H.Res. 616

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 616 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 unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 616 provides for consideration of three important bills. The first, H.R. 4800, the Agriculture Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2015, will ensure continued operations for those Federal agencies responsible for monitoring the health and safety of our food and drug supplies. H.R. 4457, America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2014, and H.R. 4453, the Permanent S Corporation Built-in Gains Recognition Period Act of 2014, are two critical pieces of tax legislation that will give certainty to the small business community, making permanent two pieces of our Tax Code which Congress has had to continually renew annually for decades. Making these tax credits permanent will allow businesses to look out for more than a year ahead and to actually evaluate their economic situations, allowing for those businesses to make staffing and investment decisions for the long term rather than just the short term.

The rule before us today provides for a modified open rule for H.R. 4800. This allows all Members to offer any amendments to the bill that they may choose. The Speaker is committed to completing as many appropriations bills under regular order as possible.

The rule before us formalizes the same unanimous consent agreement that was entered into during the consideration of the CJS appropriations bill, which streamlines the debate, providing for 10 minutes of debate on every amendment offered on the bill. However, in no way does this rule restrict Members from offering any and all amendments to the underlying bill.

The rule further provides for the consideration of both H.R. 4457, America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2014, and H.R. 4453, the Permanent S Corporation Built-in Gains Recognition Period Act of 2014, both under a closed rule. By bringing these two bills here today, Members will be allowed to debate the policy of each of these tax provisions individually rather than as a single omnibus tax extender legislation hurriedly passed at the end of the year that would not allow Members to weigh in on each separate extender as this process does.

H.R. 4800, the Agriculture and Related Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2015, provides almost $21 billion for the department agencies funded in the bill. This is funded at the same level as fiscal year 2014 and $457 million above the President's request. The bill provides critical funding for agricultural research; animal and plant health; conservation programs; the Farm Service Agency; rural development, including infrastructure and food safety inspection; the Food and Drug Administration; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; and the food and nutrition programs, including child nutrition, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and WIC, the program for women, infants, and children.

Of particular importance to the work I have been involved with on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the agriculture appropriations bill provides over $2.5 billion in funding to the Food and Drug Administration. In addition, the bill allows for the collection of user fees cumulatively, amounting to overall discretionary funding of $4.5 billion in the FDA.

These dollars serve an important mission. From drug and device approval to food safety, the Food and Drug Administration is at the regulatory forefront of protecting the Nation's health, but it also acts as the doorway for new treatments and cures. From basic research to cutting-edge treatments, America has led the way in opening new fields of discovery and taking medicine to boundaries that I could not have imagined during my medical training or career, yet we have barely scratched the surface of medical breakthroughs that are over the horizon. And believe it or not, there are only hundreds of treatments for diseases that afflict us and thousands still without any treatment at all, let alone a cure.

Will the United States continue to be the home for the latest inventions? If the answer to that is yes, the Food and Drug Administration will be a key part of the future.

Patients and innovators are on the front lines in the fight against diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer, yet their voices are not always heard. Bureaucratic rules have stood in the way of innovation. Some estimates show that medical devices may be approved almost 4 years earlier in Europe than in the U.S.

In 2012, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recommended ``encouraging innovation'' as part of the FDA's mission statement in order to ensure that the FDA understood its role in helping new innovative treatments reach patients.

However, the true impact of the medical device, pharmaceutical, biologic, and generic drug industries in the United States is that they are partners in providing our physicians and practitioners with the tools that they need to prevent disease and alleviate human suffering.

The Food and Drug Administration must have the infrastructure and programs in place to ensure all innovations are dealt with in a fashion that ensures safety for the patient, as well as a straightforward and predictable and streamlined approval process. The Food and Drug Administration can continue to streamline the approval process of single-molecule drugs with which they have the most regulatory experience, but if we can't handle the fundamentals, then we have got a big problem.

Congress has taken several bipartisan actions in the last few years to break down the barriers to health innovation, and the Food and Drug Administration will and has seen changes as a result. The funding provided will continue to move these reforms along, but as report language notes, there is a great deal of work that remains to be done.

For the good of patients and to retain our global leadership and the economic benefits that come with it, it is time to breathe new life into the life sciences sector. As a physician, I understand the importance of ensuring that the government has the resources to lead to the next generation of treatments in the 21st century while also ensuring that those treatments are safe and effective. The bill will ensure that the Food and Drug Administration has the scientific and medical expertise that they need when reviewing products utilizing emerging science by providing adequate resources in a challenging fiscal environment.

After the successful passage of the farm bill this year, the next step in that process is to fund those programs. H.R. 4800 achieves that goal.

And I will add, I was disappointed to see that the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, to bring grocery stores and fresh food to underserved communities, was not funded in this appropriations bill even after the House resoundingly defeated an amendment to strip the program from the farm bill, showing that this body overwhelmingly supports this initiative. I understand that an amendment to fix this oversight will be offered during consideration of the bill, and I hope that something can be worked out.

The two tax bills before us today are, again, critical to give small businesses stability and the ability to look beyond the end of each calendar year in making decisions for their companies. Extending these provisions today will be a boost to our economy.

H.R. 4457, America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2014, would make permanent a provision within the Tax Code that allows annual investments of depreciable business property up to $500,000 to be expensed. Further, computer software and rules for the expensing of qualified real property--leasehold improvement, restaurant and retail improvement property--can also be written off as well.

The present tax system harms investment in many ways. One of the most important is that, unlike other expenses, businesses must deduct capital expenses--such as for business equipment--over many years rather than the year the expense is incurred. This raises the cost of capital and reduces investment. H.R. 4457 would go a long way to reverse this trend.

Likewise, the other two tax extenders that we are voting on today deal with S corporations or pass-through corporations. These corporations elect not to pay any Federal corporate taxes and, instead, pass corporate income, losses, and deductions and credits through to their shareholders.

H.R. 4453, the Permanent S Corporation Built-in Gains Recognition Period Act of 2014, makes permanent an expired tax break that would enable businesses set up S corporations to shrink the window that they have to hold built-in gains from 10 years to 5.

H.R. 4454, the Permanent S Corporation Charitable Contributions Act of 2014, would make permanent the tax rule requiring an adjustment to the basis of a shareholder's stock in an S corporation if the corporation makes tax-deductible charitable donations.

Recently, the House passed a permanent tax credit for corporate research and development. Sixty-two Democrats voted against the measure. Their reasoning, as far as I can tell, was not against the policy, but it was the fact that the measure was not offset. However, offsets are something in Congress that we need when we are creating new programs or allocating money not previously appropriated, essentially making the American people pay more in taxes. Offsets are unnecessary and not needed when, in fact, we are shielding the American people from being taxed.

Moreover, we heard last night in the Rules Committee, and I suspect we will hear it again today on the floor, about the fact that the two tax-related bills before us today in this rule are not offset. Congress only needs to pay for tax credits if one subscribes to the belief that all money in the country--all money in the country--belongs first to the government rather than the people. I reject this mind-set. Congress does not need to justify or offset not taking more money from the American people; Congress needs to justify and pay for policies that take money from the American people.

Indeed, every member of the Rules Committee on the minority side has voted at least three times to extend these very provisions without having any sort of offset. President Obama, himself, signed those three extensions of these provisions into law, all done without offsets. Senator Wyden, who has been working on a larger tax extender bill in the Senate has included the same PAYGO language that is included in these bills before us in this legislation. To make hay about this issue, which is truly much ado about nothing, is to play politics with taxpayers and our economy, and the Republican majority in this House will not play along.

In the absence of a larger, comprehensive tax reform package, permanent extenders like these are common sense. They bring back stability and certainty to businesses that are constantly waiting at the end of every calendar year to see if Congress will retroactively act to provide that tax relief.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute for the purpose of a response.

In the 111th Congress, the final 2 years of Representative Pelosi's time as Speaker, 2009 to 2010, this House never considered a single bill under an open rule. Let me state that again: 2009 to 2010, the 111th Congress, Speaker Pelosi was Speaker, the House never considered a single bill under an open rule.

Mr. Speaker, I would submit, that is the definition of a closed process.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, first off, I just want to reference something on Speaker John Boehner's Web site.

John Boehner took the Speaker's gavel in January of 2011,

promising to run a more open U.S. House of Representatives

than his predecessor. In the 3\1/2\ years since then, Speaker

Boehner has made good on that pledge by allowing more

amendments and a steady stream of ``open rules,'' while the

Democratic-controlled United States Senate, under Majority

Leader Harry Reid, has gone in the other direction.

One congressional expert calls open rules, which allow

Members to freely offer amendments of essentially any nature

during the consideration of a given bill, ``essential for

fair consideration of legislation on the House floor.

Under Boehner's leadership, Members on both sides of the

aisle have been allowed to offer significantly more

amendments, and the House has operated under far more open

rules than were allowed under the previous Democratic-

controlled House.

The final years of the Pelosi-run House were a tour de

force in closed government. During the final 2 years of

Representative Pelosi's time as Speaker, the House never

considered a single bill under an open rule. Some Members of

Congress served their entire House careers under Speaker

Pelosi without ever operating under an open rule.

Mr. Speaker, on the issue of so-called immigration reform, the administration has done more to distance and set back any policy in that direction.

Why do I say that? The reason is the unintended effects of their policies to send a message worldwide to those that come here by any method possible, and we will not prosecute, we will not send you back.

As a consequence, we have got an issue on the border of our State in Texas that is, at the same time, both heartbreaking and frightening, with underage children literally being shoved across the border.

Mr. Speaker, what does it say when an 8-year-old child can cross our border illegally? Who else is getting in, if 8-year-olds are able to come across this porous border that the administration has opened up?

I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, I would just point out that those conditions the gentleman referenced that might cause a child to be frightened existed 4 years ago, existed 3 years ago, but there has been a dramatic change in the past 2 years.

I believe that change is directly attributable to the policies of the administration when they went around the United States Congress to unilaterally alter the United States immigration laws, which specifically, in the Constitution, is a legislative branch requirement.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for the consideration of three important bills: H.R. 4800, the Agriculture Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2015; H.R. 4457, America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2014; and H.R. 4453, the Permanent S Corporation Built-In Gains Recognition Period Act for 2014.

The rule is fair and important for us to move forward on the debate on these pieces of legislation.

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

An amendment to H. Res. 616 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Florida

At the end of the resolution, add the following new

sections:

Sec. 4. 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.

4582) to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to provide

for the refinancing of certain Federal student loans, and for

other purposes. 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 among and

controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the

Committee on Education and the Workforce and 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. 5. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of H.R. 4582.

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.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4800, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

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

I am pleased to begin consideration of H.R. 4800, making appropriations for FY 2015 for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies. The bill before us is unique in that the programs supported in this bill will impact every American every day of the year.

We support America's farmers and ranchers, who are very vital to our Nation's economy and our health and well-being. We support those at home in need with food and housing and provide rural businesses with low-interest loans and grants to help them sustain local economies. We help others around the world that face starvation and malnutrition. We support research and development in agriculture to improve productivity and stability. We support the oversight of commodity markets, providing confidence for businesses, traders, investors, and the public. We support a safe food supply and safe and effective drugs and devices. We are fortunate this Nation can and does support these vital programs.

The bill before us this afternoon reflects a delicate balance of needs and requirements. We have drafted what I consider a responsible bill for FY 2015 spending levels for the departments and agencies that are under the jurisdiction of the subcommittee. We have had to carefully prioritize the funding in this bill. We have had to make some hard choices about how to limit spending.

I want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky, Chairman Rogers, for supporting us with a very fair allocation for this bill and for helping us move this bill forward.

I also want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), the subcommittee ranking member. He has been a valuable partner and colleague as we have moved forward with this legislation. I appreciate his commitment. I appreciate his understanding as we have moved forward on a wide variety of programs in this bill, and I sincerely thank him for his help. While I and the other subcommittee members have a wide array of agriculture in our districts, Mr. Farr represents an area sometimes referred to as the ``salad bowl of the world.''

I want to thank all of the members of the subcommittee for their help, and I also thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), who is the ranking member for the full committee.

I also thank the majority staff for their hard work: Tom O'Brien, Betsy Bina, Pam Miller, Andrew Cooper, and Karen Ratzow.

I also appreciate the professionalism and the cooperation of the minority staff. In particular, I want to thank Martha Foley and Hogan Medlin for their help during all of the long hours spent putting this bill and report together, as well as Rochelle Dornatt, Troy Phillips, and Caitie Whelan of Mr. Farr's staff.

When the subcommittee began the FY15 appropriations process, I asked my colleagues to keep in mind three guiding principles. They were: to ensure the proper use of funds through robust oversight, ensuring the appropriate level of regulation to protect producers and the public, and to ensure funding is targeted to vital programs.

These three principles guided us from the time the President's budget request was first submitted to the subcommittee until this bill was put before the House today. This basic framework helped us set principles and priorities during the 10 budget hearings and oversight hearings that we had throughout the spring, which covered all of USDA's mission area, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, and also included the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

They also formed a framework for us to consider the many requests we received from our colleagues on this bill. In particular, we received more than 3,900 requests from 326 Members to support, reduce, or amend funding levels in the numerous accounts of this bill. Of course we could not meet every request, but we tried to address these requests in a bipartisan manner and in a way that was under the House rules. As such, there are no earmarks included in this bill.

The total funding for this bill is $142.5 billion. This is $1.5 billion below the President's request and $3 billion below the FY14- enacted level. The bill includes $20.88 billion in discretionary budget authority, which is the same as the FY14-enacted level. Mandatory spending totals $122 billion, or $3 billion below the FY14 level. These mandatory funds support USDA's farm, conservation, crop insurance, and nutrition programs.

I would like to briefly mention a few highlights that are in this bill.

We provide $2.8 billion for agricultural research. We have received many, many letters requesting support for the land-grant colleges and universities. We were able to provide level funding for them. We also provided $325 million, as requested, for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, which is USDA's premier competitive research grants program.

We provide $870 million for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. This agency works to eradicate plant and animal diseases and keeps the bad bugs out of the country. I am pleased to say that we were able to increase funding to combat citrus greening disease and the viral epidemic affecting the hog producers. This funding will supplement the emergency funding that the administration announced last week for research and surveillance purposes.

The bill also includes more than $1 billion for the Food Safety and Inspection Service. This is approximately the same as the FY14 level, but $3.8 million above the request. It will maintain more than 8,000 inspectors at more than 6,400 meat, poultry, and egg product facilities across the Nation.

The bill provides $1.5 billion for the Farm Service Agency, and it does not allow the closure of any county offices. This proposal made no sense when the 2014 farm bill is still being implemented in county offices across the Nation. We also fully fund the various farm loan programs in this bill.

For the Natural Resources Conservation Service, we provide $869 million to help farmers, ranchers, and private forest land owners conserve and protect their land and increase funding to help rehabilitate small dams.

This bill is the only one of the 12 appropriations bills that truly focuses on rural America. It provides $2.6 billion for the rural development programs. That includes funding to support $881 million in business and industry loans, $1.3 billion in loans for rural water and waste programs, and $6.2 billion for rural electric and telephone infrastructure. We also provide more than $1 billion for the single- family direct loan program, $1.1 billion for rental assistance, and $30 million for the Mutual and Self-Help program.

This bill includes both discretionary and mandatory funding for USDA's food and nutrition programs.

In particular, it provides $6.6 billion for the Women, Infants, and Children program. This is $93 million below the FY14 enacted level, and it is actually $200 million below the budget request. But I want to be clear about the decreased funding because a declining caseload and large carryover balances from the previous year is why we are doing this. And let me stress that every person who is eligible for the program will be able to receive funding under this funding level in this bill.

The bill includes $20.5 billion in required mandatory funding for child nutrition programs and $82.3 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, sometimes referred to as SNAP. This funding level helps support more than 47 million Americans each month.

To support those in time of need in places like Syria, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, the bill provides $1.7 billion for overseas food aid. We were able to provide a $66 million increase for Food for Peace grants, and $13 million for the McGovern-Dole Education and Child Nutrition Program offset from savings that we found elsewhere in the bill.

The Food and Drug Administration receives $2.6 billion in discretionary funding in this bill. This is an increase of $23 million over the FY14 level. When the user fees are included, FDA will receive $4.5 billion in FY15.

Within the total, the committee provides a $25 million increase of the full amount requested for food safety activities in the President's budget, and drug safety activities are increased by $12 million.

Furthermore, the bill includes $218 million for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This is an increase of $3 million above last year's level and is intended to address information technology needs.

Before I close, I do want to address one issue that has opened up a necessary dialogue in local cafeterias and schools across the Nation. It is the provision that would allow schools to seek a temporary--and let me stress that it is a temporary--waiver from the current school lunch standards if a school district has lost money over the last 6- month period as a result of trying to implement the new regulations.

I have had a constant stream of letters, I have talked to people, received emails, and I have had meetings over the past year with school nutritionists, with the teachers, and the school administrators. I have talked to parents, and I have talked to students, all concerned about the rising cost, the increased waste, and the declining participation in the school lunch program.

To tell the truth, the students have been concerned about the taste, they have been concerned about the variety and the quality of the meals. But, again, we have gone to the school nutritionists, to the teachers, and the administrators who have identified where the real problem is.

This is a real problem in many school districts across the country. Some school districts may not be experiencing this problem, but many, many are across the country. This bill acknowledges the concerns of schools and responds to their requests for a certain amount of flexibility. It only allows schools more time if they need it. In fact, it provides something very similar to the flexibility that USDA recently announced for the whole grain requirements.

The benefits to farmers, ranchers, consumers, businesses, and patients provided in this bill far outweigh any one or two objections a Member may have about this bill. The bill represents our best take on matching needs with limited resources. We have tried to work hard to produce the best bill we possibly can within the resources that we have had to work with in this appropriations process.

I thank the Members for their attention, and I would urge all the Members

to support this bipartisan legislation. I look forward to passing this bill on the floor as we move forward, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford).

Mr. Chairman, I assure the gentleman from California that I will be committed to working with both he and Mr. Crawford as we continue on this issue. I agree with my

colleagues that the final WTO ruling on the pending COOL case could bring irreparable harm to various U.S. industries.

As has been noted, report language has been included expressing the committee's concern that U.S. exports to Mexico and Canada will suffer an economic impact of approximately $2 billion in retaliatory tariffs. The report directs USDA not to implement or enforce the COOL final rule for meat labeling, should the WTO issue a final ruling against the United States.

Again, I can assure both of my colleagues here this afternoon that it is my intention to protect our domestic industries from retaliation. We will closely monitor the progress of the WTO in this matter and will respond as necessary, so that our U.S. economy does not suffer.

I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to discuss this important issue with both of you, and I look forward to working with both of you as we move forward.

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup).

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

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).

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

I know this has been a controversial issue in this bill. I sincerely think that everybody in this House is well-intentioned about kids' meals, so I in no way want to say the other side is trying to hurt the schoolchildren. To indicate that the Republicans are trying to hurt the school kids is a complete misreading on what the Republicans are trying to do and what we are trying to do in this bill.

There are so many good intentions about this. I think what has happened is, a lot of the regulations as they have come down to a lot of these school districts, every school district is different, and it is hard to have a cookie cutter mentality in every school district in the Nation. That is really what makes this Nation. We are many States but we are one Nation, and they are not all the same.

What this legislation would do with just some commonsense standards-- and I by no means say that my colleagues have bad intentions. I would never say that to my colleague from California, and I hope he would not say that about me on this issue. We are talking about providing lunches and flexibility to students and to the school nutritionists to meet their needs. We are not asking that this roll back the nutrition standards, we are not asking that it gut the underlying law. But some of the comments made, those would be the comments that you would think that we are trying to gut the entire law.

Mr. Davis made some very important comments when he spoke. All of us want kids to eat healthy meals, and we want to see child obesity decline. But simply providing school lunches that the kids won't eat and stopping there is not what this is about.

Student participation in the program continues to decline. A lot of the students are now bringing their lunches while the kids that are on these meal programs, they have no choice to eat this food while the other kids are bringing much more unhealthy food to the cafeteria, and watching them eat this other kind of food. It is just really disconcerting to see this. But we all have the same goal. Like I said, it is very disconcerting to hear that some of us would want our kids to be obese or to be unhealthy, and that is furthest from the truth.

I just want to say that because I think it is very important as we move forward with this debate.

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire as to how many speakers the minority has.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).

Will the gentleman yield?

I just wanted to clarify. I think the school district in Illinois you are talking about, they got out of the system because a hard boiled egg was not appropriate, or anything more than 12 ounces of skim milk was deemed inappropriate. That is what we are talking about, the regulations that are so out of whack.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Speaker, the bill provides $25 million for USDA to

make the school meal equipment grants. I understand the intent of this amendment would be to increase the funding to match the President's request for a total of $35 million. Since there is an acceptable offset, we would be willing to accept this amount.

I was simply asking the gentleman to yield to say we would accept your language.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, the House bill does provide significant funding for this project and report language regarding the citrus growing disease. Mr. Rooney, Mr. Valadao, along with Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Farr, have raised this issue. We understand how devastating this disease has been, especially to the Florida growers and, certainly, to California as well.

The bill, itself, provides $44.5 million for the programs that protect the citrus industry, so I believe we have addressed the urgency of the need in this bill. I do accept the gentleman's amendment, understanding this is a very important issue.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

We will accept your amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's concern for the Federal deficit and the debt problem that we are facing in this Nation. It is something that is very serious, and I appreciate his hard work on this issue. I know that he is very concerned, as we all are, about it.

I am going to have to reluctantly oppose the amendment. We have carefully reviewed the President's budget request, and we believe that we have appropriately and adequately funded the various mission areas within the Department of Agriculture, and because of that, as I say, I will oppose the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, again, I appreciate the gentleman's concern for the Federal debt, the deficit problem that we are facing in this Nation. Again, it is a very serious issue, and we need to address it in many ways.

However, I would have to oppose this amendment, reluctantly. We have carefully reviewed the President's budget, the request that he has made, and we have tried to appropriately and adequately fund the mission areas within the Department of Agriculture.

For that reason, again, we would have to oppose the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

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

I rise having cosponsored this bill as the ranking member on the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. I have to say that I think we have worked very well together. We have worked together as chair and ranking member over a period of time. It is an interesting perspective. I think we have crossed the cultural divide when a Californian can understand the language of an Alabaman, and we have become friends.

I have to say that probably 90 percent of this bill is something we all agree on. Ten percent is what we don't agree on, and it is a horrible 10 percent--a big 10 percent. The bill allocates $20.8 billion, which is the same as what we came up with last year in the conference level.

I appreciate the working relationship that Mr. Aderholt already outlined and the wonderful staff that both his office and I have, and my office and the committee has. We all work well together as a team. So we bring this bill to the floor today.

It is quite a privilege to be able to have this position, and I think that we all understand the privilege, because the USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is our main focus, in addition to the Food and Drug Administration, and to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Department of Agriculture, many people don't understand, was created during the Civil War by Abraham Lincoln. It was a department that needed to be created as the United States was facing the Western expansion. Abraham Lincoln was very insightful in realizing that people who moved out into the boonies needed help. There is no infrastructure there. There is nothing there. It became kind of a home ec department. And to this day, the Department of Agriculture still has a division of rural water, a division of rural housing, farmworker housing, and of rural telecommunications.

It is obviously involved with all the science research in agriculture and a big research section. The USDA has a specialist in almost every county in the United States and almost every country in the world, as we have ag advisers in all of our Embassies.

It is an awesome responsibility to govern a very complex system of trade and balances, of phytosanitary inspections, of fighting diseases that get into this country. And it is a lot of fun, also, and I think that is why we get along well trying to put together a good bill.

Now, I voted against this bill in committee because of the concerns of several aspects. Among these concerns are two highly objectionable nutrition riders. I am really concerned that the bill would allow school food authorities to get waivers from complying with the improved lunch and breakfast nutrition standards in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which we enacted in 2010. The bill would allow them to get waivers if they show they are operating at a net loss.

I believe that rather than going backwards and serving children in some schools less healthy meals, we should be encouraging the USDA to continue giving schools the technical assistance they need to meet the standards. We should also be encouraging USDA to continue providing flexibility, where warranted, in meeting nutritional standards. The approach in this bill, however, is unacceptable.

Second, despite the recommendations of the medical community indicating that consumption of starchy vegetables meets or exceeds recommended amounts, and the food in-take data showing that white potatoes are the most widely used vegetables and therefore by law or by statute have been excluded from the WIC program, where you get vouchers to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, this bill allows white potatoes to be purchased under that program. It is not necessary at all. The white potato lobby is a very effective lobby.

I am troubled by the inclusion of this bill requiring white potatoes be eligible for purchase in the WIC program. The WIC program, as I said, gives supplemental nutrition through specified foods, and white potatoes is not one of them. So there are some real concerns with this bill. This is the first time that Congress has dictated as to what has to be purchased with those vouchers, and we have never before mandated an inclusion of a specific food item in the WIC food package in the history of the program.

While the funding levels in this bill are, in general, acceptable, there are some exceptions. The most notable to that is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This is a Commission that reviews about $300 trillion in trade. That is almost $1 trillion a day. And what we do is provide funding to have the referees so that they know when the trading is being fair or not fair, and it is essentially a review process, but they need money to hire those referees, as we call them. The President asked for $62 million more than we are allowing him to have to fill the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Those are big concerns.

On the positive side, the bill restores the Food for Peace funding to 2014 levels. It increases the McGovern-Dole program by $13 million over the 2014 levels. But I am also concerned that in these programs there is an exclusion of important reforms that would have furthered the impact of each dollar spent on food aid.

Given the high level of need, our food aid has to be as cost effective and as efficient as possible, so I am disappointed that food aid reforms enabling more people to be fed at lower cost were not included in the bill.

I would like to say that you are going to hear a lot of my colleagues raise issues on some of these issues because it is very important that we try to get it right and hopefully defeat some of the bad provisions that are in this bill.

Food is peace. America leads the world in food assistance. California is the number one agriculture State in the Union. I am proud to be the ranking member in bringing this bill to the floor for healthy debate.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the ranking member of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard), the second generation of congresspersons from the Roybal family.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, Dr. Holt.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from New Mexico (Ms. Michelle Lujan Grisham).

Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time each side has remaining?

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of California (Mr. George Miller), the author of the Child Nutrition Act. He probably knows more about child nutrition than anybody in Congress.

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

First of all, I would like to announce that the Tom Colicchio group-- he is one of those celebrity chefs and his group is called the Food Policy Action Network--they have told us that they are going to score the vote on this bill because of this provision that we are talking about right now and the amendment that I am going to offer to strike the provision.

The reason I want to strike the provision in the bill is because it just gives it a blank waiver. It says, schools, you don't have to comply. That is too broad. We could have worked out some compromise language and more flexible language. But just to give them blank waiver, I think, is just an opt-out and doesn't necessarily get them back in, doesn't have any guidelines for how you can improve and get back on track. That's why I think it is a pretty extreme provision in the bill and ought to be knocked out.

Another reason is that we are paying for it. The taxpayers of this country put up the money and we are allocating it to this program, and I don't think the taxpayers want their money to go to food that isn't nutritious, that doesn't help kids to be healthier. I am not insinuating that the other side wants that, but I am saying that with that money, as in everything we do in the whole rest of this bill, it comes with conditionality.

Congress is a heavy parent. We don't just give money out. We also give instructions on what to spend it for and not to spend it for. When we are giving money to schools for school nutrition--for school lunch, school breakfast, school snack programs--we put some conditionality in it, and the conditionality is, let's buy healthy food with it, fruits and vegetables, and serve them to the kids.

I know there are places that say that is not what the kids eat at home or what they like, and so they are throwing it away. That is called ``plate waste.'' But frankly, there is plate waste in our cafeteria here in Congress. There is plate waste everywhere. There is too much plate waste in America. When so much of the world can't get access to food we are throwing away about 50 percent of what we prepare every day, which is just appalling.

How do you change that? One is you get kids to like what they are eating. We have to encourage our kids to eat vegetables. As was said earlier, you have to encourage your kids to take a bath, you have to encourage your kids to turn off the television set, you have to encourage your kids to do the math homework that they don't want to do. We give instruction.

I think what is missing in this whole debate is the instructional opportunity. Frankly, America has got to face the fact that we have not really put much attention into raising a culture of people that have values in food health, in body health, and the fast food industry has been very good at getting a lot of sugar, a lot of salt, a lot of things out there that taste really great, and people want to eat that all the time, but your body is not made to handle all that.

I think it is an opportunity for us to use the school nutrition program as a learning method. I point out that when I grew up there weren't any fast foods. McDonald's was the first fast food industry to come to our area. It came to the biggest city in my county in 1964. I had already graduated from college. So

all my youth experience was eating at home, eating in the school, and there were never any fast foods. It was all fresh prepared every day. I didn't have the ability to get all that. If anything, it was in a can, and a whole new industry was developing to have fresh frozen.

So we have an opportunity to help our national security problem with food nutrition because the military officers tell us that 75 percent of the youth today cannot qualify to get in the military--75 percent. That is just appalling. That is why they have indicated that we need to have a school nutrition program.

We also see it in health care costs, the biggest cost in America. Why we did this whole health care reform was to bring down cost. Underlying all of that was, hey, we are going to raise healthier people in this country so we can avoid--the ounce of prevention--avoid those expensive costs when people get diabetes, obesity, and other things that are preventable. So what better way to teach the cost of prevention than through nutritional health and exercise.

Lastly, why it is important that we wipe out this provision in the bill is because we are paying. The money is all there. So the schools that would be able to get the flexibility that you talk about, the waiver, they get to keep all the money but they don't have any of the responsibility to deliver the product, to deliver the nutritional foods. I think that is where we are wrong. We can't just give them money and then no responsibility to be wisely spent on the purposes for which it was intended.

So that amendment is going to come up later, and I hope that I can get support from this amendment across the aisle.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining so I can see how much time I can yield?

All right. I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee for a colloquy.

Thank you for asking. The other provision is not in this school nutrition program, but in the WIC--the Women, Infants, and Children--program where we give vouchers to mothers of newborns or pregnant women in expectation that they are having children. To give them access to healthy fruits and vegetables we give them vouchers.

In that recommended formula, what the voucher should be spent on is, they are not allowed to spend them on white potatoes. Why? Because Americans eat about 90 pounds of white potatoes or potatoes per year. Think of it. They have hash browns for breakfast, french fries for lunch, and baked potatoes for night. That is a lot of potatoes in one day. Certainly, a newborn and about-to-be-born are not necessarily needing potatoes.

Nonetheless, the potato industry is very powerful here and they were able to get a provision in demanding that the vouchers also include the ability to buy white potatoes. That is what stirred up this whole comment, because Congress has never dictated as to what you have to buy with it or to get into buying things that haven't been recommended as nutritional.

It is often said as a food analogy that if you like sausages or laws you should never watch either of them being made. Perhaps what you are watching is that white potato mandate is getting stuck into this bill.

Mr. Chairman, we worked hard to try to put together a pretty good bill, except for these two provisions that we were just talking about and the underfunding of the Federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and we will be having amendments on those issues.

I reserve the balance of my time.

We don't have any further speakers.

Mr. Chairman, let me explain that not a drop of this money, a cent of it, can be spent on a teacher's salary. This is not, ``We are going to spend it on food or a teacher's salary.'' This is only for food, and the Federal Government takes sole responsibility for that. If States want to add something they can. But it is a Federal program, one of the only solid Federal programs in K-12 education.

I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I respect the gentleman's desire to cut, squeeze, and trim and be a deficit hawk, but I think you are really cutting the wrong area.

There are a lot of statistical departments in the Department of Agriculture because it is involved with a lot of different issues, sort of the whole rural economics of America, all the trade issues.

You have got two departments. You have got one that does the big data and one that does the small data.

You are a doctor of medicine, and it would be like comparing an MRI to a thermometer. They both are diagnostic tools but they don't do the same things. And neither does ERS or NAS.

You stated they seem like they duplicate. No, they are both involved in economic research, and I don't know how to explain it all, but it is the underlying data that drives everything, drives all the markets, drives decisionmaking. The growers are private sector capitalists, if you will, having to borrow from a banking system. They all have to have good data in order to make decisions.

I think, if you squeeze and trim these economic data collectors, you are really hurting the underlying economy of agriculture in the United States, so I would oppose your amendment.

We need crop data. We need market data. We need nutritional data. We need rural economy data, and these are the agencies, particularly the ERS that you are cutting, that collects that, so I oppose the amendment.

I yield to the gentleman.

Well, I am not sure that I understand the gentleman's question, but there are different kinds of data, and there are different places that you collect that data, as there is in everything we do in government and the private sector.

I think what you are doing, I mean, you are taking a program--if you just kind of open the book and look at government and find all these areas where you think there is duplication, I think that the next step is to go and find out exactly where there is waste.

Everybody is against--and we do trim waste because we are always looking for money, but this is not the place. There is no trim there. It doesn't get you anything. In fact, it hurts the

users of that data, not being able to have it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, today, the House will adopt yet another closed rule for these two tax extender measures, which will cross a new Rubicon, a new threshold. We are going to break the record for the most closed rules considered by a Congress ever, and we still have 7 months to go.

The graphic that I am holding illustrates that--that we have the most closed Congress ever, which allows, among other things, that we don't deal with immigration reform, we don't deal with the minimum wage, we don't deal with unemployment insurance, we don't deal with universal gun background checks, we don't deal with dealing with banning assault weapons. This is a closed Congress.

This may sound like inside baseball, but it is much more than just a procedural agreement. I have seen a lot of rules serving nearly 10 years now on the Rules Committee, but this is a new one. This rule limits debate during the appropriations process. It deems passage of a provision to ignore the deficit that this legislation will create, and it sets an all-time record, as I have shown, for closed rules. We managed to do this yesterday and now have it on the floor all in one rule.

Congress has, as I have said, many important issues it needs to take up, including the things I have shown and reiterate now: immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, and extending unemployment insurance.

2.5 million people in this country are without unemployment insurance. If we were to pass it, it would create 200,000 jobs, and we stand around here and talk about creating jobs all the time.

Closed rules prevent the House from working its will on these measures. That is the way it appears that leadership, what is left of it, wants it to be.

My friends do make some Democratic amendments in order at times. Both parties have used closed rules when they have been in control, and that is true. That is the prerogative of the party controlling the House.

But you can read these closed rules like a roadmap of my friends' priorities. In general, the only amendments made in order are those that are expected either to pass or fail along party lines. Over 30 House Republicans and 64 percent of Republican voters polled support immigration reform, but we can't get a vote. Where is the immigration reform bill? Where is the measure that will allow for us to answer many of the problems that this country is confronted with in reference to immigration reform?

This week, as I have indicated, nearly 3 million Americans have lost emergency unemployment insurance since it expired in December, but we can't get a vote here on the House of Representatives' floor.

The Voting Rights Act needs to be reformed in order to protect American voters, but we can't get a vote in the people's House. Leadership uses closed rules to prevent the House from working its will because they are worried about undermining their message, more worried about it than actually legislating.

Today's tax extenders are a perfect example of how these heavy-handed tactics help the chosen few, but leave everyone else without recourse. There are at least 50 other tax extenders that we could have taken into consideration, but no, we choose these six because that is your agenda. Dozens of other provisions that expire at the end of 2017 and several others scheduled to expire at the end of this year have been skipped over in favor of these six extenders favored by businesses that are pretty substantial, and not necessarily the big corporations but many of the large S corporations.

My friends across the aisle have passed up the chance--would you believe this?--to renew the work opportunity tax credit, which helps veterans get back to work, as well as the new markets tax credit, which helps revitalize communities.

How do you do that? They have chosen to ignore renewable energy tax credits and tax credits to help working parents pay for child care. How about that? They have decided there is no reason to extend deductions for teachers' out-of-pocket expenses, qualified tuition, mortgage insurance premiums, or State and local taxes, a deduction that is critical for Floridians and the people that I represent.

These six extenders will be the only extenders that the House votes on because these are the priorities of my friends across the aisle, priorities that may solidify your message, my friends, particularly your message with your base--and evidently you are confused about that particular matter--but you are more interested in them and assuring that you do nothing to help hardworking Americans.

You are going to use the power of the closed rule to ensure that no other provisions get a vote, and you are going to become the most closed Congress ever, disallowing immigration reform, disallowing a minimum wage increase. There are States that are giving a realistic minimum wage increase to people. You tell me, how it is that people live on $7.35 an hour? Many of us have been to food shelters and seen people that are working, many of us have seen people that are living in shelters, working families living in shelters, and we won't even bring a measure here. Are you afraid to just say ``yes'' or ``no'' whether or not Americans ought to have an increase in their minimum wage at the Federal level?

You let 2\1/2\ million people don't have unemployment insurance, can't meet their obligations, and we are not willing to help them, and you tell me that you will increase--you talk all the time about the deficit, so you are going to increase the deficit with some mumbo jumbo about money if it is not in the hands of, and disallow people that we know, if they were to receive unemployment insurance compensation, that they would spend all of that money and that it would, in fact, create jobs, and it would sustain small businesses if we were to do that.

One presenter in the House yesterday, outstanding in his presentation, a friend from the other side, pointed out that he had come from a hardscrabble life and that his father one time had been on unemployment insurance. I said to him, and I believe it to be true, that you just proved my point. And I asked him did his daddy get a job after he was on unemployment insurance. And his answer was, yes, and I knew that is what it would be. Many people who are on unemployment insurance today, if we were to give them a chance, they would get a job. Get a life, Republicans, give people a chance.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

My friend on the other side of the aisle may try to change the subject. Do that if you like. But I ask the gentleman: Is this a new record for closed rules or not? And I answer rhetorically because it is. And I don't deny that Democrats have used closed rules. I said it in my opening remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, Judge Lloyd Doggett, my good friend.

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

Returning briefly--before I yield to my good friend--to the subject of open and/or closed rules, this is what Speaker Boehner promised right here in this Chamber in his own words:

I offer a commitment: Openness, once a tradition of this institution, but increasingly scarce in recent decades, will be the new standard. You will always have the right to a robust debate in an open process that allows you to represent your constituents, to make your case, offer alternatives and be heard.

It is unfortunate that my friends on the other side of the aisle campaigned telling the country how open and transparent they were going to be, and then when they do the opposite and are called out on it, it is just more excuses.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question I am going to offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 4582, the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act. Mr. Tierney, my good friend, authored that bill to help millions of people lower their student loan debt. The bill would allow borrowers to refinance Federal and private student loans to the lowest rates that are currently available to new borrowers.

To discuss this proposal, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), a distinguished gentleman, my friend and colleague.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would indicate to my friend from Texas that I am prepared to close. I have no further speakers at this time, and so I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is not all doom and gloom over here. There are provisions in the agriculture appropriation measure that I support.

I appreciate the report language in support of the United States Department of Agriculture's pollinator programs. I, along with others, have been leaders in bringing the subject to the attention of Congress, something of vital interest to all of this Nation.

I have been teased an awful lot about being the ``bee man'' because I bring up the pollinator issue all the time, but the fact of the matter is, if we don't have bees, we are not going to have food.

I also appreciate the provisions related to citrus greening, which has been devastating to Florida citrus growers, as well as those provisions in this measure that address rural housing.

I represent Belle Glade; South Bay; Canal Point; and Pahokee, Florida; and places where rural housing is really important, but I, along with all of my colleagues--particularly Joe Garcia, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Mario Diaz-Balart--have raised the issues with reference to citrus greening. The whole south Florida delegation has been involved in that particular area.

I grew up in the citrus area. I saw the early-on stages of greening. If we don't do something about this particular problem--and this farm appropriations does deal with some of it--then we may have no citrus coming from the State of Florida.

There are a limited number of days left on our legislative calendar, and we have many miles to go before we, as a Congress, have delivered on our obligation to help all Americans.

We absolutely have an obligation to businesspeople, but we also have an obligation to help veterans get work; an obligation to ease the burden on teachers who use their own money to support their students-- our students; and an obligation to address forthrightly important issues, including immigration reform and raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment insurance.

We should stop standing around here and thinking that we are doing something when we offer a moment of silence, which is right for victims who have died of gun violence and the grief that is coming through all of those families. You hear them begging for us to do something.

We know that we can't solve all of those problems, but at least we could give them some assurance that we are trying to have universal background checks and that we are willing to ban assault weapons. Why would anybody want an assault weapon, other than a police officer or military person, and why should we permit them to be in their hands?

We won't bring those measures down here to the floor, and we do so at our peril.

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'' and defeat the previous question, vote ``no'' on the underlying bills, and certainly vote ``no'' on this record-setting rule for closed rules, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I share your concerns as you expressed them with reference to the unaccompanied young people coming to our country, and I don't make any quarrel with you, but I would highlight the fact that it is believed by some that many of the places they are coming from--El Salvador, Guatemala, and Central America--the kids are running because of fright.

I remind you that they already have TSP, and we did that quite some time ago for those Central American countries. We did it, rightly, then.

I just offer that for information, and I thank my colleague for yielding.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to hear that my friend from Georgia agrees with the President on something. That is kind of a fascinating turn of events considering his traditional record, but let's focus for a moment on what the upstream flood control dams do.

This is a program that began in the 1940s to build small earthen dams--too small to fall within the Corps of Engineers' jurisdiction--to act as interlocking flood control structures to protect people and property and assets below the structures wherever they may be, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean or all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

The problem, you see, is that, as meritorious and as wonderful as these 3,000 structures have worked, time takes its toll on everything, and if we don't pursue this program to rehabilitate them--to extend the life--not only will they not continue the protection of people and of property and of wildlife and not only will they not restrain the silt and manage floods, but they will have to be taken out, and all of the good they have done will be undone.

So what does this language in the bill do?

It provides cost share money so that local entities can rehabilitate these structures.

My colleague was exactly right in that the advance of technology is tremendous. The work that is done should last--instead of 50 years--100 years or more, but we have got 3,000 of these structures, and they are getting older. Spending a little money to extend their lives to continue to protect wildlife and people and property from every structure all the way to the ocean seems like a wise use of resources.

Now, I understand that there is something like $900 million in requested funding in 2014 to meet this need. This farm bill language doesn't meet all of that need, but it takes a huge step in the right direction. We spend a lot of money around here on things that last just a few minutes or a few hours or a few days. This is an investment that will last a century in building on a previous half century's investment--a wise use of resources.

The government built these dams to protect life and property, and many of these structures are hitting their life expectancies. Let's spend a little bit to continue that wise investment. Yes, let's keep the silt out of the streams, and, yes, let's enhance the wildlife qualities up and down these streams, but don't ever forget not just the property but the people who can sleep at night without the fear of what Mother Nature may do because of the upstream flood control dams.

I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment. I urge them to continue to support the investment that has been so wisely made since the 1940s. Please vote ``no.''

I yield back the balance of my time.

My friends, once again, slightly different amount, same subject.

What can I say?

Yes, in the process of putting the farm bill together, where we saved $23 billion, we looked very carefully at all of the programs underneath our jurisdictions. Many things were reformed, reducing spending.

Some things that have worked extremely well actually received more resources. I think that part of being competent and wise legislators is assessing how the resources are used, reducing spending in wasteful areas, and enhancing spending in areas that are wisely spent. I think that is what we are about here.

Now, I know that apparently there are outside groups that have chosen to score this, and I would remind my friends that they score a variety of things. But why do you have to pick on the things that affect rural America?

Why do you have to address the infrastructure issues that go after public safety, preservation of property, life itself?

I suppose if you are sitting somewhere in an ivory tower typing out scorecards, you can pick the things that are less relevant to you.

But of those 3,000 structures scattered across America, dating back to the 1940s, countless, countless lives and millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars of property have been protected. I think that is a good use of our resources, a wise commitment in how we allocate our funds.

Now, some of my colleagues have alluded to the way in which the funds are handled, the mandatory dollars coming through the farm bill every so many years and how, in the magical process called appropriations, some of that mandatory money becomes discretionary.

I do not pretend to have enough time to discuss the nuances of that art form, but I will say this: as long as the resources are of sufficient caliber to make a major effort in meeting the needs that exist, whether it is through the every 5-year farm bill or the annual appropriations process by our friends on the Ag Subcommittee of Appropriations, let's just do the right thing. And on this occasion, we are doing the right thing.

If you care about long-term investments, if you care about public safety, if you care about property--and I repeat one more time: for those of you have ever been in the field that look at these structures, they act to control silt flows in streams. That is important to wildlife and fish. That is important to water quality, and they inhibit these floods that come, and then they meter the water out in a slow fashion.

The overwhelming lion's share of them do not impound water, they simply slow the process down so that the streams and rivers below can handle it.

My real regret here is that we haven't put more effort in the last 50 years into these structures. If we had, if we would have, if we could, or if we will some day, the effect on the environment, the effect on our fellow citizens will be tremendous, even more than it is now.

Again, please reject this amendment. I know my Republican friends here are very sincere in following the President's lead on this, but please reject this amendment. Let's continue to make this investment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

I respect my colleague from Tennessee greatly. I believe he is very sincere in what he is trying do. I do not question his motives. I have great faith in Congressman Duncan.

But this amendment, like the previous amendment, has long-term ramifications. They have long-term ramifications on previous investments made.

Let's reject these two amendments. Let's continue the good work that has been done. Let's focus on the things that we need to be doing.

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