Prohibiting the consideration of a concurrent resolution providing for adjournment unless the House has adopted a conference report on the budget resolution.

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

There are many things that my good friend from Florida said that I agree with. I will be discussing some of the merits of these bills, but it is worthwhile to bring forward before discussing what these bills are, what these bills are not.

It has been 159 days and 14 hours since the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill. This body's failure to act on immigration reform has already cost our economy nearly $6 billion. Each additional day, each day that we delay action costs $37 million in revenue; hundreds of thousands of jobs lost; failure to secure the border; failure to restore the rule of law to our country; countless families torn apart.

While the Judiciary Committee has found the time to move asbestos bills and patent reform bills to the floor with ease, immigration reform remains stagnant. The Judiciary Committee has reported out four immigration reform bills: the Legal Workforce Act, the Agricultural Guestworker Act, the SAFE Act, and the SKILLS Visa Act. They reported these four bills out prior to the asbestos bill which was rushed immediately to the floor and prior to the patent bill which was rushed to the floor after a hearing in the Rules Committee yesterday.

My question to the gentleman from Florida--and I will be happy to yield for a moment--is why we are giving such treatment to asbestos and patent reform when immigration reform would create so many more jobs and reduce our deficit by so much more?

I would like to know if the gentleman from Florida has an answer to that question.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Reclaiming my time, 68 Members of the Senate, including

many Republicans, including former Presidential Republican nominee John McCain, supported the Senate immigration reform bill.

I certainly understand the desire to get it right, but bills don't get right by themselves. These are four bills that have passed in the Judiciary Committee. We in Rules like to make them right by allowing good, thoughtful amendments from colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I hope that next week or when we are back, we will be able to move forward the immigration bills with the same alacrity that we have moved forward asbestos and patent reform.

I hope the same thing happens that as these bills move through Judiciary that we do see them in the Rules Committee and that they ultimately come to this floor for debate.

Mr. Speaker, I do support the underlying bills that are contained under this rule. I support H.R. 1105, the bipartisan Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act. It exempts private equity funds which are very lightly leveraged in helping to grow companies and jobs from costly and unnecessary SEC registration and reporting requirements like venture capital firms that are already exempted and substantially have very similar business models to private equity firms. These registration requirements are an impediment to business and an impediment to job growth and have nothing to do with creating systemic risk in our economy.

Importantly, this bill would only exempt private equity firms with low debt-to-equity ratios leveraged at a ratio of less than 2 to 1. Once you get to talking about much higher debt-to-equity ratios, there is potentially systemic risk if you are talking about funds in the multi-billions of dollars that are highly leveraged. It is still hard to see how that could happen. It had nothing to do with the financial meltdown of '08-'09. But in this case, we are being extremely safe in saying if they are leveraged 2 to 1, they are no systemic risk to the economy.

My State and my district know firsthand the benefits that private equity provides to employees, to companies, to investors, including pensions, and our economy. There are nearly 500 private equity-backed companies headquartered in Colorado, many more that operate with employees, more than 124,000 workers in Colorado facilities. In 2012, there were 67 private equity investments in Colorado totaling over $26 billion that were brought to our State because of this investment mechanism, placing Colorado third in the States receiving the most private equity investment.

The underlying rule also makes in order H.R. 3309, the Innovation Act, which I also support. In 2011, ``patent assertion entities,'' some of whom are bad actors which are sometimes referred to as ``patent trolls,'' who often produce little or nothing and derive their revenue from litigation and licensing, cost significant overhang to other businesses and to consumers for whom many of these costs are passed along in the products or services that we all enjoy. The majority of the targets of patent trolls were start-ups--hospitals, restaurants, retailers, hotels, and other important job-creation engines in our economy.

The reforms made in the America Invents Act, enacted 2 years ago, went a little ways in this regard, but did not do much to halt or put a stop to or reduce patent troll litigation or improve the quality of patents. In the case of software patents, growing patent backlogs, lack of training and resources available to PTO examiners, and ambiguity regarding patentability standards have led to approval of low-quality software patents that have not even stood up when brought to litigation.

Thankfully, the momentum is growing to address patent reform. I want to be clear--and I discussed this with Chairman Goodlatte in the Rules Committee yesterday--this bill is not patent reform. I believe the gentleman, Mr. Goodlatte, agrees this is not patent reform. It may be a few steps in the right direction. It may be a good start. It doesn't fundamentally create an intellectual property protection system for the digital era in the 21st century.

It continues to put, constructively, Band-Aids on a 1913 system, which I do believe it is high time to rethink. I look forward to an upcoming symposium in my district at the University of Colorado this Friday that we will be having on sort of ``blue sky'' intellectual property protection mechanisms for the 21st century in the digital economy to encourage growth and to protect inventors. This bill does not do that. However, it is a step forward in many regards.

While I strongly support many of these patent system improvements, it won't fix our patent system. Patent trolls have targeted every form of business. It should come as no surprise that the Innovation Act enjoys support from Members from both sides of the aisle, from companies, from academics. I submitted a letter from 67 professors at law universities who practice in IP from a broad ideological perspective into the record in our Rules Committee yesterday expressing their support for this bill.

This bill maintains protections for inventors' rights to enforce their patent claims. Specifically, this bill allocates the burden of patent litigation more fairly. It includes a provision that restores financial accountability to the patent system by making it easier for courts to impose sanctions on anyone who brings a frivolous patent suit.

The bill also requires the disclosure of critical details when a patent-holder files a suit, such as what patent and claims are being infringed, so the person or entity receiving the letter can know what is being discussed so that defendants don't need to guess the nature of the allegations against them.

The underlying legislation further requires patent-holders to disclose additional information to the PTO, the court, and the accused infringer, including the patent ownership, who owns the patent, and parties with financial interest in the patent. These provisions will help stop patent trolls who engage in illegitimate litigation campaigns and extortion against start-ups and small businesses.

While I strongly support these patent reforms that are a modest step towards improving our patent system, the litigation reforms alone don't have enough to benefit start-ups and small companies that are targeted by patent trolls who send pre-litigation demand letters. I am very appreciative of the chairman's effort to allow, and the Rules Committee's effort to allow, for the discussion of my amendment, along with Mr. Chaffetz, Mr. Connolly, and Mr. Marino, who have been working in this regard to see stronger language on the issue of pre-litigation demand letters. And I am grateful that we have made in order an amendment to increase accountability in the demand letter process.

We will be discussing that amendment in a more thorough basis shortly; but, in brief, the problem is that before a patent troll even files a suit, it typically sends a demand letter, or many demand letters, demanding some form of payment. Under current law, the sender does not even have to disclose even the most basic information. As such, entities often hide behind numerous shell corporations or send vague or overbroad letters that don't even identify the owner of the patent or the basis of their legal claim, essentially leading particularly small companies to have to hire lawyers or attorneys at great expense. When you have a company that is a $300,000-a-year company, a $500,000-a-year company, and you receive one or more of these notices, you can imagine how that takes away from your growth, your margins, your ability to hire more people, if you have to retain professional counsel to even understand what is being alleged that your company did.

Importantly, the underlying bill requires patent-holders seeking to bring willful infringement claims to provide their targets with a minimum level of disclosure information. The amendment enhances that and builds upon the language and would mandate that demand letters include information identifying the parent entity of the claimant. This language will help ensure that patent trolls can no longer hide under shell companies to conceal their true entity and their legitimacy from the demand letter recipient.

I look forward to discussing these bills further, and I reserve the balance of my time.

And I certainly wish that we had acted on immigration reform. We did pass under Democratic control a DREAM Act, if the gentleman will recall, in the waning days of the 111th Congress, and did take at least one constructive step with an immigration bill that we brought to the full floor of this House and passed.

I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter), a member of the Financial Services Committee and a former member of the Rules Committee.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Chu), a member of the Judiciary Committee, one of the key architects and somebody who worked very hard on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardenas).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, so I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), rightly asserted that the Democrats did not, in fact, when they were in charge of the legislature in both Chambers, fix our broken immigration system. However, we did pass the DREAM Act. And given that this is football season and I think that my friend, the gentleman from Georgia, perhaps shares affinity for football, that while we did not in fact score a touchdown and fix our broken immigration system, at least the Democrats got a field goal when we were in charge. We are still waiting for the Republicans to match our field goal here if we can't score a touchdown with comprehensive immigration reform, and we look forward to improving these bills that have passed out of the committee before the asbestos bill, before the patent reform bill, and need the work of the full membership of this body to improve them.

Legislation is not like a fine wine, that when it sits in a barrel it improves itself. It needs to be actively worked upon to improve it, and I hope that it is a matter of days or hours or minutes until we can dust off these immigration bills that Chairman Goodlatte and the Judiciary Committee have worked on and improve upon them so that this body can actually move forward and score a field goal, a touchdown or more, and finally replace our broken immigration system with one that reflects our values as Americans, restores the rule of law, reduces our deficit by $200 billion, creates 6 million jobs for American citizens, secures our borders, and implements workplace enforcement of our immigration system. I am confident that we can do that working together, just as we are working together on these bills that are before us today.

As I indicated earlier, that while the patent bill does harvest some low-hanging fruit, there remains a lot of work to be done to create a 21st century intellectual property protection system for our country.

One such effort was an amendment that I offered, Polis amendment 5, that was not allowed under this rule. This amendment reflects a bill that I sponsor with Mr. Marino that regards the Demand Letter Transparency Act. Depending on a start-up's resources, even the recipient of one demand letter can even be a death sentence for a small one-, two-, three-person company. The threat of a demand letter alone can jeopardize a company's ability to raise funds, can scare away potential customers, and, God forbid, actually defending a patent lawsuit can cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in legal bills, which to a one-, two-, or three-person company is simply a matter of shutting the doors because they cannot afford to do that.

At the Rules Committee yesterday, I offered my bipartisan amendment based on legislation that I introduced with Representative Marino and Representative Deutch that would provide a comprehensive approach to increasing transparency and accountability in the demand letter process. While our amendment was not made in order, I am grateful we did include at least some slight provisions regarding who owns shell corporations, amendment 4 was allowed. We plan to continue to press forward on the need to address this issue through meaningful legislation.

Our bill would require certain entities to provide additional disclosure information to the PTO and to the demand letter recipient so that these start-ups and mom-and-pop restaurant owners and stores will know who is sending these demand letters and whether the claims they are making are truthful or grounded at all or just a scam.

Our bill would establish a searchable and accessible public registry of demand letters and clarify that the Federal Trade Commission could use its authority to impose civil penalties to go after patent trolls. While the FTC has announced its intent to investigate PAEs, our bill would clarify the FTC's role to use its enforcement powers against PAEs who engage in unfair and deceptive trade practices to find as a violation the provisions of our bill.

Our amendment would prevent patent trolls from hiding behind anonymous shell companies and empower defendants to take collective action and share information and increase reporting so that the regulatory authorities and the PTL are on alert as to which patents are being frivolously asserted by whom.

In conjunction with litigation reforms that are proposed in this underlying bill, our proposal would produce a more robust patent market and a more productive and predictable and competitive economy.

Our proposal is supported by a diverse group of individuals and organizations, including DISH Network, Public Knowledge, the National Restaurant Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the National Retail Federation, the Direct Marketing Association, the Mobile Marketing Association, the Association of American Advertising Agencies, and the Hotel & Lodging Association, among many others.

Mr. Speaker, for once, this body is moving forward on bipartisan legislation that will help spur innovation and economic growth. The first bill that we are considering with regard to private equity will help increase job growth and job creation in our country by removing a regulatory burden that was put in without the proper justification. Private equity funds had nothing to do with the meltdown in 2008 and 2009, nor do they represent any systemic risk to our economy. They simply allow people to aggregate their resources to buy stock equity in companies. We have a cap on the debt equity ratio of two to one, and they do what they do. People earn money and people lose money, and that is how the economy works, but there is absolutely no systemic risk.

Some of these dollar amounts sound high, but what we talked about in the Rules Committee yesterday is that you might have a private equity fund that is $300 million. That sounds like a lot of money. That is the amount of money they have to invest over a period of years. With $300 million, they invest that over 5, 6, or 7 years. That is not their operational budget. Their operational budget is 2 percent or less of that every year. So a $300 million private equity fund might have an annual budget of $6 million.

Again, $6 million sounds like a lot of money. It certainly is. But when compliance with the SEC reform is $500,000, as has been estimated, you are talking about a sizeable percentage of your annual operating budget. So that means you have to hire a couple of people less. You might not be able to do that extra investment that you didn't have the ability to do the diligence in. You might not be able to invest in that additional company and help it grow and create jobs because of regulatory compliance that has nothing to do with systemic risk.

Mr. Speaker, as this session of Congress comes to a close, the first session of the 113th Congress, there is much that this body has left undone. While the other Chamber across the way has acted on overwhelmingly bipartisan measures that help fix our immigration system, saving $200 billion, creating over 6 million jobs, securing our borders, restoring the rule of law, and uniting families, this body has not passed a single bill in that area.

While the other body has passed a bill that would prevent companies from discriminating against gay and lesbian employees with strong bipartisan support, this body has not even brought such a bill to committee or the floor.

While I am pleased to see the bipartisan Innovation Act and Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act come to the floor today, although I would like to see them with a more open process that allowed more ideas from both sides of the aisle to be introduced as amendments, I only hope that a majority of this body sees fit to hold votes on other issues such as immigration reform and employment nondiscrimination, which I am confident would pass the floor of the House today.

As I talk to many tech companies and small businesses in my district, many of the purported beneficiaries of this modest patent reform bill, they support it, but they support immigration reform more. They say, Good job. Now get immigration reform done. That is what I am hearing from employers and businesses in my district. I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are hearing the same.

Our Nation cannot afford to maintain a 20th century intellectual property protection system in a digital and biological era. This bill does not correct that. It does not change that. It is a modest step forward and an important part of reforming parts of the process that Democrats, Republicans, and many stakeholders can agree are broken.

The measure contains bipartisan balanced proposals, just as H.R. 15 does, the comprehensive immigration reform bill in the House, with over 190 bipartisan sponsors. And just as this bill will continue to incentivize entrepreneurship, so too--times 10, times 100--would comprehensive immigration reform, which includes a start-up visa that allows entrepreneurs who have already received commitments of investment to come to this country and create their jobs here. We are turning jobs for Americans away every day we fail to act on immigration reform. We can bring H.R. 15 to the Rules Committee and to the floor of the House next week or we can stay the following week and give this body the opportunity to send a bill to President Obama's desk to finally replace our broken immigration system with one that works.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up House Resolution 424, Ranking Member Slaughter's resolution, that prohibits an adjournment of the House until we adopt a budget conference report. This body should not adjourn until we have completed a budget conference report that could help prevent a second government shutdown and prevent a fiscal crisis.

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, while I am actively encouraging Members on both sides of the aisle to get behind the Innovation Act and the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act, I must urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question, as well as a ``no'' vote on the restrictive rule.

I hope that we can send the message that we need to bring immigration reform to the floor of this House, rather than let the four bills that have already emerged out of committee stay sitting and aging and not getting any better while we fast-track asbestos and while we fast-track modest patent reforms.

The time has come to act on immigration reform. Please join me on voting ``no'' on the previous question and ``no'' on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

It seems more like we have been in a timeout for 3 months since these bills have passed committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. I also rise in opposition to this rule and to the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, it appears that this Republican-controlled House of Representatives is incapable of doing anything that matters in people's lives. When the history is written on the 113th Congress, especially as it pertains to the House of Representatives, they have accomplished nothing. They have made a lot of noise. They shut the government down. They whine about the health care bill every chance they get, but they have accomplished absolutely nothing.

And it is frustrating because our country is facing great challenges. Our economic growth is slower than it should be, thanks to the Republican shutdown of government, and their willingness to play politics with the debt ceiling has had a negative impact on our economy. Job growth is too slow, and we should be working together to invest in education and in job training and in infrastructure projects to help put people back to work. We ought to have a long-term highway bill. I think every Governor in the country, Republican and Democrat, would agree with me on that statement. Yet this House of Representatives just seems incapable of accomplishing anything to help rebuild our infrastructure.

The sequester that my Republican friends embraced has taken a terrible toll on our science and research programs. Talk to the people at NIH. Potentially lifesaving research into diseases like cancer and Parkinson's disease have been crippled, yet there is no urgency over on the side of my friends on the other side of the aisle to try to do anything about it. They just sit there and twiddle their thumbs and life goes on; meanwhile, we are losing our competitive edge in medical research and in science.

The Senate has passed a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill. The Republican leadership claims that we simply don't have the time to take it up. That is nonsense. We had time to take up this horrible bill that my colleague from Iowa (Mr. King) authored that would allow for the mass deportation of young, undocumented immigrants, the so-called DREAMers who were brought here as children by their parents. They have time to demagogue these issues, but to actually fix our broken immigration system, they claim we don't have any time.

Mr. Speaker, I will insert into the Record today's Washington Post editorial, ``John Boehner Must Act on Immigration Now.''

And just so my colleagues understand this, when my friends on the other side of the aisle say they don't have time, the Republicans will take 4 out of 5 days off for the rest of the year. That is how hard they are working on behalf of the American people. Four out of 5 days remaining from now until the end of the year they are going to take off. That is not doing your job, Mr. Speaker. That is not doing your job.

Instead of dealing with these important issues, we have this bill before us now that has come to the floor, H.R. 1900. The bill before is rather curious. Rather than solving a problem that actually exists, it is a solution in search of a problem, and it is just another partisan messaging bill that is going nowhere in the Senate. The White House has already said they would veto it.

H.R. 1900 would require FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to approve or deny an application for a natural gas pipeline within 12 months of its filing date. FERC already

decides 92 percent of permit applications within 12 months, and the GAO has concluded that its pipeline permitting process is predictable and consistent and gets pipelines built. The small percentage of applications that have taken more than a year involve complex proposals that deserve a more thoughtful review.

Instead of speeding up the permitting process, this bill will lead to unnecessary permit denials and increased litigation that will ultimately slow the process down. If FERC cannot properly review permits within the rigid 12-month deadline, they may be forced to deny applications that would otherwise end up being approved.

For me, the most troubling part of H.R. 1900 is that it may result in truncated or inadequate environmental analysis, which threatens the health and safety of communities these potentially hazardous pipelines run through. Just last week, a Chevron pipeline exploded in Milford, Texas, forcing the entire town to evacuate. Mr. Speaker, it isn't too much to ask the oil and gas industry to go through a process to make sure that these pipelines are safe.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and on the underlying bill, and I urge my Republican colleagues to get back to work on solving real problems on behalf of the American people.

Enough of the press releases, enough of this polarizing rhetoric and these meaningless debates that we seem to be consumed with here in the House of Representatives. People want us to work on their behalf, to do things that will improve their lives, that will strengthen our country; and instead, my friends on the other side of the aisle seem to be cheering for our country to fail all the time and bringing this kind of stuff to the floor, which is going nowhere and is meaningless.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

[The Washington Post, Nov. 19, 2013]

John Boehner Must Act on Immigration Now

(By Editorial Board)

Poor John Boehner. The beleaguered House speaker can't even

eat breakfast in peace. The other day, a pair of teenage

girls, activists for immigration reform, accosted him at

Pete's Diner, his early-morning hangout, to ask how he'd like

to be deported.

``How would you feel if you had to tell your kids at the

age of 10 that you were never coming home?'' 13-year-old

Carmen Lima, of California, asked Mr. Boehner. ``That

wouldn't be good,'' allowed the Speaker.

He got that right. The rest of his remarks on immigration

that day, not so much. Mr. Boehner, who pledged to press

ahead with immigration reform a year ago following Mitt

Romney's dismal performance with Latino voters, now says the

House will not negotiate with Democrats on the basis of the

sweeping reform bill passed by the Senate in June with

bipartisan support. Translation: Don't hold your breath for

immigration reform this year, and don't get your hopes high

for next year, either.

Mr. Boehner says he still wants to ``deal with''

immigration, but ``in a commonsense, step-by-step way.''

The trouble is, no one knows what those steps would be. The

only immigration bill on which Mr. Boehner has permitted a

vote by the full House would allow for the mass deportation

of young, undocumented immigrants brought to this country

illegally as children by their parents--the so-called

Dreamers.

Deporting hundreds of thousands of youngsters who grew up

and went to school in the United States does not seem an

especially promising way to resolve the broader issue of the

nation's broken immigration system. Neither does heaving

billions of dollars more at border security without tackling

the entire problem. Some partial reforms, such as opening the

visa spigot for high-tech engineers, scientists and

mathematicians, may make sense, but they don't get at the

fundamental problem.

As it happens, border security and high-tech visas are

addressed in the Senate bill, along with more fundamental

reform; that's why it's 1,300 pages long, a fact that Mr.

Boehner cited to dismiss its viability as the basis for

negotiations. In the wake of Obamacare's rollout troubles,

large-scale reforms are in poor repute, we understand. But

there are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United

States. The country needs to deal with them in some way. When

it does so, it needs to set up a sensible system for future

immigration so we don't wind up in the same fix 10 or 20

years from now. That requires legislation of some complexity,

it's true, but members of Congress are elected to solve

complex problems.

President Obama said Tuesday that he is open to dealing

with immigration in a piecemeal fashion. But the House can't

dictate that only border security and deportation are on the

table. Mr. Boehner should let House Republicans vote on the

parts of immigration reform they consider priorities and take

that ``sensible step-by-step'' approach into negotiations

with the Senate. It is unserious, and unconstructive, to tell

the Senate what it can and cannot bring to the table in

negotiations with the House.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, it is my privilege to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. Speaker, at this time, it is my privilege to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished whip.

I yield an additional 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland.

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

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself with the remarks of our distinguished whip. It is frustrating to serve in the people's House and watch as this leadership purposely tries to avoid doing the people's business. It is frustrating when you go home and you talk to farmers, and they want to know where the farm bill is. It is frustrating when you talk to people about immigration, and they look at what happened in the United States Senate, where it passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support, and we can't even get anything scheduled here. We can't even get anything scheduled here.

It is frustrating when people are still reeling over the fact that the Republicans shut the government down, and they want to make sure we don't repeat it. Yet we have no budget resolution, no budget conference that has been put together to make sure that we are on a road where we don't have any more of these Ted Cruz-led shutdowns around here. So it is very frustrating.

I think the gentleman from Maryland said it very clearly--that the American people are frustrated. It is not just Democrats. It is Democrats and Republicans that are frustrated.

Parliamentary Inquiry

I yield to the gentleman from Texas for a parliamentary inquiry.

So we don't want another Ted Cruz-led shutdown here in the House of Representatives. I think the American people are fed up with that.

Then, as the distinguished minority whip pointed out, I mean, we are not even in session more than 6 full days from now until the end of the year, which is absolutely unconscionable.

You say to yourself, Well, maybe the Republicans are planning to do something in the future; maybe they have an agenda for the future. Then we read in Politico that last Thursday, a group of House Republicans filed into Majority Leader Eric Cantor's Capitol office suite and received a blank piece of paper labeled, ``Agenda 2014.'' This is their agenda for 2014. A Republican political aide put it more bluntly by saying, ``What we have done so far this year clearly hasn't worked.''

This is their agenda for next year. It might as well be the agenda for the rest of this year. It is nothing, nothing that is improving the quality of life for the people that we represent. Again, it fuels a cynicism all across the country that the majority party here doesn't seem to care about what happens to regular people, and that is very, very disconcerting.

I guess they could go back and say that their big accomplishment was that they complained about the Affordable Care Act. Over 40-something times, they brought bills to the floor to try to repeal it, never once offering an alternative to improve it, never once giving an alternative idea that would help address the fact that tens of millions of our citizens don't have health insurance. Millions do have health insurance, but it is really not health insurance because when they get sick, they realize they have been paying for a policy that provides them nothing. There is no alternative agenda to try to address those issues; it is just that they are against it. I guess it is easy to say ``no,'' but the bottom line is, I think the American people are looking for us to say ``yes'' to some things.

So, Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up House Resolution 424, Ranking Member Slaughter's resolution prohibiting an adjournment of the House until we adopt a budget conference report.

What that means is that we should not adjourn until we do our job. That shouldn't be a radical idea. I would like to think there is bipartisan consensus that we ought to do our job, and that is what this would require.

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

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

I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and on the underlying bills which, to be honest with you, are a waste of our time. They are going nowhere in the Senate, and the President has already issued a veto threat on them.

With one last urging of my Republican colleagues to stay here and do your work, Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 420 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 420 provides for the consideration of a critical piece of legislation that was passed by the Committee on Energy and Commerce designed to address the costly and unnecessary delays which many businesses experience when trying to get a final determination to be made by the Federal Government in relation to a pending pipeline.

A member of the committee, Mr. Pompeo from Kansas, the bill's author, has drafted a meaningful piece of legislation, taking into account the various competing interests involved in the permitting process and has found a fair and just balance for ensuring that our critical infrastructure moves forward.

The rule before us today provides for 1 hour of general debate on the bill. Five of the six amendments submitted to the Rules Committee were made in order, all Democratic amendments. The sixth was neither germane nor did it meet the CutGo rules of the House. Finally, the minority is afforded the customary motion to recommit on the bill, allowing for yet another opportunity to amend the legislation.

H.R. 1900, the Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act, is the product of hours of work with stakeholders that Mr. Pompeo has put in to improve the legislation. The bill streamlines our Nation's pipeline permitting processes in an effort to allow for greater capacity and promote safe infrastructure. Specifically, the bill directs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve or deny a permit application for a new natural gas pipeline within 12 months.

Natural gas is one of the clearest examples of how this country can move itself toward a more sustainable energy-independent future while at the same time allowing and encouraging our economy to grow. My own district in north Texas sits 8,000 feet above the Barnett shale, a natural gas formation that industry has been using to produce gas for decades. Indeed, due to the technological advances and strong market, the area that I represent felt few of the effects of the recession until at least a year after the recession was initiated due to the booming economy that resulted from the development of the resources under our feet.

Obviously, with increased production and demand, as we have seen with the natural gas industry, comes an increased need for infrastructure. I welcome any legislation which would streamline the permitting process and allow companies to spend less time with Washington bureaucrats and more time creating jobs, producing products that consumers want and are eager to buy.

Indeed, with the increase in supply that hydraulic fracturing has created with natural gas, the pace at which the Federal Government has approved increased infrastructure, namely pipelines, to transport this commodity has not kept up.

Pipelines provide the safest, fastest, and cleanest mode of transportation for natural gas, as we in the Energy and Commerce Committee have heard from witnesses again and again. Making certain that our country has the number of pipelines necessary for transporting the gas we need to heat our homes and run our cars is a critical step toward energy independence.

Moreover, Members of this body who annually support more robust funding for programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, commonly referred to as LIHEAP, should be joining with Republicans today in supporting an increase in pipeline infrastructure in our country, as the natural gas being produced in Western States could more efficiently be transported to the Northeastern States, reducing home heating costs and lessening the need for government assistance for many families.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is an important bill. It will create opportunity to put thousands of workers to work, creating the infrastructure that this country has needed for some time due to the energy boom in natural gas. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bill.

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

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Is it in order to refer to Members of the other body by name?

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

You know, Mr. Speaker, it was a little over a year ago that the American people went to the polls, and in their wisdom, they elected a divided government. They knew what divided government looked like. They had seen it for the 2 years prior.

The President came to town in 2009 and promised a lot of sweeping changes, and he delivered on those sweeping changes during the first 2 years of his administration. He had a health care bill passed. The health care bill passed without a single Republican vote. You talk about a partisan vote--the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a partisan vote. Unfortunately, we are seeing now, as we have convulsed the country with these changes that are occurring within the insurance system, we are seeing the changes that are going to occur to our providers, our doctors, our hospitals, our nurses in the months ahead. This is a serious situation, and it requires serious action to be taken.

I won't apologize for any action that has been taken by the majority in this House to try to rein in the excesses of the administration and the previous Democrat-controlled Congress when they took over one-sixth of the Nation's economy in a partisan fashion without a single Republican vote.

The sequester was passed in August of 2011. It was passed at the request of the President. The gentleman has talked about shutdowns and defaults of the government. Do you remember that the sequester was a compromise

proposed by the President and the Office of Management and Budget at the White House in order to prevent defaulting on our debt? It was a very difficult vote for many of us in this House.

What has the sequester delivered? The sequester delivered what no one had been able to deliver in the 4 years previously, and that is a Federal budget deficit that is below $1 trillion. It doesn't sound like a big ask that the American people had: We want you to stop spending so much money. The sequester delivered on that promise.

I find it strange now for the gentleman from Massachusetts to impugn the integrity of people who voted in favor of that sequester when the President and the minority leader of the House of Representatives now want to take credit for the fact that the deficit was cut in half over the last 4 years.

The only reason it was cut in half was because they raised it to unsustainable levels, and now the sequester has reined that back in. It is quite likely that the deficit at the end of fiscal year 2014 will in fact be lower if we don't do something to damage the trajectory that we are on.

I don't think the immigration bill passed by the Senate is here at the House. I think it has got an origination problem, and it is unconstitutional. If there is a bill at the desk, I will be happy to look at it, but I don't think that has occurred. The gentleman knows that.

This bill that we are considering today would lower the price of natural gas delivered to consumers in the State of Massachusetts. I have a table prepared by the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The national average for natural gas is $9.19 per thousand cubic feet. In Massachusetts, it is $13.18.

So this is a bill today that could deliver product to the gentleman's constituents in Massachusetts at a much more reasonable price. This sounds to me like a bill that will help the economy. This sounds to me like a bill that may provide jobs for the American people.

The minority whip talked about the doc fix. Our committee, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, did pass, in a bipartisan fashion, the repeal of the sustainable growth rate formula. I think it is a good bill. I think it is a bill where we had participation from both sides of the dais and not a single dissenting vote when we voted on the bill in committee right before the August recess.

There is another body here in the Capitol Building. They are considering their own version of a similar bill in the appropriate Finance Committee over in the other body. I don't want to prejudge or preclude what they will or won't do. I am anxious for them to do something that would give us a negotiating point where we could consider moving forward with a final repeal of this problem, but in fact, the legislative branch consists of two bodies--this body and the body on the other side. Until the Finance Committee acts, there is little more that the Energy and Commerce Committee can do to push that bill forward.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for consideration of a critical bill to ensure our energy infrastructure needs are being met. Mr. Pompeo has done a good job. I applaud him and our committee for the thoughtful legislation.

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

[From the Energy & Commerce Committee, U.S. House of Representatives,

Nov. 19, 2013]

H.R. 1900 Needed To Deliver Affordable American Energy to Consumers

House to Vote This Week on Legislation to Speed Up Natural Gas Pipeline

Projects

This week the House of Representatives will consider H.R.

1900, the Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act.

Authored by Energy and Commerce Committee member Rep. Mike

Pompeo (R-KS), the bill will help ensure consumers have

access to affordable and reliable energy by modernizing the

permitting process for interstate natural gas pipelines. It

is a critical part of the committee's efforts to build the

architecture of abundance, and will allow American families

and businesses across the country to enjoy the benefits of

the U.S. shale gas boom.

America is experiencing a surge in natural gas production

but right now we simply don't have the infrastructure to

accommodate this increased supply and deliver this low-cost

energy to consumers and manufacturers. And as gas gains a

greater market share of the nation's electricity portfolio,

many regions of the country do not have the pipeline capacity

to support this conversion, leaving consumers vulnerable to

price spikes. We saw this play out last January as areas of

the country, particularly along the East Coast, faced gas

shortages and high prices. According to a recent blog post by

the Energy Information Administration, ``The increased use of

natural gas for electricity generation has raised concerns

about fuel diversity, as the Northeast is also reliant on

natural gas for part of its heating needs and has limited

pipeline capacity to bring gas to market. The winter of 2012-

13 saw spikes in wholesale electricity prices in New England

and New York as demand for natural gas from both electric

generators and natural gas distribution companies taxed the

capacity to bring natural gas into these markets.''

The chart below highlights those states that suffered the

most last winter from high natural gas prices and the lack of

adequate infrastructure, with natural gas prices reaching up

to 68% higher than the national average:

Residential Natural Gas Prices for January 2013: National Average:

$9.19*

Alabama......................................................$14.44/57% Arizona......................................................$11.07/20% Connecticut..................................................$13.07/42% Delaware.....................................................$12.32/34% Florida......................................................$15.43/68% Georgia......................................................$12.92/41% Maine........................................................$15.33/67% Maryland.....................................................$10.73/17% Massachusetts................................................$13.18/43% New Hampshire................................................$11.99/30% New Jersey...................................................$10.81/18% New York.....................................................$11.42/24% North Carolina...............................................$11.07/20% Pennsylvania.................................................$10.48/14% Rhode Island.................................................$12.58/37% South Carolina...............................................$11.88/29% Vermont......................................................$14.73/60% Virginia.....................................................$11.10/21% Washington...................................................$10.47/14%

* Dollars per Thousand Cubic Feet

Source: U.S. EIA

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

Mr. Speaker, I see four people in the gallery. I see three Members on the floor. The galleries are empty, the floor is empty because we are not doing anything, and it is not because we don't have a lot of things to do.

We have 6--7 if you count tomorrow where we will leave by 12:00--6 full days left in the session in 2013, and yet we fiddle here while the country sees itself burning on bills that are going nowhere, that have no priority and deal with a subject, energy, which, happily, is one of the most successful places we are at in America today, where we are fast becoming the energy-independent, low-cost energy situs of the world.

We have no budget conference coming to this floor scheduled in the 6 full days that we have left and the 2 other days that may be counted in which we come in at 6:30 and meet for probably a half an hour or 45 minutes and vote on suspension bills. Yet we have spent this entire week--and we left, of course, hardworking day yesterday, we left doing work at 2:30 in the afternoon. No budget conference, no fiscal policy, no solution to the crisis that confronted us when we shut down government.

I urged that we have a budget conference report by November 22--that is tomorrow--so that we didn't, as our practice has been in recent months and

years, confront real issues only when crisis gives us no other alternative.

No immigration reform has been brought to the floor, although it passed the Senate with 68 votes, comprehensive immigration reform, which will address a problem that every Member of this House says is an immigration system that is broken. The majority leader said that the other day, and I asked him about the four bills that our Republican friends, Mr. Speaker, have reported out of committee but they languish somewhere in the netherworld, not brought to the floor for consideration by this House.

And yet we have time to consider bills that will have no impact, which the President says he will veto, and are not bipartisan bills, were reported out of the committee in a partisan fashion, as so much of the legislation that we consider on this House floor is, partisan, confrontational, no-consensus pieces of legislation.

Yet a comprehensive immigration reform bill that had 68 votes, over two-thirds of the United States Senate, 14 Republicans voted for that bill, yet the Speaker says he is not for it and won't bring it to the floor. That is the same Speaker that says let the House work its will. The House cannot work its will if the legislation is not brought to the floor by the House, which can only be done by the Republican majority, Mr. Speaker, as you know. So they keep that bill from being considered, although CBO says it will help the economy, grow jobs, and fix a broken system.

There are 6 full days left to go on the schedule in 2013. And yet the farm bill, which was reported out of the committee 2 years ago in a bipartisan fashion in the last Congress but was never brought to this floor, while we twiddled our thumbs while Rome burned--the farm bill lies languishing in conference committee because a bipartisan bill, passed by the United States Senate, was not considered in this House.

But a partisan bill with almost no Democratic votes, and the second piece of that farm bill, the nutritional part, receiving not a single Democratic vote, lies languishing in the conference committee because it was passed in an extraordinarily partisan fashion, where the gentleman from Oklahoma's (Mr. Lucas) bill, reported out in a bipartisan fashion. The American public, Mr. Speaker, says, Let's act bipartisanly. We did. With Democratic and Republican votes, the farm bill came out of the Agriculture Committee and was turned into a partisan bill on this floor by my Republican colleagues. So it languishes with 6 days left, with the farm bill expiring on December 31, no action, no progress.

We need to pay our doctors a proper compensation for the services they give. I am sure the gentleman from the Rules Committee, who, himself, is a medical doctor, understands this necessity. We need to fix the sustainable growth, but it languishes somewhere out in the netherworld while we have 6 days left. Unfixed, unscheduled. I have asked the majority leader numerous times: Is that going to be brought to the floor? It has not been brought to the floor.

Discrimination in the workplace, passed by the Senate in a bipartisan fashion, ENDA, is not going to be brought to this floor. The Speaker says he is opposed to it, so the House will not be able to work its will again on a piece of legislation that, in my opinion, would have a majority of the votes on this floor. There is no doubt in my mind, and I am the whip. I count votes, Mr. Speaker, as you know. It would have the majority of votes on this floor, but the Speaker and the majority leader will not bring it to this floor.

Unemployment insurance for 1.2 million people ends on December 31, and we have 6 days of full work left and two partial days when we come in at 6:30. Yet unemployment insurance has not been brought to this floor to be extended for those 1.1 million people, with still 7.2 or 7.3 percent unemployment. Unemployment insurance is a critically important issue. It is somewhere out there, but it is not on this floor. This, while we have considered legislation this entire week that the majority knows will not pass the United States Senate and, even if it did pass, would not be signed by the President of the United States.

But they send a message, perhaps, to their base: politics. With the budget conference, immigration reform, the farm bill, the sustainable growth rate, doc reimbursement for Medicare patients, discrimination in the workplace, unemployment insurance, and, yes, I would add to that tax extenders--none of it on this floor.

No one ought to ask themselves why the American people hold this institution in such low regard. None of us who have served in this institution for any period of time are proud of what we are doing in this Congress. We lament the unwillingness of the leadership of this House to have us do the work that the American public knows we must be doing.

So, Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the previous question. This is not just an ordinary previous question. What this previous question says is, We will not adjourn, American people. We will not adjourn on December 13, as is projected by the majority to be the date on which we adjourn. We will not adjourn until such time as we have done the important work that the American people expect of us, the responsible work that the American people expect of us, the work that we ought to expect of ourselves until we consider this bill.

I would hope that we would defeat the previous question, and if we defeat the previous question, then we will bring to this floor a resolution which will say, We shall not adjourn until we have done a budget conference that precludes fiscal crisis, shutting down government, a refusal to pay America's debts; that we pass an immigration reform bill that fixes what everybody knows is a broken system; until we bring a farm bill to the floor which will preclude farmers and consumers and those who need nutritional help from being put at risk.

Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand a letter. This is not a letter from Democrats. This is a letter from 13 Republican leaders, chairs of the subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee, who say to the budget conference committee: Bring a solution to the floor before the Thanksgiving break and no later than December 2. Yet, ladies and gentlemen of this House, Mr. Speaker--and yes, Mr. Speaker, all of us speak to the American people, who ought to be asking us, Why? Why? Why do we waste time when so much important work remains to be done?

Defeat the previous question. Allow us to offer a resolution which will say to the American people, We will continue to work until we get your work done.

Congress of the United States,

Committee on Appropriations,

Washington, DC, November 18, 2013.

Hon. Paul Ryan,

Chairman, Budget Committee,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Chris Van Hollen,

Ranking Member, Budget Committee,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Patty Murray,

Chairwoman, Budget Committee,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Jeff Sessions,

Ranking Member, Budget Committee,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Ryan, Chairwoman Murray, Ranking Member

Sessions, and Ranking Member Van Hollen: We call on the

Budget conference to reach an agreement on the FY 2014 and

2015 spending caps as soon as possible to allow the

appropriations process to move forward to completion by the

January 15 expiration of the current short-term Continuing

Resolution. We urge you to redouble your efforts toward that

end and report common, topline levels for both the House and

Senate before the Thanksgiving recess, or by December 2 at

the latest.

If a timely agreement is not reached, the likely

alternatives could have extremely damaging repercussions.

First, the failure to reach a budget deal to allow

Appropriations to assemble funding for FY 2014 will reopen

the specter of another government shutdown. Second, it will

reopen the probability

of governance by continuing resolution, based on prior year

outdated spending needs and priorities, dismissing in one

fell swoop all of the work done by the Congress to enact

appropriations bills for FY 2014 that reflect the will of

Congress and the people we represent. Third, the current

sequester and the upcoming ``Second Sequester'' in January

would result in more indiscriminate across the board

reductions that could have negative consequences on

critically important federal programs, especially our

national defense.

In addition, failure to agree on a common spending cap for

FY 2015 will guarantee another year of confusion.

The American people deserve a detailed budget blueprint

that makes rational and intelligent choices on funding by

their elected representatives, not by a meat ax. We urge you

to come together and decide on a common discretionary

spending topline for both FY 2014 and FY 2015 as quickly as

possible to empower our Committee, and the Congress as a

whole, to make the responsible spending decisions that we

have been elected to make.

Sincerely,

Harold Rogers, Chairman, Committee on Appropriations;

Jack Kingston, Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor, Health

and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies;

Tom Latham, Chairman, Subcommittee on Transportation,

and Housing and Urban Development, and Related

Agencies; Kay Granger, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on

State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies; John

Abney Culberson, Chairman, Subcommittee on Military

Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies;

John R. Carter, Chairman, Subcommittee on Homeland

Security; Tom Cole, Chairman, Subcommittee on

Legislative Branch; Frank R. Wolf, Chairman,

Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice Science, and Related

Agencies; Rodney Frelinghuysen, Chairman, Subcommittee

on Defense; Robert B. Aderholt, Chairman, Subcommittee

on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug

Administration, and Related Agencies; Michael K.

Simpson, Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy and Water

Development, and Related Agencies; Ander Crenshaw,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Financial Services and

General Government; Ken Calvert, Chairman, Subcommittee

on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 429 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule, House Resolution 429.

House Resolution 429 provides a structured rule for both H.R. 3309, the Innovation Act, and H.R. 1105, the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act. The rule gives the House the opportunity to debate a variety of important amendments offered by Members on both sides of the aisle.

The Innovation Act seeks to address a growing problem of abusive patent litigation, commonly known as ``patent trolling.'' Patent trolls are nonpracticing entities. In other words, they don't make or sell products, and they don't supply services. Instead, they exist only to secure fees from businesses that use technologies covered by the patents they own. They do this by acquiring weak patents and then filing numerous patent infringement lawsuits or sending blanket demand letters to a business.

The victims of these frivolous lawsuits are all too often small businesses or start-ups that are ill-equipped to protect themselves. They simply don't have the resources available to mount an adequate defense. It is, by definition, a lose-lose scenario for them. Defendants pay millions in damages if they lose and millions in legal fees if they win. More often, defendants are forced to settle, despite the merits of a case, in order to avoid expensive legal costs.

Meanwhile, patent trolls are aided by law firms that operate on contingency fees. This means that, if nonpracticing entities lose their cases, there are no monetary consequences for them--none at all. They aren't on the hook for legal fees like their counterparts are.

As you can see, for small companies, this system is inherently unfair. Our small businesses are our most important innovators in this country. They are largely responsible for the new products and services we, as consumers, enjoy. They are also a critical factor in growing our economy and creating jobs. We ought to provide fairness to them by leveling the playing field in the patent litigation process. We ought to ensure that our patent system isn't stifling innovation but encouraging it. Unfortunately, this just isn't the case right now.

Patent trolling is a destructive practice that saps resources from small businesses and increases costs for consumers.

And its negative impact isn't limited to just the tech sector either. Patent trolling affects businesses and industries of all types, including the health industry and even grocers. It is absolutely a drag on our economy.

An issue like this undoubtedly deserves to be debated by the House. This rule will ensure that a deliberative process takes place. The rule also allows for consideration of H.R. 1105, the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act.

This legislation would remove the requirement that small private equity firms register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC. However, it would retain the option of registering if they choose to.

Under current law, small private equity firms are being grouped by behemoths despite the fact that they played no contributing role in the financial crisis we just went through. Even the chairman of the SEC in a letter to Chairman Hensarling admitted that the private equity funds were not an underlying cause of the recent financial crisis.

Furthermore, private equity does not pose a systemic risk to the economy. So why are we taking limited resources at the SEC away from their mission and shifting them to oversee firms that pose no systemic risk at all? Why are we burdening these small companies with SEC registration costs that, according to the Private Equity Growth Council, can exceed over $1 million per year?

More money in unnecessary compliance costs means less money to invest in companies, particularly newer ones, which allow them to grow and create the jobs we desperately need.

In my own State of Florida, there are over 1,000 private equity- backed companies. Let me repeat that: there are over 1,000 private equity-backed companies in Florida alone. There are over 100 private equity firms within the State of Florida. These companies support more than 800,000 workers throughout the country.

In fact, in 2012, Florida ranked fifth in the Nation in attracting private equity investment. That investment is a vital tool for growing companies, and we are needlessly handcuffing their ability to do just that.

H.R. 1105 will help these smaller funds and increase the capital available for real companies so their businesses can thrive. Make no mistake, this is a jobs bill and it will help grow our economy.

I support this rule that will allow us to consider these bills, and I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will do the same.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman from Colorado, but I will tell you this: the House is moving through the Judiciary Committee at a pace to make sure that we do this right in regards to immigration.

Where the Senate has rushed through a bill that is so comprehensive and so large, it will be similar to ObamaCare before we actually----

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to respond to my good friends from Colorado. I appreciate that he appreciates the approach that this House

is taking, particularly as it relates to both of the bills that are the underlying aspect of this rule. It is about moving in a deliberative manner to make sure that we get it right. I thank Mr. Polis for pointing that out.

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

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

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

I do not.

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

I am speaking to some of the comments that were made, particularly as it relates to football. We talked about a field goal and 3 points, but here is the position that the majority has taken in the House as it relates to immigration. It is about first downs. It is about moving the ball forward in measured steps, about getting it right the first time, not going through what we have gone through with these huge bills.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Reclaiming my time, it takes time, as you know, to move meaningful legislation through and to get it right the first time.

You have to live with some things when you have these megabills with thousands of pages, such as a 1,000-page immigration bill or 2,500 pages for the Affordable Care Act. At the end of the day, let's do this in a reasonable approach, because we want immigration reform, because we know we have a broken immigration system. We absolutely know that. I think this House has taken the right approach in doing things in a measured way to get first downs until we get to the end zone where we all want to be.

As we notice on this bill, even though there is strong bipartisan support on both of these pieces of legislation, we still have some that aren't happy because sometimes bills never get to exactly where everybody wants them to be. I get that. In a perfect world, we would get everything we want. It is not a perfect world. We don't get everything we want. But it is about moving the ball forward, and I think that my good friend from Colorado has talked eloquently about the issues as relate to patent reform and private equity because I know he has been part of that world. He speaks from experience in those areas.

Is it everything that you want? Probably not. We have heard from the chairman of the committee that it is not everything he wants. But it is a step in the right direction. It is moving the ball forward. It is getting the first down. It is moving it so that we can win the game-- not a political party, but the American people. Consumers can win. The holders of patents can win. That is what this is all about.

With regard to demand letters, I lived through this as a sheriff. We used to get demand letters that we were going to get sued, and the whole idea behind it was the fact that they thought we would settle for $30,000 or $40,000 to make them go away. Here is what happened.

The sheriffs got smart, and they put together a consortium of sheriffs, 60 out of 67, in a sheriffs self-insurance fund. Guess what? We changed the tables and the dynamics in regard to it just as this bill will do. What we did was say, Guess what? We are no longer going to be blackmailed into giving money. On a legitimate case, you are going to settle; but on a case that is frivolous, we would say, No thanks. Let's go to trial. They never want to do that because it is expensive on their end, too, particularly when they could wind up paying for that.

Mr. Speaker, a lot has been said today, and I think a lot more is going to be said after we pass this rule. As we talk about what I think is fair, that abusive patent litigation is a growing problem--we have heard that from both sides today.

Under current patent systems, small businesses and startups simply don't have the resources to compete with the patent trolls. They are easy targets. They routinely settle, regardless of the merits of the case, to avoid hefty legal costs.

We understand that, therefore, it is important that we level the playing field for our innovators, our innovators that actually create something, an idea out of thin air, and create something that can be turned into jobs in the future.

Regardless of where the Members of this body fall on the underlying legislation, it seems that we are all in agreement that we need to combat this destructive practice.

We are also in agreement that we need jobs. The rule provides for consideration of a bill that will give small companies more access to capital, more opportunities to grow, more opportunities to create jobs. The rule makes in order important germane amendments addressing this.

Mr. Speaker, we heard a call to vote ``no'' on the rule for other reasons. Let's talk about creating jobs in America. Let's talk about protecting our innovators.

Let's not get caught up in the politics of the day. Let's do the right thing for the American people today, the thing that is going to be heard today in this House. Let's vote on a rule, and let's pass that rule. I support this rule, and I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule as well.

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