the real cost of tweaking is.

So whether Republicans or Democrats are in control, a closed rule is usually the order of the day on any tax legislation.

I appreciate my friend's concern about the deficit, and in that I am quite sincere.

Now, I do also always like to point out to my friends that when they were in the majority, for 4 years in a row the deficit got greater each year. And since we have been in the majority the last 4 years the deficit has gotten smaller each year.

So I actually think that we not only have a rhetorical concern about the deficit, we have demonstrated over and over again that certainly this current majority is very, very serious about dealing with it and will continue to do that by reining in spending and putting forward thoughtful reform proposals, which I believe we have done.

I would also point out to my friend, and I think he would agree with me on this, this is a vehicle. This is not going to be the final product. My friend is exactly correct when he says there will be a negotiation.

Our concern has been, watching what has been going on on the other side of the rotunda, so to speak, is that there hasn't been very much serious work. We think they are going to look at the extenders package in terms of tax relief and basically just try and jam that through without any thoughtful pruning and without making elements of it which have been approved over and over and over again, and which are clearly popular on a bipartisan basis, permanent.

So that is what we are trying to do. I think we are constructing a platform to go into negotiation with the Senate. And I suspect what emerges will be somewhat different than what either side goes in with. That is pretty normal in the legislative process.

But I think the concepts here that we are moving forward on are correct and, I think, have broad popular appeal and bipartisan support. These are provisions--and we have done this over several bills now-- that both parties have approved overwhelmingly, time and time again on a sort of yearly basis. And we want to take those things and make them permanent.

I suspect, in that process, some things that are less popular might be jettisoned. But again, that is for the negotiators to decide. We are simply trying to get to that conference.

We are marking out what our position is. We recognize the Senate will have to do the same thing, and from there we will move and, perhaps, at a later point in this process we can find ourselves actually on the same side.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my good friend from the State of Georgia (Mr. Woodall), my fellow Rules Committee Member and RSC president now, rapid ascent, to make whatever remarks he cares to.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we have opened quite a range of things to talk about with Mr. Woodall's remarks and Mr. Polis' response and my good friend from New Jersey, Mr. Pascrell's proposal. Let me sort of take some of them up in order.

My friend from Colorado, who I know is sincere, talked a little bit about the need to reform entitlements, and I couldn't agree with him more, and that is a discussion I think we really, seriously need to engage in as a body.

I would invite my friend, if he has an opportunity, to look at a bipartisan bill that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Delaney)--from his side of the aisle--and I have on Social Security reform.

It doesn't really deal with a lot of the reform, but it is a process bill. It would send us down the road to have a bipartisan proposal which, I can assure you, would have things that your side doesn't like and things that my side doesn't like, and then we would have to vote on it up or down.

I think it is a thoughtful way to try to begin to deal with some of these, and it is genuinely bipartisan, so I would hope my friend from Colorado would look at that.

My friend from New Jersey mentioned the Ex-Im Bank. I couldn't agree with him more. I support it. I have consistently supported it, and I know there is a disagreement on our side of the aisle, I think, largely about that.

I hope that it is resolved in regular order--that is, that the committee votes on it and it comes down to the floor. When that happens, I look forward to working with my friend to enact that legislation.

I am intrigued by what my friend from New Jersey had to say about his tax proposal because I think, at the minimum, he has certainly put his finger on an important problem which is a real loophole that we ought to consider.

Now, I don't consider myself an expert on tax legislation. I am like my friend in the chair. I am an appropriator. That is the world I know. So I would hope that my friend's proposal would get appropriate consideration in our Ways and Means body and move through regular order because I think this is an area that we can cooperate on.

Frankly, we have got some bipartisan proposals in terms of stranded profits overseas that I think both sides could work together on, perhaps, and bring some investment back to our shores, but we do have to defend the process whereby we move legislation--that is it needs to come through the appropriate committee, we duly consider it, and it reaches here.

Again, while I may oppose the process by which my friend is moving, I am not at all prepared to say I oppose his product. I just simply haven't had a chance to look at it, but I think he is addressing an important issue.

The last area I do have to disagree with my friend on a little bit: I do like Walmart. I am a shopper at Walmart, and I am a stockholder at Walmart, and I think they are a great American company, but we live in a great country. My friend can shop where he chooses to, and I can shop where I choose to, and we will get down the road.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I care to consume.

Again, I want to point out, Mr. Speaker, I frankly have no objection to my friends' using the process to bring these ideas up for debate and discussion. I actually think that is helpful and that moves the process forward, and I applaud them for that. I don't disagree necessarily with what they are talking about in terms of tax deductions for jobs that are exported as opposed to jobs that could be imported. I think that is something we ought to consider.

But, it is not the subject of the legislation that is in front of us today. Those subjects are, one, what can we do to modernize the Tax Code and give students permanent certainty in terms of tax deductions that are available to educate themselves and give their families the ability to deal a little bit with the mounting cost of college. That is a good idea. Both sides can broadly agree at least in principle. And what can we do to make sure the marriage penalty disappears and that we can target appropriate tax relief to families with

children at least up to a certain level of income, I believe $150,000, to give them a little break with the cost of raising children.

Those, to me, are modest steps, but they are important programs because they affect the daily lives of American workers. I am not suggesting that what my friends are proposing doesn't do the same thing. I just think this vehicle, we probably ought to work within the bounds of what Ways and Means has sent us.

I will say, I sense some of my friend's frustration in terms of moving legislation. We have got 321 bills sitting in the United States Senate that haven't been acted upon that this House has sent over there, so I know a lot about feeling shut out. I think if our friends on our side of the aisle in the upper Chamber were here, they would tell you that they have had fewer amendments this year than Democrats in this Chamber have gotten on any appropriations bill that we have brought forward. We don't have a broken Congress. We have a broken United States Senate, in my view.

But, having said that, we have got a chance, I think, here to take a step in the right direction, to thoughtfully consider things that have worked their way through the Ways and Means Committee, to position this Chamber to sit down at a later point and negotiate with our friends-- Republican and Democrat alike--in the other Chamber and perhaps produce, toward the end of this year, some good and permanent changes in the Tax Code that, if an agreement is reached, I suspect we could have overwhelming bipartisan support for.

So, we are just at that point in the process where we need to develop and put forward our proposals. We would hope that our counterparts in the United States Senate do the same thing, and that we can sit down and again find common ground in between. We have done that on some occasions before. If we will just operate the way our procedures are set up, I am confident we can do that again.

So, with that, Mr. Speaker, I will reserve the balance of my time.

I am certainly prepared to close whenever my friend is.

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

Let me address a number of remarks my friend made in passing. Let me begin by reminding anybody who happens to be listening or following the debate this isn't an immigration bill. This is actually a tax bill, and it is really about trying to make some things that have had bipartisan support permanent.

We all agree that we need to, insofar as we can, help people that are educating themselves or members of their family and provide appropriate tax relief. That is what this bill does. It is simply that simple.

Number two, we all think that you shouldn't have a tax penalty for being married, and if we can do things to help you with the cost of raising a family, we ought to try and do those things because it has been tough. That is what this bill does.

Now, we can disagree about the merits, but I think the general thrust is something we probably broadly agree on. Making those items permanent within the Tax Code is important so people can actually get used to using the benefits, understand them--sort of internalize them--and make them permanent and predictable for families. So that is our goal with this legislation.

Finally, we would like to get, eventually, to a conference with our friends in the Senate who I suspect would share some of my friend from Colorado's concerns that might be in their legislation. He knows how the process works. We will sit down at that point and see if we can find common ground. If the two negotiating teams can, then I suspect we will come back with something that a great number of us on both sides of the aisle can support.

What my friend, Mr. Camp, the chairman of Ways and Means, is trying to do is actually make permanent some very good bipartisan ideas that I think we can rally around.

Now, my friend also mentioned the deficit, and I want to, again, laud his concern for that. I appreciate that. I genuinely do. I recognize this is a work in progress, not a final product, but I will point out again for the record, when my friends were in the majority, the deficit got worse every single year. It has gotten lower every single year since then. So I think we are serious about dealing with the deficit.

I would invite my friend, and I know he would seriously engage in this, let's find some areas on the part of the budget that I think need addressing--the entitlement area--where perhaps we can find some common ground.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

I do want to disagree with my friend on a couple of points.

Number one, this isn't a symbolic piece of legislation. It is legislation in progress, but it is not feel-good. I know Mr. Camp and his committee are anxious to actually change many aspects of the Tax Code.

I know Mr. Camp wants to make at least some of these things permanent. We may succeed or we may not, but it is certainly not meant to be anything other than serious.

Also, my friend mentioned and talked at considerable length about the issue of immigration and the border crisis, two issues that I regard as somewhat distinct. We do have a border crisis, and I suspect we will see legislation to deal with that. There is a difference in philosophy. I think the administration just wants resources to manage it. I think we would like to change some of the root causes and address it, and hopefully stop the massive flow and all of the human tragedy that goes with it.

There is a huge debate about what do we do with unaccompanied juveniles or minors who arrive, and that is an important debate to have. But we ought to stop and think: Is there something that we are doing that is encouraging that flow? Because, believe me, everything that is coming out of this is bad. It disrupts the societies from which these people are coming. We are treating children from Mexico different than we are treating them from Guatemala. We have people now pouring money into criminal cartels and strengthening them. And finally, the children themselves, the juveniles themselves, are confronted with a thousand-mile long journey where they are breaking not just the laws here but also in Mexico. They are at great risk. They are traveling with criminals. There is a lot of abuse. Some of them are undoubtedly forced into sex trafficking and perhaps others to the drug trade. There are plenty of opportunities for abuse. Nobody should want that to happen.

We are going to try to offer some serious proposals. I am very pleased with my colleague on the Appropriations Committee, Kay Granger from Texas, who has put together a working group and some very thoughtful proposals. We have tried to scrub them on the Appropriations Committee. Hopefully we will be able to address that issue.

Finally, let me just end with this. In closing, I believe it is important, Mr. Speaker, to continue this deliberative approach towards fundamental tax reform. The child tax credit has existed since 1997, and the reforms contemplated in this legislation are important. In addition, the consolidation of four separate education credits into one simplified credit will result in much less taxpayer confusion.

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

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

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

Well, I want to come to the floor to wish the Republicans a happy anniversary. I brought a gold ring. This is the 50th repeal of ObamaCare. I want to wish my colleagues a happy 50th anniversary for the appeal of ObamaCare.

Like any marriage that lasts 50 years, it takes a lot of work. The American people have shown that they want this marriage to last. They have shown that by reelecting Barack Obama as President. They have shown that by electing a Senate that won't even consider a repeal of the Affordable Care Act; but also like any marriage, it takes work along the way to improve it, to work at it, to make changes to it.

Democrats stand ready to work with President Obama, to fine-tune this wonderful marriage celebrating the 50th anniversary of its repeal here today, to make sure it endures for another 50 repeal votes by the House Republicans here in the coming months. We are ready to make the changes that we need to, to ensure that the Affordable Care Act works for every American.

There are issues in the implementation in my district. Two of my counties, Summit and Eagle County, have among the highest insurance rates in the exchange in the entire country, these two counties. That is due to a problem that the State had in implementing it, but we would love to work with Republicans on a Federal fix for Eagle and Summit County, and the other Colorado counties that are affected by it.

I would be proud to work with my colleagues to replace the revenue and the medical and device tax with other sources of revenue to ensure that the Affordable Care Act works.

There are a lot of great ideas, and perhaps it is time that, rather than continue to celebrate anniversaries of repeal, that we enter couples counseling sessions today, and we work together in trying to find common ground.

Rather than talking about repealing ObamaCare and going back to a system we know wasn't working, in which 40 million Americans didn't have health care insurance, in which Americans and my constituents and yours were frustrated that, year after year, rates were going up 10, 15, 20 percent--rather than going back to a formula we know didn't work, let's enter couples counseling and work together to make health care work in our country, to talk about a path forward, with the President, with Democrats, with Republicans, with Independents, to ensure that these cost increases that have been epidemic the last couple of decades come to an end, that we can extend coverage to more American families, that we can ensure that the quality of health care that is our Nation's pride can continue to be available to Americans, regardless of their economic background.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Isn't that wonderful? Isn't this great that the President has made 19 changes to improve the Affordable Care Act to make it work?

You know what? That is what a marriage takes. That is what has helped the Affordable Care Act withstand the 50th vote to repeal it here in the House. Had the President been inflexible--just like in a marriage, if one partner is inflexible, it would have been a lot harder to survive 50 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Here, we are celebrating the golden anniversary of repeal votes, 50 votes.

But thanks to the President's flexibility with 19 changes, hopefully, there are more along the way to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care:

That no American faces pricing discrimination or is kept out of a plan because of a preexisting condition;

That people can move between employers;

That somebody can leave a large company to be an entrepreneur and have a startup without worrying about losing their health care if they have a preexisting condition;

Making sure that young Americans, as they are trying to find a job or working part time, can stay on their parents' plan;

Making sure that Americans have a real choice in the exchanges that choose between multiple providers.

These were some of the elements that I think the American people want to keep and one of the reasons that this health care act has not only withstood 50 votes to repeal and is celebrating its golden anniversary, but will survive the next 50 votes if the House Republicans choose to have them to try to appeal the Affordable Care Act.

The American people want to see changes to make it work. We applaud the President for the 19 changes he made. We encourage him to use the discretion that we rightly give him under the Affordable Care Act to help make it work.

We encourage the discretion at the State level that many Governors, like the Governor of Kentucky and others, have shown to make the Affordable Care Act work in their State.

We applaud the fact that there are over $200 billion of deficit reduction in the Affordable Care Act. If we can find additional savings and replace lost revenue, we are certainly open to that discussion. So I rise in celebration of having withstood 50 repeal votes. We are ready for the next 50.

We use these opportunities to highlight the American people on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and to say that we are ready to have a real discussion with Republicans, to exert our legislative privilege, to make changes, and in the absence of that, we applaud the President in using the abilities that we give him under the act to help make sure the Affordable Care Act truly makes health care more affordable for American families.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

This bill--this 50th anniversary--golden anniversary of ObamaCare repeals here in the House--50th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, gutting mental parity, health parity, gutting protection for Americans with preexisting conditions, went through no hearings, no markups, no amendments that we are allowed to discuss or debate or vote on here on the floor of the House. This is not the process for improving the quality of health care for American families.

The American people have made it clear they want this marriage to last. They want to make it work. They know it requires hard work. The President has made 19 wonderful changes to the law.

I am not a constitutional lawyer. If there are folks on the other side who want to sue the President, who think that he did something contrary to the law we passed, they are certainly welcome to sue. I believe that the President was given broad discretion under the law to make it work.

I hope that this legislative body takes up the gauntlet and makes the changes we need to make the Affordable Care Act work. Any marriage takes effort. Here, we have a marriage between the Affordable Care Act and the American people, and 50 votes to repeal it are not going to break up that marriage.

It is a stronger marriage than that because the American people have voted on it. They didn't elect a Presidential candidate who wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They didn't elect a Senate that wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

So here we are, and we are welcome to have another 50, 100, 200 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act; or we can get to work on an open process, letting Members of both parties offer floor amendments. This rule allows no floor amendments.

Having a markup in committee, having hearings in committee about how we can deliver better health care value to the American people will make sure

affordable care is available to every American family and affordable for small businesses, to make America more competitive.

But instead of going through an open process, encouraging ideas from Republicans and Democrats to make health care work in our country, we are presented with the 50th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

In the absence of meaningful improvements and legislation, the President is using the authority that we gave him under this bill to make the changes that he needs to make, to make sure the Affordable Care Act works.

This body can reassert itself and take back its prerogative whenever we want by passing commonsense bipartisan bills to improve the Affordable Care Act, but it truly is hypocritical to criticize the President out of one side of one's mouth for making changes that actually improve the law and make it work better, when here in this body we are refusing to make some of those same commonsense changes.

I hope that if people think that there was authority of the law that exceeded, they are welcome to work that out in the courts. That is what the court is for, to settle the differences of separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches; but I hope, more important, because the American people care about affordable health care, that this body is willing to take up some of those improvements that we can make, to make sure that this marriage can endure for the next 50 votes as well.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, make no bones about it. The individual mandate is a linchpin of RomneyCare--or whatever you would like to call it--modeled on, in fact, the insurance reforms in Massachusetts. This component is critical to ensuring that people with preexisting conditions are not discriminated against in pricing in the exchange. It is important to make sure that we have a younger, healthier risk pool in the exchange to bring down rates for all Americans.

If this bill were to become law, which it won't--it is simply the 50th repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the golden anniversary of repeals--the entire affordable care structure, including the pricing in the exchange, would go up for American families, and it would devastate health care reform. This is not a bill that has support from the President. It is not a bill that has support from the proponents of the Affordable Care Act. It doesn't make the Affordable Care Act better. It is, in fact, the 50th repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

I was on the Education and Labor Committee, as it was called at the time, two Congresses ago. My colleague from Texas talked about the process under which the health care bill was written. We did have a substantial markup. There were other committees: the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee. My committee was one of the committees that it was reported out of, and there were other committees it was not reported out of.

This was an amazing process of writing this bill over the period of a year. In fact, in our Democratic Caucus meetings, we even, essentially, functioned as a committee of our entire Caucus, where we went through the bill page after page, and we made suggestions. There were a number of bills that were written by Republicans that were included in the Affordable Care Act, and there were amendments that I was involved with that were included. Like in any legislative process, some that I advocated for were not included in the final bill.

Unlike this bill, which had no hearing and no markup in any form-- because the gentleman from Texas is right. This bill number came from the Senate, and that is the normal process around here. We sometimes have bills from the Senate we approve, and sometimes they originate here and go over there. So this bill number and this title came from something else, and they approved it in reconciliation.

Yet the Affordable Care Act--the bill that led to it--went through my committee. I remember being up until, really, I think, 7 o'clock in the morning. We went straight through the night, under Chairman Miller, offering a number of amendments, some passing and some not. Sometimes I was on the prevailing side, sometimes not. We had a lively discussion over amendments from Democrats and Republicans, some of which made it into the final bill and some of which didn't. That is the legislative process.

To somehow compare that to the legislative process around this bill is like night and day. So, although the gentleman from Texas is technically correct--the bill number was a reconciliation from the Senate that the House concurred in and sent back with some changes--the work that went into forming that bill had countless hearings and had several markups, including one that I participated in and offered amendments in and voted for and against amendments from both sides of the aisle in.

We are where we are. We would love to see the Affordable Care Act go through a process now. Again, why not allow amendments under this rule? Why not allow Republicans or Democrats, who have ideas to make health care more affordable, to offer them now to the floor? If they would pass, then they would move on to the Senate.

Instead, we have a narrowly focused Affordable Care Act repeal that makes health care less affordable for American families by leading to a risk pool in the exchanges that is less healthy and older. We need to ensure that young people are part of the exchanges. Young people want to have insurance, and they want to have affordable insurance. Let's make sure they have a way to do that in the exchanges. This bill would repeal that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

To the gentleman from Texas, I say it is possible I will have one more speaker. If I see her arrive, I will yield to her. Otherwise, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the number of people who lost their unemployment benefits as a result of Congress' failing to extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program has climbed to 2 million Americans. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up legislation that would restore unemployment insurance and provide much-needed relief to countless families across the country as well as to stimulate our economy.

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

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

We could be doing a lot of important work here in the House rather than to have, I think, what both sides would agree is a purely symbolic 50th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, unless there are, perhaps, some who think ``50'' is the magic number. I think anybody who has a degree of political sense realizes, if the other 49 didn't go anywhere, this one is very unlikely to go anywhere. Rather than proceed with something that isn't going anywhere and that gives the Democrats once again the opportunity to talk about how important it is to make health care more affordable--and the American people overwhelmingly want health care to be fixed, not repealed--we could be doing a lot of important things that the American people actually want this body to do.

Let's talk about immigration reform.

There is a bill that passed the Senate with Democrats and Republicans--68 votes. It is rare for more than two-thirds of the United States Senate to come together around a commonsense solution. How did they do that? They did that because the American people want this problem solved. They are sick and tired--and they should be; I am, too--of having over 10 million people illegally in this country. In my district, there are tens of thousands of people who are there illegally. We don't even know because there is no way to even count. President Obama has deported over 2 million people at an enormous cost to taxpayers--$10,000 to $20,000 per deportation. That is how much it costs taxpayers--you and me, Mr. Speaker.

Guess what? There is a bipartisan solution supported by the law enforcement community, supported by the business community, supported by the technology industry, supported by both the agriculture industry--farmers and farmworkers--and supported by business and labor, supported by the faith-based community, supported by over 75 percent of Americans across the political spectrum, supported by a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats and a majority of Independents. That bill is ready.

There is a bipartisan House version, H.R. 15. Let's bring that forward under a rule. That bill would have the votes to pass tomorrow if we brought it forward. We could send it to the President. We could reduce the deficit by over $100 billion, increase our GDP, create hundreds of thousands of jobs for American citizens, as the bill has been scored. Finally, we could secure our borders so we could have control over who comes and goes, both people and illicit products. That is what the American people want. Let's get that bill through rather than celebrate yet another empty anniversary for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

I strongly suggest that my colleagues start bringing forward bills that the American people want to see pass. If we can bring forward immigration reform with bipartisan support and get it out of this body and to the President's desk, the American people will start to improve their opinions of this institution. When I see the polls and they say, oh, 15 percent approval is what Congress has--or 12 percent--it is really no wonder because it is a little bit like a broken record around here. They are, frankly, sick and tired of our every week, it seems like, repealing the Affordable Care Act and making health care more expensive for the American people. They don't want to see us talking about golden rings and 50th anniversaries of votes. They want to see us solving problems.

We offer the Speaker and the majority leader the opportunity to do that. We welcome the Republican immigration principles. There are ample grounds to work on a bipartisan solution based on H.R. 15 or on another bill that encapsulates those principles that the Republicans laid down on which we can find common ground so as to solve a very real problem, to grow our economy, to reduce our deficit, to secure our borders, and to ensure that America remains competitive in the global economy. I challenge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reach a solution on that issue and to really move forward with regard to making health care more affordable.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this closed process--this closed rule--that allows no Republican ideas and no Democratic ideas to come forward, to enter this discussion. I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so the Democrats can bring forward the unemployment insurance bill, and I also encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.

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.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule and the underlying bills, the so-called American Energy Solutions for Lower Costs and More American Jobs Act--it is H.R. 2--and the Jobs for America, so-called, Act, H.R. 4. Don't let the titles of these bills fool you. H.R. 2 and H.R. 4 won't create any new jobs but would continue to degrade the quality of life and health of the American people.

These bills put more money in the pockets of big industry, corporate welfare, undermine the efficiency of our regulatory activities, and continue to fail to provide opportunities for the middle class, while they continue to enrich international conglomerates and corporations.

Not only are these bills bad, but I should add, Mr. Speaker, the House has already voted on all of these bills that are already included in H.R. 2 and H.R. 4 this session--just another waste of taxpayer time and money here debating and voting on bills that have already been passed. Just as the Republicans have chosen to repeal the Affordable Care Act 53 times, so too we are passing many of these bills for the second time here today if that is the decision the House chooses to make.

Now, I think it is clear, all of us here know, that these bills will not become law, that the Senate did not take them up after the House passed them. There is no indication or reason to believe that in this new configuration and being lumped together in new and more sinister ways that the Senate will react any more positively.

Sadly, it is quite clear that the majority here in the House are either unable or unwilling to bring forth fresh ideas to jump-start the middle class.

These bills instead are bound to political pandering, rewarding of campaign donors and large corporations in advance of elections, instead of taking advantage of our precious few remaining days of session to address the real problems facing our Nation.

I am also dismayed that both of these bills are being reviewed under a closed rule here today. It was fairly recently here on the floor of the House that we celebrated the diamond jubilee of closed rules, 75 closed rules from the Republican Party. H.R. 2 and H.R. 4 are the 76th and 77th closed rules this Congress. Just before this Chamber breaks for a 6-week-long recess, the majority has shut down the process of regular order and not allowed Republicans or Democrats to offer our amendments to improve these bills.

Even though they are not bringing new legislation before us today, we should at least allow--at least allow--Democrats and Republicans to offer their ideas to make these bills better. What is the point in passing the exact same bills without even giving Members of this body the ability to make them better?

I offered two amendments in this bill, which I will speak about later, but, unfortunately, neither was made in order. Other Members of this body also offered great ideas to help improve this legislation, but none were allowed. Instead, we have a restricted rule which has shut out debate from Members on both sides of the aisle. If we can defeat this rule, we can move forward with an open process, encouraging and allowing amendments from both sides of the aisle.

We don't have the precious time left for political posturing. While we were talking here now, I got a text on my phone that votes are, in fact, canceled for tomorrow. I am not sure if my colleague is yet aware of that or if the Speaker is yet aware of that, but this, in fact, may be the last day that we are in session before the election.

And yet instead of dealing with immigration reform, there is a bill to pass of more than two-thirds. Instead of protecting LGBT Americans from being fired from their job just because of who they love or who they are, here we are today bringing forward bills that have already passed in different configurations, that would hurt the quality of life for American families, that would hurt the environment and hurt the health of the American people.

This compilation of bills in H.R. 2 is really an oil and gas industry wish list. Now, of course all of us support responsible energy development on Federal lands and private lands, make sure we balance production with our quality of life and our health. This bill, however, would prioritize development over all other uses of land and all other values that we hold as a country. This bill would also reduce important protections that we have in favor of speculative energy exploration and development.

Now is not the time to pass a massive corporate giveaway bill to the oil and gas industry, an industry that is already very profitable. They don't need more taxpayer subsidies just to add to their bottom line, especially not at the expense of our health, our environment, and the enjoyment of our public lands and our quality of life.

While there are many problematic provisions in the bill, several are particularly concerning. One provision in the bill would streamline pipeline approvals, so would even allow for the automatic approval of natural gas pipeline projects without any impact studies or opportunities for public comment.

This bill would also discourage environmental analysis, undermine agency decisions like curbing carbon pollution, and yet another provision would prevent the Federal Government from overseeing fracking activities on Federal lands, an issue near and dear to the hearts of my constituents in the State of Colorado.

It is particularly egregious that given that this bill has a wish list from the oil and gas industry, that somehow, for those of us who support an all-of-the-above energy approach, it left out the wind energy production tax credit.

The wind production tax credit is a solution that has allowed for rapid scaling of wind power over the past couple of decades. So why would we be doubling down with taxpayer subsidies for the oil and gas industry at the same time we are not even renewing the one important subsidy that wind energy has?

Now, I offered two different solutions for this, and I was hoping either one of them would have been a constructive way to approach this on the floor of the House. I offered an amendment with Mr. Perlmutter to simply extend the wind production tax credit for the next 2 years. Now, that would create jobs, encourage private investment, and allow wind energy to compete on a level playing field with the heavily subsidized oil and gas industry.

I also offered another solution--and I am certainly willing to support either--and that solution would be to eliminate the over $40 billion in taxpayer subsidies to the oil and gas industry. If we had gone that route, again, at least wind and solar energy would be able to compete on a level playing field because we would stop doling out our precious taxpayer dollars as subsidies to the legacy interests in the oil and gas industry.

That too was not allowed to even be debated, not for 10 minutes, not for 1 minute. Instead, apparently having Friday off was more important than allowing Democratic and Republican Members of this body to present their ideas on how to make a bad bill better.

H.R. 4, the Jobs for America Act, is a group of 15 bills that have also been previously passed by the House. Many of them serve to attack our processes we have in place to keep American consumers safe. The bill empowers polluters, bogs down agencies that are charged with protecting the public health. None of them have become law, having already been passed, and I think all my colleagues here know that none of them will become law in this new and more sinister configuration.

Now, I would love to see a balanced tax extender package that lowers the Federal deficit, strengthens our economy, can actually pass the Senate and be signed into law, but I think we all know that is not the bill before us today.

H.R. 4 would actually add to the deficit by making tax cuts for many special interests permanent. A $574 billion deficit-busting bill on our last day of session, what a great lead-in to the general election for the Republicans to present a massive, Big Government spending, $574 billion subsidy bill for our consideration. I think the American people understand the contrast and the different approaches that are in play this year.

Now, an amendment I offered with Mr. Blumenauer, which I mentioned earlier, would have offset some of that cost by eliminating the oil and gas industry subsidies to the tune of $40 billion. Now, the bill still would have cost $534 billion, but it would have cost $40 billion less if we had eliminated the oil and gas subsidies. But, again, apparently having a Friday off is more important to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle than having a full and open debate of the merits or lack of merits of the proposal I advanced with Mr. Blumenauer.

In summary, I oppose the closed rule in addition to the underlying bills.

Now, we could have shown the American people that Congress could end on a positive note, that we could come together and address our broken immigration system, that we could come together to address our deficit; but instead, we are providing yet another example of why Congress continues to have record low approval ratings: rehashed, repackaged, partisan bills costing taxpayers $574 billion, enriching the special interests in corporations, and then going on vacation. And people wonder why the American people aren't thrilled with the United States Congress.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my colleague on the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my colleague on the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire if the gentleman has any remaining speakers.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 15, the comprehensive immigration reform bill.

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

I thought it was worth a try here to reduce the deficit by over $200 billion, create several hundred thousand jobs for Americans, secure our border and restore the rule of law but, apparently, going on vacation on Friday is more important.

These are likely the last votes that this Chamber will take before the election. Unfortunately, rather than move forward on protecting our borders, rather than move forward on reducing our deficit, rather than move forward on so many of the important national priorities we have, we are simply taking up bills that have already passed, reconsidering them under new and more sinister forms, and sending them nowhere at no time.

These bills are not going to be law. They didn't become law last time. It is even harder for them to become law when they are packaged together in new and different ways. There is a word for this kind of legislative activity, and it isn't ``governing.'' It is called ``pandering.''

Rather than spinning our wheels, we should have taken up the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill. I was hoping that I could have gotten the permission under unanimous consent to bring that up. I am confident we have strong support from Democrats and Republicans in this body to pass that bill and to send it on into law.

Unfortunately, more than a year after the Senate has passed immigration reform, the House still refuses to even allow a vote on our bipartisan immigration reform bill that secures our borders and restores the rule of law, reduces our deficit, and creates jobs for Americans; instead, the only votes the House has taken this year on the entire topic of immigration have been to subject DREAMers--who grew up here and know no other country--to deportation and send immigrant children fleeing violence back to their countries, where they face possible persecution or death.

Rather than continuing to waste the American people's time and taxpayer money debating recycled measures over and over again, I wanted to give this body, through my unanimous consent request, one more opportunity to tackle an issue that will get larger and harder to deal with the longer we wait, and that is immigration.

If there are 10 million people here illegally today, Mr. Speaker, if this body continues to object to every motion we make to bring up a law that would secure our borders and restore the rule of law, there is likely to be 15 million people here illegally in 10 years. You can count on it.

This Nation deserves to have secure borders, we deserve to restore the rule of law, and we deserve to reflect our values as a Nation in our immigration system. I know we have the votes for this bill.

I urge my colleagues to change their plans for tomorrow and, instead, allow us to come back and pass immigration reform so that we can finally solve this issue, reduce our budget deficit, create jobs for Americans, secure our border, and end this Congress on a positive note, a positive note of moving forward on solving an issue that the American people are screaming out for a solution to rather than rehashing and repackaging special interest bills into new and more sinister forms.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will allow the House to consider six separate pieces of legislation that are true priorities for jump- starting the middle class: the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Fair Minimum Wage Act, the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, the Healthy Families Act, the Strong Start for America's Children Act, and the Bring Jobs Home Act.

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

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

I encourage us to stay here and address immigration reform so that we can solve this issue for our country, reduce our deficit, and secure our borders.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this closed rule, number 76 and 77 of this Congress, allowing no allowed amendments from either side, including the very reasonable all-of-the-above energy amendments that I offered with my colleagues Mr. Perlmutter and Mr. Blumenauer that either would have eliminated oil and gas subsidies or provided a similar and corresponding subsidy for the production tax credit and wind energy, so at least it can compete on a level playing field with the oil and gas industry.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.