H.Res. 776

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 776 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend,

the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), 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, yesterday the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration for the fiscal year 2015 omnibus appropriations bill. The resolution makes in order a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on Appropriations that the House concur in the Senate amendment of H.R. 83 with an amendment consisting of the text of the FY 2015 omnibus appropriations bill.

The rule provides 80 minutes of debate, 60 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, and 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

In addition, the rule provides the chair of the Committee on Appropriations the authority to insert any explanatory information.

Finally, the rule provides same-day authority through December 12, as is customary at the end of session.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present to this House the culmination of the Appropriations Committee's work for the fiscal year 2015. In this legislation, 11 of the 13 appropriations bills are fully conferenced and fully funded through the end of the fiscal year. However, the Homeland Security bill is funded under a temporary continuing resolution until February 27, 2015.

Mr. Speaker, I carried the initial rule for consideration of the first two appropriations bills considered in the House back on April 30, 2014, and I believe the record of the House and the House Appropriations Committee has been good. We considered 7 out of 12 appropriations bills on the floor under an open process, considered 11 of 12 appropriations bills in committee. Contrast that to the Senate, which was unable to consider even a single appropriations bill on the floor.

So I am proud, Mr. Speaker, of the work we have been able to accomplish. The omnibus legislation abides by all the terms set in the Ryan-Murray budget agreement, providing a top line funding level of $1.013 trillion.

But at the same time, this legislation contains important policy provisions that prevent the government from reaching into the lives of ordinary American citizens, provisions like those which prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from regulating farm ponds and irrigation ditches, or provisions like those preventing the Federal Government from regulating the lead content in ammunition or fishing tackle.

This bill maintains historic pro-life provisions and includes new ones, like requiring ObamaCare plans to disclose whether they provide abortion services, and countless others.

At the same time, this omnibus enacts important commonsense priorities on the direction of this government. It cuts funding for the IRS by over $345 million. Indeed, the IRS has been cut by more than $1.2 billion since 2010. It prohibits the IRS from targeting groups for scrutiny based on their political beliefs. It cuts EPA funding for the fifth consecutive year, bringing staffing to the lowest level since 1989. It implements a government-wide prohibition on the painting of portraits. It makes commonsense decisions, like prohibiting funding for inappropriate videos or conferences that shouldn't be funded by taxpayers in times of surplus, much less in times of deficit.

But this legislation doesn't just cut funding from programs. It takes those cuts and reallocates them to programs that are truly in need. For example, it provides $30 billion for the National Institutes of Health, an increase over funding from FY14, enhancing funding for Alzheimer's, cancer, and brain research.

It funds the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act, a bill I authored with Gregg Harper and Eric Cantor, at $12.6 million, shifting those dollars from funding political conventions to research into pediatric diseases.

It increases the health care and educational funding to some of our poorest and most needy constituents--Native Americans--and it provides funding to deal with crises like those associated with the outbreak of Ebola or the militant activity of ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

I could go on and on with all the good things included in this bill; however, I am sure others will speak to those items.

I believe it is important to take stock in where we have come over the last 4 years. We have taken an annual budget deficit of $1.4 trillion and lowered it to $468 billion, still too high, but one of the most rapid, if not the most rapid, declines of the deficit in American history. We prevented additional burdens and regulations from being foisted upon the American people.

Our work is certainly not done, however. One must always remember appropriations and appropriating is a process. The bureaucratic welfare state built by decades of Democratic control cannot be dismantled in a single blow; however, it can be reduced piece by piece, and this legislation does just that.

Some of my friends will raise objections to the process, where we are left with a frustrating choice between the passage of a large omnibus bill to fund all government or a government shutdown. To my friends, I say that I agree with you, as do my fellow members of the Appropriations Committee.

There are some things in this bill I disagree with and some, certainly, that I agree with; but I do believe that, under regular order, those with different points of views should be able to make their case to the entire House.

The House has led by example in this regard. We considered seven different appropriations bills on this floor in an open amendment process, all of which were passed by bipartisan majorities. The House would have considered even more appropriations bills had the Senate been willing to consider even a single appropriations bill on the floor. In fact, the last time the Senate passed an individual appropriations bill was November 1, 2011, more than 3 years ago.

Madam Speaker, this isn't the way to govern. I hope that in the next Congress the House will have a partner in the Senate, which is willing to consider individual appropriations bills in an open process so that we do not have to consider large omnibus packages without the opportunity for amendment. I believe we will, and I believe we will end up with a better product because of it.

I am encouraged by the work of my friend, Chairman Rogers, and Ranking Member Nita Lowey, and I look forward to working with them and a new Senate next year to build upon the work we have done this year.

Madam Speaker, I urge support for the rule and the underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from the State of Washington (Ms. Herrera Beutler), my friend and distinguished colleague, for the purpose of a colloquy with the majority leader.

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

I just want to make a couple of points in response to my friend.

First of all, there is much of what my friend has to say that I agree with. This is not the preferred process of the Appropriations Committee on either side of the aisle in this Chamber. Indeed, we tried to bring--and did bring--bill after bill after bill to this floor to avoid this very end.

The responsibility here lies with the leadership of the United States Senate, which did not bring a single appropriations bill to the floor. When they won't pick up and pass a bill, we can't go to conference, and we are left to fund the government in the very final days.

Now, I don't think my friend meant to suggest this, but the idea that only Republicans were involved in drafting this is just simply not the case. This bill has to go through a Democratic Senate and go to a Democratic President. It cannot pass the Senate without Democratic support or even be taken up. It cannot go into law without the President's signing it into law.

The reality is that the Democratic Senate and the administration have been involved in these negotiations at every level, over and over. Indeed, my friends have been involved in this as well in their capacity as ranking members on the Appropriations Committee or in the leadership capacity. This bill, of which I do not particularly like the process, is, indeed, bicameral and bipartisan in its substance.

Again, I think my friend makes an excellent point in that this isn't the way to run the railroad, and we ought to work together; but I also will remind my friends that the last time they were in the majority they brought exactly two appropriations bills to the floor under closed rules. They never brought an appropriations bill here in their final year under an open process. We have done that seven times. We would have done it all 12 times, but we finally determined the United States Senate, under Democratic control, was never going to bring up an appropriations bill, at which point: Why waste the floor time, and why ask your Members to do the hard work and cast the votes?

That is something that shouldn't happen again. I pledge to work with my friend, who I know does not want to see that happen again, to make sure that we fulfill our part of the process on this side of the House; and I think the new Senate will very likely do the same thing. I am hoping our colleague who is leaving this Chamber and heading there will help us in that. She has been a wise and able Member here, and I am sure she will be equally distinguished in the United States Senate.

We look forward to improving the process--my friend is right about that--but the absence of passing this bill will shut down the government. I don't think that is something that either they or our friends in the Senate or in the administration want to do.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I am going to disagree with my friend from California. This bill is bipartisan and bicameral. It was negotiated with the Democratic Senate, and both sides approved it before it was ever submitted to the Rules Committee for consideration.

It has been alleged that the swaps push-out language contained in the omni was snuck into the bill, that it allows for risky trading and puts taxpayer funds at risk. None of this, in my view, is true. The language included in this omnibus is identical to H.R. 992, which passed the House with broad bipartisan support by a vote of 292-122.

The language was added to the Financial Services appropriations bill as a full committee amendment. After a public debate on the language, it was adopted by voice vote. When the Financial Services appropriations bill was considered by the full House for 3 days under an open rule, where 51 amendments were considered, there were no amendments offered on the swaps push-out language.

The omni provides a commonsense fix for section 716 of the Dodd- Frank. Risky swaps like those that brought down AIG are still required to be pushed out. The omni allows low-risk trades to continue to be conducted by depository institutions, which are regulated by banking supervisors. Without this fix, farmers and manufacturers will experience increased costs and regulatory burdens without making our financial system any more stable.

Former Fed Chairmen Ben Bernanke and Paul Volcker and former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair have all expressed a need to fix section 716 of Dodd- Frank. CBO has scored this language as having no impact on the taxpayers. So we obviously see this differently than our friends on the other side.

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

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

I just want to make this point again. I agree with some of the points my good friend from Mississippi makes, but this could be avoided if the United States Senate had simply picked up appropriations bills and passed them.

This could have been long done. We could have come to an agreement many months ago. We tried on seven different occasions and did bring bills across this floor. They were under open amendment, something my friends did not do their last year in the majority, and we had multiple opportunities.

But at some point when the other body isn't moving and tells you it is not going to take up an appropriations bill, you just quit hitting your head against the wall and say, ``Well, I guess we are going to have to deal with this with a big omnibus at the end of the year.''

If my friends wanted a different process--and I am sure they did-- they should have been talking to their colleagues in the United States Senate. That is why we are here, not because we wouldn't bring bills across but because the Senate wouldn't.

At some point, if one-half of the Congress won't work, the other half can't get its work done. That is just the process and the way it works. We are hoping the new Senate under new management will do something.

We all know in this Chamber the only reason why they did that was because they wanted to avoid tough votes. Quite frankly, that is the reason why my friends wouldn't allow an open amendment process the last time they were in the majority. It didn't work well for them in 2010; it didn't work well for their Democratic colleagues this time around in 2014.

I think the lesson both of us ought to draw from this is, let's do regular order. It actually is in the best interests of the country, the best interests of the institution. It is even in the best political interests of the two parties. Just let us go do our work.

But we can't now shut down the government because the Senate refused to do the process any other way but do it here. And, again, with all due respect to my friend's concerns on a variety of issues, some of which I share, quite frankly, there are even some parts of this bill that I like that I don't like to see passed this way. I don't think it is appropriate to be passed this way.

At the end of the day you have got to keep the government functioning. This is the last vehicle to do that.

To suggest, again, it wasn't bicameral or bipartisan--it has been. As my friends know, this has been negotiated at the top levels of leadership and on the Appropriations Committee between Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate.

There are some flaws in this process. There are certainly some things I don't like in this bill, but I recognize it is a gigantic compromise and one designed to allow government to continue to function, and it hasn't been the House of Representatives, either Democrat or Republican, that has gotten us to this point. This is the Democratic leadership in the Senate that has gotten us to this point.

But at the end of the day, everybody here will have a vote, both on the rule and on the bill, and the same thing will be true in the United States Senate. The President has a signature at his end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and if this process doesn't work or my friends

want to bring it down, that is up to them. We would prefer not to close the government, to continue to function.

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

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

Two quick points. As I think I pointed out earlier in the course of this debate, the language dealing with swaps was actually considered by this House in two separate pieces of language. One of those bills passed this House with a bipartisan majority. The other was the Financial Services bill, where there was no objection, no amendment, and no complaint.

Now we find at the very last minute concern and objections that were never raised earlier in the process when there were multiple opportunities to do that.

With respect to my friend's point about the political contribution issue, that is something I know a little bit about. I used to be chief of staff of the Republican National Committee. I was the executive director of the NRCC, our campaign committee, earlier in my life.

I have watched McCain-Feingold over the years, and I have seen that, frankly, it has been a failed piece of legislation. I agree with my friend's point this is not the way to do it. I would have much preferred to debate in an open process, but the idea there is not big money in politics I think is an idea that is very much out of date. There is lots of big money in politics.

We have diminished the importance of individual candidate campaigns and the party organizations, while we have enhanced them partly through a Supreme Court ruling. So there is plenty of extra money out there, and it pours into races. To marginalize the political parties, which are actually the most accountable, most transparent, and most responsible participants in the process, is something that we ought to rethink.

Frankly, to put candidates individually at the mercy of megadonors on each side--by the way, my friends are as much at risk of this as my colleagues on this side of the aisle--is something we need to think about. Again, I suspect that is what happened here.

I wouldn't suggest this was a Republican idea. I don't know, frankly, if it was a Republican or Democratic idea. I know Democrats in the Senate consented to it and I suspect participated in it. So let's not have a lot of show that we don't like this or that and somehow this was a Republican measure. In many cases it wasn't, or it was a negotiated compromise.

In this case, again, there will be ample opportunity to deal with this both later when we vote on the final product and eventually when the Senate takes it up. But, again, if the Senate would just do its job, we wouldn't be here in this process. We wouldn't have these opportunities for people to short-circuit the normal legislative procedures that I know my friends agree with, and I certainly agree with.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend for his very generous and kind words and remarks. There is nobody seriously I enjoy listening to more on this floor. I very much appreciate his generous offer which I know he has made to people far above my pay grade on my side of the aisle to work together and find common ground not only here in the closing days of the session, but next year as well.

I appreciate the fact that he is willing to accept over 99 percent of this bill, and I agree with his political assessment. I think we could muster strong bipartisan majorities to pass that.

The issues he raised I suspect are being considered and are a little above my pay grade to comment on, so I am not going to do that, but I do want to tell my friend how much I respect him and how much I appreciate his contribution each and every day to how

this House operates. I think we would have been in a much better place here as Democrats and Republicans had the Senate done a better job of doing its job.

Madam Speaker, I will disagree with my friend a little bit or maybe express a different opinion on saying we did seven-twelfths of our job. My friend has been a distinguished majority leader in this institution, and I think he is a master at the legislative process and knows probably better than most how difficult it is to function on one side of the rotunda of this Capitol Building when they are not functioning on the other.

You do reach a point after you have put seven bills on the floor and the other body has made it obvious that they are not going to put a single appropriations measure on the floor, your own side begins to wonder: Why are we doing this? Why are we going through this process?

Now, we did go ahead and move through full committee 11 of the 12 bills which were again done in a bipartisan fashion with consultation with our friends on the Democratic side. You do reach a point where you say: Why are we wasting the floor time? Why are we exposing our Members?

I am hopeful when our friend in the chair arrives at the other side that we are going to have partners that work with us on both sides of the aisle and engage in that normal process that I know my friend is not only a master at, but a defender and advocate for.

Well, I have very little time and actually less time than my friend has, so I would prefer you to use your own time. If they are not willing to give you any time, then perhaps I will reconsider that.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend from Michigan because he is an exceptionally responsible Member in this body and an heir of a proud tradition in his family and somebody I enjoy working with and I think someone that makes a genuine contribution each and every day he has been here.

In terms of the bill itself, there is certainly nothing inappropriate about my friends on the other side of the aisle focusing on things they don't like, but there are some things we ought to think about that we do like. There are billions of dollars in here to fight Ebola, something that we sat down and worked with the administration and our friends on the other side and came to a common agreement.

We have disagreement sometimes and a difference of perspective. I am actually closer to Mr. McGovern on this, at least in terms of process, than I am to the administration.

Look, ISIL is a clear and present danger to the United States of America. The President has asked for things in here; we have put the things he asked for in here and tried to work with him on that.

I don't think anybody in this Chamber thinks that the work done at the National Institutes of Health isn't exceptionally important. There is more money in here for that particular agency in a more difficult budgetary environment than we had last year.

I know how very much my friend and his family have always been concerned with Native Americans. Nobody did more than your uncle, our beloved colleague, Mr. Kildee, Dale Kildee, in that area, and there is substantially more money in here than the administration requested for Indian health and for school construction on Indian reservations.

There are certainly some things in here that I share some of the concerns that my friends have, both from a process standpoint and an outcome standpoint, but I think you have to make a balance. I think you have to look at the overall bill. I think you have to look at the consequences of not passing the bill and the rule.

I think you also have to remember that this is a negotiated agreement with a Democratic Senate. I don't think we should have gotten to this point, and had they done their job in the appropriations process, we would not be at this point; but whenever either body doesn't do their job, you always get down to the end, and this is exactly the sort of thing that you end up with.

I don't know how we can avoid that in the next 24 hours, but I do know this: I hope we all from both sides of the aisle recommit ourselves to avoid being here next year. I don't blame my friends on the Democratic side for getting us here. I don't think they had anything to do with it.

They worked with us in the appropriations process in very good faith with Mrs. Lowey. That is why we brought bills to the floor. That didn't happen in the Senate, and that is what has gotten us here. I think we should reserve our fire for the other Chamber, one thing that tends to unite us instead of divide us because that is where the problem has been.

Madam Speaker, again, under new management next year, I hope we won't see this problem.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), my good friend, our distinguished parting Member and the chairman of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of our Appropriations Committee.

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

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

As I reflect back on the debate today--and it is always a good exchange with my friend from New York--I want to reflect on some areas of agreement and disagreement.

The agreement is we think, like our Democratic colleagues, this is not a good way to legislate. We do not like the process. We do not like to pass bills with multiple hundreds of pages and well over $1 trillion in spending and lots of policy riders. We prefer to legislate as we began this Congress--that is with an individual appropriations bill.

I want to thank my chairman, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), and the ranking member, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), for the manner in which they got the process off and going this year, and I want to commend my friends on the other side of the aisle for participating.

This House was moving appropriations bills under open rules with multiple debates and passing them, usually with bipartisan votes, in the way that this system should operate. That was not true in the United States Senate.

That body, under Democratic leadership, never brought up a single appropriations bill. You simply can't operate the process if the other side of the Chamber, whose participation is constitutionally required, refuses to participate, refuses to bring bills to the floor. And that was done for political and, I would suggest, somewhat cynical calculations. It didn't work out very well in the end; it never does. Going through regular order, we all know, is the best way to operate. But we are here now because the Senate wouldn't do its job. The House did do its job and continued to do it until it was just painfully obvious that the Senate was never going to do anything at all.

I have also listened to my friends and their concerns about a multitude of issues that are dealt with in this bill. They know we can avoid this next year by following regular order and going through the process, but there are two in particular that I want to address quickly.

The first issue is campaign finance. I probably have a different view than most of my speakers in terms of what ought to be done, but they are absolutely right in terms of the process by which this has been arrived at. Now, I will point out this idea that there is not unlimited money in politics now is just simply not true. The people who have been penalized are the candidates and the political parties. There are plenty of third-party groups on both sides that spend enormous amounts of money, people who write substantially larger checks, and that is both liberals, conservatives, Democrats, and Republicans. This is actually a measure, I would argue, to try to allow the parties who are more transparent and more accountable and, frankly, usually more professional to have the resources to compete with some of the outside groups. Be that as it may, the substance of my friend's process objections are real.

The other area is the Dodd-Frank area. Let me just say, that language was brought up under the separate legislation and considered; it was in Financial Services. So the idea it is being dropped in at the last minute is just not true.

Let me finish with two points. First, there is a great deal of good in this bill. There are a great many parts of this bill where we have worked together, worked well together, ranging from Ebola to the National Institutes of Health, the Native American issues. Those things ought to be enacted.

Madam Speaker, in closing, the continuing resolution we are currently operating under is due to expire at midnight tonight. I believe it is important to keep this government open and support this bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation.

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

The previous question was ordered.

Madam Speaker, I want to take just a moment to say I know this will be the last time you will be presiding over the House, and I want to thank you for your friendship over all these years. Working together with you has been a pleasure.

I want to thank my friend from Oklahoma for yielding me the customary time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me say about him, he is someone I admire very greatly. But I don't admire this bill.

I have to rise to debate the rule for the final bill of the 113th Congress, which is the most closed Congress in history. The House majority has, over and over again, stifled debate, limited the ability of Members of this body to participate in the legislative process, and undermined the institution.

We have had 83 closed rules this term, the most in history, and this bill follows suit and has been, again, brought to us under a closed rule, which means that no Member will be able to offer an amendment; and the $1.1 trillion spending bill to keep the Federal Government funded will be rushed through the legislative process because the deadline to keep the government open is 11:59 this evening.

By the same circumstance, I was doing a rule the night of the last time the government shut down, still on the

floor at midnight and made the announcement that the great Government of the United States of America was closed.

We don't, obviously, none of us, want to see that again, but we do see dysfunction mirrored in the Rules Committee, because all of our meetings are now only declared emergency. That means it has not gone to any committee, has no public input, no hearing, no markups, and no time to fully consider the legislation.

The bill has been brought to us under an onerous, blatantly political process, and its contents are troubling as well. It seems to me that with every passing hour, a new alarming provision comes to light. Perhaps if the House majority had spent less time voting to undermine the health care law, taking health care away from people, or investigating a nonexistent scandal in Benghazi, we might have been able to do a budget.

While this may have averted another dangerous government shutdown, what we are doing now, this bill, is another example of the preferred method of governance--manufactured crises. We are pushed and pulled from the brink for their political games, and America suffers.

At 1,603 pages, this spending bill is a behemoth. It was submitted in the dark of night at the last minute in hopes that we wouldn't find out what is in it and serves as further proof that the majority has reneged on their pledge of transparency.

Speaker Boehner, himself, said in December of 2010, as reported by the New York Times:

I do not believe that having 2,000-page bills on the House

floor serves anyone's best interest--not the House, not the

Members, and certainly not the American people.

He was referring, of course, to the fact that we would have 72 hours to examine such legislation.

Madam Speaker, I submit for the Record the New York Times' article from December 17, 2010, entitled: ``Republicans Prepare for Looming Budget Battle''--even then.

[From the New York Times, Dec. 17, 2010]

Republicans Prepare for Looming Budget Battle

(By Carl Hulse)

Washington.--The collapse of a government-wide spending

package in the final days of this Congressional session sets

up a politically charged fiscal showdown early next year,

testing the determination of Republicans about to take over

the House with promises to slash an array of domestic

programs.

As Congress struggled to assemble a stopgap measure to

finance the government at least into the first months of

2011, House and Senate Republicans on Friday hailed their

ability to derail a $1.2 trillion spending measure put

forward by Senate Democrats, and promised to use their new

Congressional muscle to respond to public demands to shrink

government.

``Beginning in January, the House is going to become the

outpost in Washington for the American people and their

desire for a smaller, less costly and more accountable

government,'' said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio,

the incoming House speaker.

``I will tell you,'' he added, ``we are going to cut

spending.''

With the lame-duck session entering its final days, there

was an air of partisan chaos on Capitol Hill as both parties

scored important legislative victories and events changed on

an almost hour-to-hour basis as the end of Democratic control

of the House approached.

Both President Obama and Congressional Republicans claimed

credit for the package of tax cuts and unemployment pay the

president signed into law Friday. Democrats also appeared

poised to repeal the ban on gay and lesbian troops serving

openly in the military, a long-sought goal of the party and

its progressive constituency.

The House advanced a major Pentagon policy measure that had

previously been tied up in the fight over the military's

``don't ask, don't tell'' policy. At the same time, a major

immigration measure championed by Democrats and the White

House seemed headed toward defeat as early as Saturday.

Republicans celebrated their blockade of the spending

package, which Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority

leader, had to abandon after Republicans denied him the

handful of votes from their side of the aisle that he was

counting on to break a filibuster.

Republicans said their determination to kill the omnibus

spending package even when top party lawmakers had inserted

pet spending projects demonstrated that they were heeding the

fervor of voters who were fed up with giant spending measures

slipping through Congress in the final hours.

``The defeat of the omnibus should reassure every American

that their voice is making a difference in Washington,'' said

Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican and an outspoken

foe of increased federal spending.

But the collapse of the Senate measure, which like its

House counterpart would have financed government agencies

through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, means

Republicans could begin the new Congress with an immediate

need to resolve the spending stalemate.

With the Senate making slow progress toward a stopgap

measure, the House on Friday approved a plan to keep the

government open through Tuesday and the Senate later followed

suit to prevent a government shutdown after Saturday.

Aides said that behind closed doors, White House officials

and some Democratic lawmakers were still trying to strike a

deal to finance the government through September. But the

officials said it was much more likely that government

financing would be extended only into February or March.

Republicans say that timeline will allow them to quickly

put their stamp on the budget for the current fiscal year,

and Mr. Boehner and his leadership team have vowed to

eliminate about $100 billion in spending out of about $400

billion in domestic programs.

Both sides say reaching that goal will mean very difficult

choices and Democrats, promising to resist Republican

efforts, say Republicans may find it easier to talk about

cutting than actually doing it.

``They have been really good about talking about the need

to cut this and cut that, but they are never specific,'' said

Representative James P. McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts.

``I think it is going to be tough.''

The 2011 spending fight could be complicated by the need to

raise the federal debt limit to avoid a federal default--a

vote that many new Republican lawmakers have indicated they

would not make.

Republicans say the debt limit vote could also present an

opportunity, allowing them to tie a package of spending

reductions to the debt increase to make it more palatable.

Another complicating factor is that since Democrats retain

control of the Senate, House Republicans must reconcile their

spending proposals with those crafted by the Senate

Appropriations Committee under the leadership of Senator

Daniel K. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii. Senator Inouye is

unlikely to agree easily to Republican spending cuts,

creating a climate for gridlock as the two parties face off.

On Friday, Mr. Inouye chastised Congress for jettisoning

the spending package crafted by his committee, saying that

simply extending current funding levels left the government

on autopilot and could lead to disruptions. He said it also

left too much discretion for determining spending priorities

to the executive branch.

``And in two months we will find ourselves having to pass

another 2,000-page bill that will cost more than $1 trillion

or once again abdicate our authority to the Obama

administration to determine how our taxpayer funds should be

spent,'' he said.

Mr. Boehner has made changing the culture of the

Appropriations Committee a top interest of the new Republican

majority, pressing new leaders of the panel to turn it into a

center for budget cutting and stocking it with a few anti-

spending advocates.

On Friday, he indicated that he would prefer that

Republicans next year break up the enormous spending package

that died in the Senate and pass a dozen spending bills

individually to allow for better scrutiny--a process that

could consume considerable time and subject the measures to

multiple attacks on the floor.

``I do not believe that having 2,000-page bills on the

House floor serves anyone's best interests, not the House,

not for the members and certainly not for the American

people,'' Mr. Boehner said.

Aides to Mr. Boehner later said the speaker-designate was

referring to his desire to have an orderly appropriations

process later in 2011 and was not referring to the spending

package Republicans would have to quickly assemble in the

opening weeks of the new Congress.

Lawmakers on both sides were running out of energy and

patience as the session dragged on with no certain conclusion

in sight. Even House Democrats who would be turning over

control to Republicans seemed ready to call it quits.

``A lot of us just want to go home,'' said Representative

John B. Larson of Connecticut, chairman of the House

Democratic Caucus.

Madam Speaker, this bill can cause grievous harm to the Department of Homeland Security by funding it until only February of next year, and it really does endanger the Nation's safety and security because they are the people who provide border security and the TSA. I have said this in the past--but it bears repeating--that funding the government in tranches weakens, destabilizes, and undermines our Nation.

The majority's insistence on punishing the President for his executive order on immigration by toying with the funding for the Department of Homeland Security, of all things, is troubling. This maneuver will hinder how we train new officers, how we guard the border, and it will endanger the Nation's airports; but the most

egregious provisions of this bill strike at the very soul of our democracy.

A last-minute, nongermane addition would fundamentally change our Republic. It gives away almost all power of the people to choose their leaders and to participate in their government by cementing the status of power donors. This provision changes campaign finance law to allow megadonors to give 10 times the amount currently allowed to political parties for housekeeping, and those of us in the political field know what it means to have the housekeeping accounts: that means it can go for absolutely anything. This change flies in the face of McCain- Feingold, and it completes the mission of the Supreme Court with their decision on Citizens United.

This tenet has been central to our democracy in that each person has equal power to influence their government by their voice and their vote. Not only has this Congress refused to reenact the Voting Rights Act, but this added provision will hasten the toxic influence of money and will further corrupt and unbalance our democracy.

Furthermore, the underlying bill includes a provision added only 2 days ago that would put our economy in danger and would roll back the gains made since the Great Recession. This most egregious provision would change the Dodd-Frank bill to give undue power back to the banks. The provision puts the taxpayers on the hook for risky behaviors by Wall Street banks, meaning, once again, that taxpayers will have to bail out the banks if they fail. It was a basic tenet of Dodd-Frank's that we would never do that again, and that will now be undone.

It has been only 5 years since the start of the Great Recession, and the economy has made great strides in adding 10.9 million private sector jobs in the last 57 months, but passing this bill would risk erasing those strides by steering us on a dangerous path toward another recession.

The former chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, released a statement this week, calling this inserted provision: ``a substantive mistake, a terrible violation of the procedure that should be followed on this complex and important subject, and a frightening precedent that provides a roadmap for further attacks on our protection against financial instability.''

He continues: ``Ironically, it was a similar unrelated rider put without debate into a larger bill that played a major role in allowing irresponsible, unregulated derivative transactions to contribute to the crisis.''

He is referring to the crisis of 2008.

He is warning us. He is imploring us: Don't make the same mistake twice. Our national economy cannot take this risk.

Madam Speaker, I would like to insert this article from The Wall Street Journal from December 10, 2014, entitled: ``Barney Frank Criticizes Planned Rollback of Namesake Financial Law,'' into the Record.

[From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10, 2014]

Barney Frank Criticizes Planned Roll-Back of Namesake Financial Law

(By Andrew Ackerman)

Washington.--Retired House Democrat Barney Frank urged his

former colleagues to vote against a nearly $1.1 trillion

spending plan, saying it constitutes an attack on a Wall

Street regulatory overhaul he co-authored in response to the

financial crisis.

At issue is a provision included in the plan that would

rollback a controversial part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law

requiring banks to ``push out'' some of their riskiest

derivatives-trading activities into affiliates that aren't

eligible for federal backstop programs. Mr. Frank is one of

two namesakes of the law along with former Sen. Christopher

Dodd (D., Conn.), who is also retired from Congress.

``The provision inserted into the appropriations bill is a

substantive mistake, a terrible violation of the procedure

that should be followed on this complex and important

subject, and a frightening precedent that provides a road map

for further attacks on our protection against financial

instability,'' the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement

Wednesday.

The comments came hours after House and Senate lawmakers

unveiled the plan, which would keep the federal government

funded through September. The roll-back of the Dodd-Frank

provision was included as part of an agreement to provide

modest funding increases to the two agencies primarily

responsible for implementing and policing Dodd-Frank--the

Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures

Trading Commission.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and other congressional

Democrats also warned against the move, saying it would

``open the door to future bailouts funded by American

taxpayers.''

``This provision, originally written by lobbyists, has no

place in a must-pass spending bill,'' he said in a statement.

Critics of the ``push out'' provision, including Federal

Reserve officials as well as some Democrat and Republican

lawmakers, say it doesn't strengthen the financial system and

only moves potentially destabilizing activities to a

different bank subsidiary. The provision could also increase

costs for bank customers that use the derivatives.

Derivatives, which played a central role in the crisis, are

used by firms to hedge or speculate on everything from moves

in interest rates to the cost of fuel.

Mr. Frank said reasonable people can disagree on how to

regulate derivatives. But he criticized the plan to change

regulations through ``a non-germane amendment inserted with

no hearings, no chance for further modification and no chance

for debate into a mammoth bill in the last days of a lame-

duck Congress.''

``Ironically it was a similar unrelated rider put without

debate into a larger bill that played a major role in

allowing irresponsible, unregulated derivative transactions

to contribute to the crisis,'' Mr. Frank said, referring to

2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that essentially

barred the regulation of derivatives and was signed into law

as part of a larger appropriations bill.

Madam Speaker, for these reasons and several others, Democrats should not support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' against the rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a valued member of the Committee on Rules.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security.

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

I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democrat whip.

Madam Speaker, I yield 20 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Madam Speaker, this bill spends $1.1 trillion to fund the Federal Government. While we may yet avert another government shutdown, a lot of our trust in the legislative process has been destroyed. If a provision to allow the United States to be mined for uranium by a company with ties to Iran can be inserted into and passed with the National Defense Authorization

Act, taking away land sacred to an Indian tribe, what other deplorable and risk-ladened bills are in this House majority bill? Heaven only knows what other egregious actions we will find.

The House majority continues to govern via manufactured crises. Regular appropriations bills have been replaced with temporary stopgap measures. Cliffs and brinks and fits and starts continue. The majority has another opportunity in the new Congress to do the good work of government and to provide stability to the American people with the American people put ahead of banking interests and political party interests--and I pray they do.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and the bill underlying it.

And to end the 113th Congress, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

At the outset, I want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky, Chairman Rogers, for the cooperative way he has guided this committee. It has truly been a pleasure for me to work with him and his staff.

As we all know, Mr. Speaker, funding to keep the government operating expires at midnight tonight. It is my sincere hope that we can avoid the antics of last year, when a vocal minority in this body was able to hold the entire government hostage for reasons they

couldn't articulate. It wasn't fair to the American people, and I hope we never have to go through it again.

Throughout this process, my goal has been to avoid another costly shutdown and make adequate investments to grow the economy, enhance our security, and protect the most vulnerable among us.

I remain disappointed, Mr. Speaker, that the House majority decided to leave out the agreement reached on the Department of Homeland Security. The decision reflects their political calculation on immigration policy.

I believe my chairman was right when he rebuffed efforts to restrict the President's executive orders on immigration on a must-pass appropriations bill. But forcing these important agencies--Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Administration--into a 2-month continuing resolution was unnecessary and unfortunate. The short-term CR creates uncertainty and will limit the Department's ability to make important decisions on procurements, hiring, and on new initiatives we all support.

I will now enter into the Record a letter from Homeland Security Secretary Johnson outlining the problems with funding the Department through a CR.

U.S. Department

of Homeland Security,

Washington, DC, December 5, 2014.

Hon. Nita Lowey,

Ranking Member, Committee on Appropriations, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Lowey: As the United States Congress

addresses the FY 2015 appropriations for the Federal

Government, I ask for your support for a full annual

appropriation for the Department.

As you know, a Continuing Resolution is not the most

effective way to fund the government. Short-term funding

measures are disruptive, create uncertainty, and impede

efficient resource planning and execution. They inherently

slow down day-to-day operations, force leadership to make

short-sighted versus long-term decisions, and adversely

impact operations in a manner that is hard to overcome if

full funding is provided later in the year. Additionally, the

disruption to acquisitions, the slow-down of our business

processes, such as contracting and hiring, and the effect of

many other elements driven by short-term funding have a

direct impact on effectiveness of the Department.

While a short-term Continuing Resolution has impacts across

the Department, I wanted to highlight some specific areas

that are most concerning.

Securing our Borders--Investments to strengthen border

security with new border surveillance technology for the Rio

Grande Valley would not be available.

Grants Funding--State and local municipalities would not

receive key preparedness grant funding, such as the State

Homeland Security Program and Urban Areas Security Initiative

grants.

National Security Cutter--the U.S. Coast Guard will not

have funding to award the contract for NSC #8, the

centerpiece of the Coast Guard's Fleet, supporting the

maritime homeland security and defense missions. This could

result in the expiration of the agreed upon offer by the

prime and sub-contractors, subsequently leading to a delay of

delivery of NSC #8 and most likely resulting in increased

costs.

National Rio and Agro Defense Facility--Awarding the final

segment of the construction contract for the National Bio and

Agro Defense Facility could be problematic. Uncertainties in

the appropriations process have introduced risks to Kansas

providing the gift funds to support the May 2015 award date.

Appropriation of the final $300 million is necessary for

Kansas to provide the $202 million in gift funds.

In closing, I would like to thank the Congress for the

continued support provided to the Department. However, I must

also stress the need for an annual appropriation based on the

FY 2015 President's Budget and the Committee markups

accomplished earlier this summer.

Identical letters have been sent to the Chairman of the

House Appropriations Committee, and to the Chairwoman and

Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Should

you require further information, please do not hesitate to

contact me or the Department's Chief Financial Officer, Chip

Fulghum.

Sincerely,

Jeh Charles Johnson.

My colleague from North Carolina, David Price, the ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, was unsuccessful in his attempt at the Rules Committee to restore full- year funding for this bill. I authored an amendment to strike two very controversial provisions--one to strike a rider related to swaps under the Dodd-Frank law, the other to strike a provision raising contribution limits to political parties. These provisions are divisive and unnecessary. They should be removed.

The 11 other spending bills included in this package are a mix of wins and losses. I was very pleased that most of the worst riders were dropped, including those on the Affordable Care Act, the Clean Air Act, and those preventing full implementation of new reforms to the Federal school lunch program.

Statutory budget caps essentially kept all discretionary programs at a hard freeze, but I am pleased we were able to prioritize a few key items, such as the National Institutes of Health and food safety at the Food and Drug Administration. Another very modest but very important increase is provided for afterschool programs, many of which suffered steep cuts under sequestration and have still not made up those shortfalls.

I am also pleased the final agreement provides $500 million for the Department of Transportation's TIGER program to fund major surface transportation projects, including bridges, transit, and passenger rail.

To keep firearms out of the hands of those who shouldn't possess them, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System will receive an increase of $14.5 million. This important investment was achieved because Members on both sides of the aisle recognize how crucial this money is for States to improve their submission of records into the background check system.

The appropriations package includes much of the administration's request to respond to the deadly Ebola crisis, $5.4 billion. We must ensure that all of those tasked with being on the front lines fighting this disease, from local hospitals to Federal agencies, have what they need. We all recognize how the ease of international travel has changed the way we must respond to contagious diseases. I have confidence in our health care system, the Centers for Disease Control, and the fantastic hospitals that stepped up to take and treat the patients with Ebola. But we should do whatever we can to stop the disease where it is the most deadly. The funding provided will allow research to ramp up to treat and hopefully develop a vaccine for Ebola.

Before I close, I would like to thank the committee staff for their tireless work, particularly David Pomerantz and Lesley Turner, who worked closely with Will and the entire Appropriations staff.

I am very pleased the Appropriations Committee was able to come together on a package to fund 11 of the 12 spending bills. But, again, I wish it had been on all 12 bills and only dealt with issues related to appropriations.

I will reiterate that the funding contains many things I wish had had a different outcome. I fought throughout the conference, for example, to get rid of the swaps language. It does not belong on an appropriations bill. The Reid-Boehner provision to increase by tenfold the limits on contributions to political parties is excessive and also does not belong on this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), the ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), the distinguished ranking member of the Financial Services Subcommittee.

(Mr. SERRANO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member, and I want to make it clear that I agree with the gentleman from New York, the ranking member of the Financial Services Subcommittee, and our colleague, the Delegate from D.C., that the language in the bill does not block either decriminalization of marijuana or the referendum on legalization.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the ranking member of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that this package explicitly rejects attempts to prohibit clarifying the definition of navigable waters of the U.S.

However, the CR/Omnibus does contain language relating to core permitting for certain ranching, farming, and silviculture practices. To be clear, this provision does not change current law and preserves the current scope of agricultural exemptions.

If you needed a permit before, you will need to get a permit under this provision; if you didn't need one before, you won't under this provision. I am pleased again that as with most riders, this provision maintains status quo.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah), the ranking member of the Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Pastor), the ranking member of the Transportation-HUD Subcommittee.

(Mr. PASTOR of Arizona asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the minority leader of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the ranking minority member of the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I commend her for her tremendous leadership. With great pride, we point to her as our ranking member on the Appropriations Committee.

I thank you for yielding and for your leadership.

Thank you, Mr. Rogers, for your leadership.

As an appropriator for many years, I know the hard work that goes into putting an appropriations bill together. There was a day when we did them individually. It seems lately we just keep putting them on a bus, an omnibus. That is too bad. But in any event, I appreciate the work you have done to bring this bill to the floor. That is why I was so really heartbroken. I don't think I have ever said that word on the floor of the House. I was heartbroken to see the taint that was placed on this valuable appropriations bill from on high.

I am sorry that we cannot have a full homeland security bill, that is for sure. We knew that was possible. The Speaker says in January we will vote on a full homeland security bill. I hope that that is the case.

But the taint I refer to is what the President described in his letter today as a rider that would amend the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and weaken a critical component of financial system reform aimed at reducing taxpayer risk.

So when people are talking to you about what is in the bill and this or that, I am going to say to you what you are putting your name next to if you choose to vote for this bill. And why I am so appalled--well, I will tell you why.

It was September 2008. Things were happening in the financial services industry. Lehman Brothers, down; Merrill Lynch, down; AIG, whatever. It all happened within a matter of days. I called the Secretary of the Treasury and I said: ``How can we be helpful? What is going on?''

He said: ``It is terrible.''

I said: ``Well, is one of the major financial institutions going down?''

He said: ``No, it is bigger than that. We are in a serious meltdown.''

``Why am I calling you, Mr. Secretary Paulson?''

``Well, the White House wasn't ready for Congress to know about this. But you are the Speaker.''

At the time I was.

``I am the Secretary of the Treasury. You are asking me; I am telling you. We are in a terrible situation.''

So they came to my office that night, the Speaker's Office, House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans. We came together and we heard an appalling meltdown of our financial institutions.

And I said to the Chairman of the Fed, Mr. Ben Bernanke, who was there: ``Mr. Bernanke, what do you think about what the Secretary said?''

He said: ``If we do not act immediately, we will not have an economy by Monday.''

We will not have an economy by Monday. By the policies that were in place at that time, we were taken to a place where we wouldn't have an economy. No commercial paper, no economy by Monday.

Here we are, 2014, going down the same path.

Earlier today, the Republicans put a bill on the floor that would make certain tax incentives permanent and unpaid for. We should be doing revenue reform, but not that way, because the revenue policy of the Bush administration contributed to the Great Recession, taking us close to a depression. So their tax policy jeopardized our economy.

Then, their laissez, laissez, laissez-faire attitudes of no regulation, that took us to a meltdown of our financial institutions to the point where we, the taxpayers, had to rescue the financial institutions to the tune of $700 billion. That is twice as much as in the domestic discretionary spending of the bills that will come before us--two-years' worth of non-defense discretionary domestic spending.

We put provisions in the bill that the American taxpayer would be paid back. But that wasn't enough for the Republicans to vote for it. They voted against it, by and large. It was the Democrats who voted for the TARP, the most difficult vote for Members to vote for and the most politically harmful to them.

So here we are in the House being blackmailed--being blackmailed--to vote for an appropriations bill. I am not asking anybody to vote one way or another. I am just telling you why I would not put the name of my constituents in my district next to a bill that does, as the President says, ``weaken a critical component of financial system reform aimed at reducing taxpayer risk.''

At that time, they accused us of bailing out Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. The public still doesn't understand fully why everybody would benefit from what we had to do. But we shouldn't have had to do that, $700 billion, because of laissez-faire attitudes and trickle-down tax policies of the Bush administration, which got us to that place. Because of initiatives taken by President Obama when he became President, working with the Democratic Congress, with our initial Recovery Act, we were able to reverse some of that, and pull ourselves out of the ditch Republicans took us in.

So here we are today. This should be a day where we say, isn't it too bad we can't do more for the American people, but in the interest of bipartisanship we have put together a bill on the Appropriations Committee that helps meet the needs of the American people. Wouldn't that have been just fine?

Except, popping out of the wilderness comes two things: one, this provision, this provision, as I described, that the President described, and then another one, to make matters worse--to make matters worse--a bill that lifts political contributions to such a height that it is really unimaginable as to why those who put this in there thought that that was a good idea. They told me it was $90,000 for the convention. It turned out to be millions of dollars from a donor or from a family in that regard. So they weren't even on the level of how it was portrayed.

But be that as it may, what is important is what is in the bill. As Congressman Sarbanes said, it is ``quid pro quo.'' You have quid: give Wall Street what they want, relax the responsibility of that.

This is a moral hazard. We are being asked to vote for a moral hazard. Why is this in an appropriations bill? Because it was the price to pay to get an appropriations bill. I was told we couldn't get all these other things that have been described here so beautifully unless we gave Wall Street this gift. And, on top of that, that we gave their donors, high-end donors, all the opportunity in the world to pour money into the process.

Now, maybe the public is right about Washington, D.C. I heard this funny line about Lily Tomlin when she was Ernestine, the operator, when she said: ``Am I communicating with the people that I am speaking to?'' Are we communicating with the people we are speaking to when we say to them it is an important priority and we have to put it in our budget bill that we give donors the opportunity to spend endless money, undermining the confidence the American people have in our political system, at the same time--at the same time--as we say to Wall Street, you can engage in risky activity with your derivatives and the FDIC will ensure your action? That is just plain wrong.

Under the Dodd-Frank Act, if a bank wanted to engage in those risky activities they had to be pushed out to another entity, and that entity could engage in those activities, but they were not insured by the American taxpayer.

With this bill now we are saying the exposure, the recourse, is with the U.S. taxpayer. Just plain wrong--and what is it doing in an appropriations bill, except to have this bill be taken hostage? This is a ransom, this is blackmail. You don't get a bill unless Wall Street gets its taxpayer coverage.

So it is really so sad that something which I respect enormously, the appropriation process--because it is hard. There are so many competing calls on resources, so much that we have to try to invest in the American people, their health, their education, the economic stability of their families, the air they breathe, the water they drink, and how we fund all of that. I have some questions about some of that in this bill, but the fact is it is all a compromise, and it could have been a good compromise. So whatever Members choose to do.

I am enormously disappointed that the White House feels that the only way they can get a bill is to go along with this, and that would be the only reason I think they would say they would sign such a bill that would ``weaken a critical component of financial system reform aimed at reducing taxpayer risk.'' Those are the words in the administration's statement.

I feel sad for the American people today, because we are saying in order for us to invest in the education of our children and all of the responsibilities we have to the American people, we have to pay off Wall Street in addition to that. And I don't begrudge Wall Street, and I don't paint everybody there with the same brush. But what I am saying is the taxpayer should not assume the risk. It is back to the same old Republican formula: prioritize the gain, nationalize the risk. You succeed, it is in your pocket; you fail, the taxpayer pays the bill. It is just not right.

So I think we have a missed opportunity today to have some strong bipartisanship, and there will be bipartisan support for this bill. But the fact is, my colleagues, you are being asked to put your name next to privatizing the gain and nationalizing the risk. You are asked to put your name next to practically unlimited contributions to political campaigns just at a time when we are trying for reform to reduce the role of politics and money and increase the voice of the American people.

So, again, a missed opportunity. But I respect decisions that Members will make because there are equities to be weighed here. But the biggest equity we have is our responsibility to the American people to do the right thing. What was added to this bill, which may be a good bill, what was added to this bill is not the right thing. That is why it has bipartisanship, it has good things in it, but it will not have my support.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 776, I call up the bill (H.R. 83) to require the Secretary of the Interior to assemble a team of technical, policy, and financial experts to address the energy needs of the insular areas of the United States and the Freely Associated States through the development of energy action plans aimed at promoting access to affordable, reliable energy, including increasing use of indigenous clean-energy resources, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

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. 83 and that I may include tabular material on the same.

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

I rise today, as we face the expiration of the current continuing resolution, to present the House amendment to the Senate amendment on H.R. 83, legislation to fund the Federal Government for the rest of the current fiscal year.

This amendment prevents a costly and damaging government shutdown while making good government funding and policy decisions and reining in regulatory overreach. It is good for the continuity of vital Federal programs and services; it is good for our economy; and it is good for the American people. In total, this legislation provides $1.013 trillion for the operations of the Federal Government. This total is in line with the terms of the Ryan-Murray budget agreement.

It includes full-year appropriations legislation for 11 of the 12 annual appropriations bills, reflecting the most up-to-date budgetary needs of each agency and department. The Appropriations Committees in both the House and Senate went line by line through all of these bills, prioritizing funding for effective and vital programs, making the tough decisions to cut funding for lower priority programs.

In addition, the measure includes short-term funding for the Department of Homeland Security, holding the funding levels for those programs at current levels. This will ensure that efforts to secure our home front are maintained until February 27 of next year.

This legislation is a compromise--the product of hard-fought negotiations between the House and Senate, with give-and-take from both sides; but at the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, it reflects conservative priorities, keeps our spending in line, and reins in the regulatory overreach that has been hampering our economy.

As such, national security is a top priority in this bill. We provide a total of $554 billion for the Department of Defense, including $64 billion in overseas contingency operations funding to support our troops in the field, to combat ISIL, to train and equip our Iraqi allies, and to counter Russian aggression.

To further assist our economy, we include provisions that put the brakes on regulatory programs that are too intrusive and too burdensome on American businesses. For instance, the legislation prohibits funds for the Army Corps of Engineers to act on two potentially harmful regulations: changing the definition of ``fill material'' and regulating water in certain agricultural areas under the Clean Water Act.

The bill measure prevents the listing of the Sage Grouse on the endangered species list--a premature action that would have severe economic consequences on Western States, especially; and the bill protects job creators from onerous regulatory burdens by amending Dodd- Frank swaps push-out rules.

This bill also demonstrates, Mr. Speaker, fiscal restraint. It cuts $60 million from the EPA. It provides no funding for high-speed rail, the President's Race to the Top initiative, or UNESCO or IMF. No new funding is included for ObamaCare, and the bill holds the line on funding for the agency most responsible for implementing that law at Health and Human Services.

For the IRS, the bill cuts the agency $345 million below last year, and it includes language to put a stop to improper behavior by prohibiting the targeting of groups based on their political beliefs, prohibiting the White House from ordering the IRS to determine the tax- exempt status of an organization, and from funding inappropriate videos or conferences.

This legislation is the product of the bipartisan and bicameral cooperation that the American people called for at the voting booths last month. Passage of this bill will show our people that we can and will govern responsibly, rise above inaction, and work together on their behalf.

I would have preferred, as I am sure all of us would have, that we would be considering each of the 12 appropriations bills under regular order--the old-fashioned way. This is the way it should operate. In the House, as you know, our committee passed out 11 of the 12 bills. The floor passed seven of the bills, and it would have passed more, but we realized the Senate was not going to act on any of them and did not; so five of the bills were left in the lurch because the Senate would not consider any of the bills.

We face a very tight deadline now, and we have no choice but to try to put together an omnibus spending bill aggregating all 12 bills into one. I would have preferred separately, but the Senate blocked the way. If we do nothing, we will be turning our backs on our constitutional duty and on the American people.

Mr. Speaker, before I close, I want to take a moment to recognize some people who made today possible.

First of all, the staff. We have had about a month to put together this enormous bill--with thousands of items--in all 12 subcommittees. We had great negotiations then with the Senate, but it was the work of the staff, of course, that enables us to be here today. I want to thank the staff on both sides of the aisle, who worked so hard to make this happen. I would like to call names, but I am afraid I would leave out somebody important, so I want to thank the staff for all of their wonderful, laborious work.

I will single out Will Smith, the chief clerk of the committee, who has guided the staff through this enormous process, who, I think, did a wonderful, marvelous job. I want to thank Will Smith, especially, and all of the staff for their great work in leading up to today.

Now I want to thank the members of the committee. They have all had a part in making this bill up--each subcommittee, each chairman of the subcommittee, each of the members of the subcommittees, who fought long and hard to ensure that we had the best bill before us today that we could have.

Notably, the ranking member of the committee, Mrs. Nita Lowey, with whom we share this responsibility, has been a tremendous asset to us in the procedure leading up to today. I want to thank her personally for the great work that she did.

I also want to acknowledge, Mr. Speaker, six members of the committee who are moving on to greener pastures, making new chapters in their lives. They have been enormous helpers on the committee. They have chaired subcommittees, and they have worked long and hard on every bill that we have produced. We certainly hate to see them go, but they are writing a new chapter. I want to recognize Jack Kingston for his service, Frank Wolf, Tom Latham, Jim Moran, Ed Pastor, and Bill Owens. All of those six are moving on. I want to thank them for their service.

It is appropriate that their final vote on the House floor will be on an appropriate Appropriations Committee bill--funding the entire government. This Nation is a better place because of their service, and I want to thank all of them for their contributions to the committee and to the House and to the people of this country over their combined 120 years of service.

I now call on the Members of the House--Republicans and Democrats alike--to support this legislation. Keep the government open. It is a good bill. It is bipartisan; it is bicameral; it was negotiated in good faith on both sides of the Capitol and on both sides of the aisle. Most importantly, Mr. Speaker, this bill is necessary, so I urge the Members to vote ``yes.''

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen), the very distinguished and hardworking chairman of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Tom Latham, who is retiring.

He chairs the Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee and has been a stalwart help over the years on this committee and in the Congress in service to the country, so I guess for the last time he will be giving us a great oration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire the time remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), the distinguished chairman of the Labor-HHS Subcommittee on Appropriations who is retiring, leaving this body. He has done remarkable work on this subcommittee. He chaired a very difficult subcommittee with great distinction.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw),

the chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), the distinguished chairman of the Interior Subcommittee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry), a member of our committee.

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