Tax Extenders Act of 2013

Mr. President, before my colleague leaves the floor, I thank him for his leadership of the banking committee in the Senate for now several years and his commitment to try to find the right regulatory framework for the largest banks in our country as well as our community banks. I think the chairman has had a lot of challenges, as we all have, and I thank him, and for his strong advocacy of this particular nominee and for his help on so many issues, one of which I am going to speak about now with my colleagues from Florida and New York.

National Flood Insurance Program

Mr. President, many of us on both sides of the aisle, from all parts of the country, have been working very hard for the last year--and some of us even longer than that--to try to present good, solid information to the Senate and to Congress about how important the National Flood Insurance Program is in many different dimensions, first of all for those who live along the coast, which is 60 percent of our population in the United States, and those who live on inland waterways, whether it is in the Presiding Officer's State of New Jersey or in States such as Pennsylvania, New Mexico, North Dakota--not near any ocean--or whether it is in States such as Florida or Louisiana that do sit, in Florida's case, on the Atlantic, and in our case the Gulf of Mexico.

This is a very important issue because our businesses and our families have to have a system of very strong levees, smart building codes, and ways of building and expanding our communities with a good flood insurance safety net, if you will, or security net, along with levees that do not break as they did in New Orleans in 52 places and three-quarters of a great international city of half a million people in a region of almost 1.2 million virtually went underwater. We have to do better than that because we are the greatest Nation in the world, we are the greatest economy, and this is an important issue for the Nation.

Some of us in places such as these spend a lot of time thinking about levee infrastructure, flood protection, all of the different pieces. It is not just one piece. Insurance is a very important piece, as my colleague from Florida will explain in a minute. He was a former insurance commissioner and knows this as well as anyone in this body. But flood insurance is one piece for Americans, some of whom live in low-lying areas, some in flood-prone areas, but they have been there a long time--like 300 years in our case. They did not just move down here in the 1980s. We have been here since the 1780s and the 1680s. So we have been here a long time as a country. We have built up a protection, if you will, of good, solid affordable flood insurance over the last 40 years. We have been building levees a long time. Thank goodness we are building more of them and building them better because our people need them and we could all use more of those. I try to provide funding for that every chance I can as a member of that Appropriations Committee.

Contrary to some of our critics, we are promoting very good policies in this country about smart growth, how to build stronger, higher, more resiliently. We are not blind to the challenges. But we have right now before this body a flood insurance bill that will fix the most pernicious parts of a ``reform bill'' that was passed 2 years ago called Biggert-Waters with all the best intentions, but it had disastrous--disastrous--consequences for people in New Jersey, Florida, New York, Louisiana, and Texas.

There are 5 million policies.

I want to put up one chart, and then I am going to turn it over to the Senators who want to join me. But because critics say this is just a Louisiana issue or this is just a Florida issue or this is really not about anything other than coastal States, let me put that to rest. That is not factual. It is a damaging myth. You can see here on this chart that all of the flood maps in effect are in purple. These are Mardi Gras colors in honor of our season coming up after Christmas. But these are the flood maps in purple that exist as of July 12. These are proposed flood maps in green and new flood maps in yellow. Literally, there will not be a State in the Union--not one State in the Union; not one--that is exempt from the requirements of Biggert-Waters to produce new flood maps, some of which have not been produced for decades, putting communities that have never been in a flood zone, in a flood zone and then having these pernicious pieces of Biggert-Waters say: OK, you have never flooded, you have never been in a flood zone, but let me tell you, when you put your house up for sale, your rates are going to go up 10 percent. It is like stealing, taking--whatever word you want to call it--the equity right out of someone's home. It is unconscionable, and it must be fixed now--not a year from now but now. These rates have gone up in October, in January.

So I am here to say a couple of things. This is a national issue, No. 1. No. 2, we are very proud of putting together a great coalition. The leaders of this coalition are Senator Menendez

from New Jersey, the Presiding Officer's senior Senator, who has worked so hard; and our Republican leader, for whom everyone has a lot of respect, is Johnny Isakson from Georgia, who is recognized as an expert in the real estate markets of this country. It is his expertise. We should listen to him when he says real estate markets are going to take a terrible hit if we cannot fix this.

The final point is that this is not just to help homeowners and businesses; it is also to save the program because, as Chuck Schumer, the Senator from New York, has said many times, if we do not fix this, not only will people not be able to afford the insurance but because they cannot, the program will collapse under its own weight of inaccessibility and unaffordability, and then the taxpayers are going to pick up a bigger tab.

We could not make any clearer, stronger arguments. A coalition has come together. We have 60 votes.

I see my colleagues from Florida and New York. I do not know what their schedules are in terms of time. The Senator from Florida is well- versed. Again, as through the Chair, the Senator from Florida served, before being a Senator, as an insurance commissioner. I would like for him to add a word because our goal today is to acknowledge that, unfortunately, because of the difficulties we are having on process, we are not able to get a vote, it looks like, before we leave, but we are under the understanding--and I want to ask the Senator--that Leader Reid has agreed to call this bill up for a vote, for a cloture vote, in which we have accepted the 60-vote threshold. We believe we actually have more than 60 votes. We just need to get it up when we come back in early January.

Through the Chair, is that the Senator's understanding?

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Through the Chair, could the Senator explain a little bit more clearly for so many people who are listening to what we are saying this morning, because the Senator has been around here a while in leadership. When the leader, Harry Reid, rule XIV's a piece of legislation, how sure are we that we are going to get what is required and can we be--I have been saying I am very confident this vote will occur sometime in a week or two when we get back. What is the Senator's understanding?

Is the Senator aware of a comparable effort going on in the House? The Senator has been at a couple of news conferences with us. Could the Senator maybe speak for a minute to explain, does he think there is pretty good support building in the House of Representatives from the Senator's delegation in New York as well as other delegations the Senator might be aware of?

To the Senator from Florida, through the Chair, what is the Senator's understanding of the Florida delegation? The Senator has one of the largest States in the Union and has one of the largest delegations. Is it something that the Senator is sensing people are becoming more and more aware of, not just from the coastal counties but throughout all parts of Florida?

I thank the Senator from Florida. I would ask unanimous consent if we want to extend our colloquy, but I think I am going to wrap up with a few remarks for about 5 minutes.

I see the Senator from Texas on the floor and he may want to speak. But let me put a couple of startling facts in the Record.

There are over 450 counties, parishes, and boroughs which are located directly on open oceans, the Great Lakes, major estuaries, or coastal flood plains. We know from our geography that there are over 3,144 counties--parishes in our case, boroughs in some--in the country. But this is the important fact here. In 2010, these coastal counties contributed more than $8.3 trillion, which is 55 percent of the national economy. I want to underscore that and highlight its importance. We have 3,100 counties. But there is a subset of those counties which is mostly affected by this particular issue, flood control and flood protection, that produces 55 percent of the GDP for this country.

So, yes, this is a homeowner's issue, it is a middle-class issue, it is: They are suffering, let's relieve the pain. But it is also: We better wake up and realize the economic impact this is going to have on the entire country if this is not fixed. This is not about millionaires on a beach. It is about the future of the economic strength of America.

I cannot be more emphatic about that. It is not overstating our challenge. This is not about millionaires. It is about the middle class. It is about the middle class who need affordable insurance so they can live where they need to work--let me say that again: Live where they need to work--not rest where they need to vacation. There is a big myth here that flood insurance is about resting on vacation.

Flood insurance is about working hard where you need to work to keep this economy moving forward. Nothing could be more clear than in the State of Louisiana, but this is true in Texas, this is true in New Jersey, this is true in many places, in California, in our country.

People live near the water to harvest seafood, to produce domestic energy, to manufacture and transport the goods necessary to keep this economy moving.

If we shut down these communities because of a capricious law such as this that was not well thought through, that was not fully debated the way it should have been throughout this Congress, we are jeopardizing the dreams of not only these particular homeowners and business owners, but--and people will hear this from me--we are jeopardizing the future of the economy in the United States.

We cannot let this get any further than it has gone or we will start feeling the ramifications. Again, this is not flood insurance for people resting on vacation. This is flood insurance for people working every day because they need to live where they work to do the jobs our economy requires.

I showed this flood map graph a few minutes ago, which is where all of the flood maps are going to be. No State is exempt, not one-- clustered in some areas, more than others, but not one State is exempt. Heads up to Oregon, Washington, California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, of course, the east coast, the gulf coast, and everywhere in between.

But this is where levees are. I know a lot about levees. Unfortunately, I have to know a lot about them because we have a lot of them. They break too

often and breach too often. I am trying to figure out ways to build them higher and better with nickels and dimes and trying to piece them together. I was surprised there are levees in other parts of the country that I was not aware of. This is a big issue, flood protection, particularly with our sea levels rising, the weather patterns getting more erratic, flash floods happening in deserts.

Colorado is not even around an ocean. How could we have millionaires on a beach when there is no beach? I mean, there are millionaires in Colorado, but there is no ocean. This visual some critics have painted is so wrong. It is so distorted.

What Colorado does have--and look at Arizona--they have these flash floods, important flood controls for people who even live in dry parts of our country. We have to fix this.

The great news is we have a bill that is broadly supported by both Republicans and Democrats. I am sorry there is seemingly one objection from the other side, a Republican Senator from Idaho. Many colleagues are talking with him about lifting his objections. If he has suggestions for amendments, we are flexible, we are open to hear any reasonable suggestions.

We have more than 60 votes. Around here, in the old days, when we had 60 votes, we could do a lot.

Unfortunately, there are some people who think we have to have 100 votes to do anything, and that is a big problem. It is a big problem for our democracy because that is not the way it was structured to be.

However, we are going to continue to work. I thank the coalition. I wish to read a couple of things into the Record, and I will turn the floor over in a minute.

I have on my Web site--and I have encouraged Senators to have ``My Home My Story.'' There are literally hundreds every day that come into my office with a picture of the house and their individual stories. I think it is worth reading one or two into the Record briefly.

This is from the New Orleans area where there are 303,000 policies. This particular story is from Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans, which has the most insurance policies of any parish of our State.

Richard of Metairie writes:

My wife and I purchased it as our first and so far only

house in the fall of 1997.

We put down roots, befriended our neighbors, hosted family

gatherings, and celebrated the birth of our daughter.

If the rate increases we're hearing about go forward, you

will have succeeded in doing what Katrina didn't; break the

back of Southeast Louisiana.

Homes will be unsellable, businesses will shutter, banks

will fail from the doubtless tens of thousands of defaults

that will occur as people simply walk away from their now

worthless homes.

I don't know how much clearer we could be, and this is not an exaggeration. The data shows it. The coalition has proved it. We are building tremendous support, and I can only hope we vote as soon as possible within the first week of coming back.

Wendy of Metairie, another person from Jefferson Parish, says:

I built my house 3 feet above required base flood elevation

in 1998.

Now with elimination of grandfathering, I will be paying

$28,000 per year for flood insurance.

Why should we be penalized for building our houses in

compliance?

That is a very good question, and I don't have an answer for her other than to say we hear you and we are changing the law. It was poorly designed, it can be fixed, and it should be fixed.

Finally, from Baton Rouge, which is our capital city now, because so many people were literally flooded out of New Orleans in the southeastern part of the State. Baton Rouge is now the largest city, almost 500,000 people.

Ken writes:

My wife and I live on Social Security and a small annuity

from my work.

We have lived in this house for 37 years.

All our bills take almost all the income.

We constantly look at our finances to see if there is

anything else we can cut or reduce.

An increase in flood insurance may increase my house note

beyond our capacity to pay for it.

Brian of Baton Rouge writes:

My house was built in 1969 before there were flood maps.

I accepted a job in TN, I thought my house would sell.

I have a neighbor who wants to buy my house, but they have

withdrawn their offer since they found out how much flood

insurance will be.

Flood insurance rate hikes on this single property affects

3 families; my family, the family I want to buy from, and the

family that wants to buy my house.

I wish to underscore this and then I will end. I wish everyone to get a picture of the 5 million people caught in this web. We think: Well, we have a lot of people in America with 350 million. This is 5 million. Let's say 2 per house. That is only 10 million. This is a very small number compared to 350. Maybe we don't need to pay attention to the 10 million people.

But every home has a buyer and a seller. Most every home has a bank. Most every home has a worker or two or sometimes three in that house. It is affecting so many businesses. If this gentleman can't get his finances straight, he will leave his job in Tennessee. The business in Tennessee that is not anywhere near an ocean will be affected.

I know I sound a little bit like a broken record, and I don't mean to, but this is serious for the whole country.

I wish to end by thanking Harry Reid for understanding, for hearing us amidst all of the yelling and screaming that is going on around here about this and that. He has been able to focus and understand that this is an important bill for the country. He has agreed to use his power-- which he has only; only the leader has this power--to pull the bill from the calendar. He has promised us he will do that the first week we get back, and then it is our job to deliver the 60 votes to pass it. If we don't get 60 votes, the bill will fail and it will be a terrible shame.

I don't think this bill will fail because I know how important this issue is for every single Member of this Senate. I know they are hearing from their middle-class homeowners, lower income homeowners, businesses, bankers, and realtors. All I can say is we are going to have to work over the holidays--unfortunately, we would like to rest but no rest for the weary--and we are going to have to work hard to convince many people so we have a successful vote when we get back.

I have hundreds of personal requests I received. I know Senator Vitter has received the same. I thank him for his help as well. Again, this is a Democrat and Republican working together to get the job done.

I yield the floor.

As we all learned in civics class in high school, the purpose of the Senate was to ensure that every State in the Nation had at least two votes on important matters that might affect not only the country generally but also our States. Some of us represent small States and some of us represent large States.

I am privileged to represent one that has 26 million people in it, and we are growing by roughly 1,000 or more people a day. They are moving to Texas because that is where the jobs are. Our economy is prospering relative to the rest of the country because, as I like to tell my friends in this Chamber from time to time, we still believe in the free enterprise system in Texas and the private sector that creates jobs, opportunities, and where people can move to pursue their American dream.

Regardless of which party we come from or which part of the country we come from or who controls this Chamber, the Senate has historically recognized two fundamental rights; the right to debate legislation and the right to offer amendments to legislation.

When those rights are denied, our constituents--particularly of those of us who are serving in the minority--are essentially severed. They lose their voice. They lose their opportunity to have their views represented in the amendment process, the shaping of legislation that could be improved or not.

We know that when the minority voice is quashed--as this majority leader has done time and time again--and when minority rights are trampled, the Senate becomes a very different place indeed. We have become a place where mistakes get made, where purely partisan legislation is passed. The most obvious current example is ObamaCare, which was jammed through this body on a party-line vote in the House and in the Senate.

People are finding out that if they like what they have, they can't keep it.

Families of four will not see their premiums go down by $2,500. That is the kind of thing that happens when the majority succumbs to the temptation to jam things through without giving the back-and-forth opportunity, the deliberation that national legislation--legislation that will affect all 300-plus million Americans--should have.

When the majority leader denies those rights and those opportunities or those sorts of checks, balances, and the natural correction that comes from building consensus in the Senate and instead resorts to a partisan power play, mistakes get made and people get hurt.

Since the majority leader has taken that role, Senator Reid, the senior Senator from Nevada, has filled the amendment tree more than 70 times.

For those who get bored at the concept of Senate procedure and how the Senate's rules actually work, I wish to say what that means is effectively the majority leader has denied the opportunity to offer any amendments to legislation by ``filling the amendment tree.'' That is the way he actually accomplishes that.

By comparison to this majority leader who has done it more than 70 times since he has been majority leader, the previous majority leader, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, did it 12 times in 4 years. Before him, majority leader Tom Daschle only did it once in 1\1/2\ years. Majority leader Trent Lott of Mississippi did it 10 times in his 5-year tenure as majority leader of the Senate. Majority leader George Mitchell did it only three times in 6 years and majority leader Robert C. Byrd did it only three times in 2 years.

In other words, this used to be an extraordinarily rare use of the tool that the majority leader has to block amendments to legislation. Majority leader Bob Dole did it seven times in 3\1/2\ years, about once every 6 months.

By contrast, Majority Leader Reid has done it 70 times. What recourse does the minority have when they are blocked out of the legislative process on the Senate floor? The only tool we have available to us is to block cloture because it still takes 60 votes to get to a final passage of legislation. But when the minority exercises its rights, then we are called obstructionists. Because the majority leader has blocked any amendments and denied us an opportunity to have a choice in shaping legislation, the only recourse we have is to say that 41 Republicans will stick together and block the legislation, and, hopefully, set up a negotiation. But what happens more often than not is it is a politically posturing exercise and the majority leader will pull the bill down and rail against the minority as obstructionists. Well, this is a manufactured crisis.

This place did not always work the way it does now. Last month this resulted in an unprecedented power grab by our friends across the aisle when they violated the Senate rules in order to further weaken the rights of the minority and to help President Obama turn the second most important court in the Nation into a liberal rubberstamp. I am talking about the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Notwithstanding the fact this court has the lightest caseload of any of the circuit courts, the intermediary appellate courts in the Nation, it literally doesn't have enough work to do, while there are other judicial emergencies both at the district court and at the appeals court level that need additional judges--but because this court is the one that reviews many of the administrative regulations issued by the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency--in other words, they are the ones that will do the review of ObamaCare regulations or Dodd-Frank regulations-- the President and his allies saw this as an essential way to stack the court in a way that will rubberstamp his agenda.

So what happened is the majority leader decided to further erode or basically deny the minority any right in the process for executive nominations and judicial nominations and said: You know what. With 51 Democratic votes, we can do anything we want--anything--when it comes to nominations.

By using the so-called nuclear option, as it has been called, the majority leader and his allies went against the advice of some pretty wise Members who have been in the Senate for a long time, and I am thinking particularly about the Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin, who has served for six terms in the Senate and who is going to be retiring at the end of this next term.

Prior to that vote, Senator Levin warned his fellow Democrats not to take up the nuclear option, to leave it on the table and to walk away, because he said pursuing the nuclear option in this manner removes an important check on majority overreach, which is central to our system of government. It is the checks and balances that are so important that Senator Levin was talking about.

I know most people get bored when talking about the process by which things happen here or don't happen or the Senate rules, but they happen to be pretty important to our democracy and demonstrating respect for minority rights. And when minority rights aren't respected, we make some pretty bad mistakes, and I am thinking about two of them right now.

We are currently debating the Defense authorization bill, which is a very important piece of legislation, because this is the authorization given to our national security agencies, particularly the Department of Defense, to be able to function and to keep our country safe. Yet once again, the majority leader is refusing any amendments to this underlying piece of legislation, including an amendment which would address the military pension cuts that were part of the recent budget agreement that passed yesterday.

It was amazing to hear the mock horror of people in this Chamber when they found out that our Active-Duty military were being discriminated against and punished by the budget agreement that was passed yesterday to the tune of roughly $6 billion over 10 years. In other words, among everybody else in the Federal Government, they were singled out for worse treatment and were not grandfathered in to the pension reforms that were part of this deal for other Federal Government employees.

This is one of the things that happens when things get jammed through: Mistakes are made and people get hurt. In this instance, the people who happen to get hurt are those who wear the uniform of the U.S. military and who have served with great hardship in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of these people have suffered the wounds of war--lost a leg, lost an arm, suffered traumatic brain injury or post- traumatic stress syndrome. What is the majority leader's answer to our attempt to fix that mistake in that legislation? You are out of luck. And not just those of us who are trying to fix it, he is telling those wounded warriors: You are out of luck.

So when power plays take place in the Senate, when minority rights are denied and an opportunity to amend and improve and fix mistakes in legislation because of this power play by the majority leader, and the majority party that supports him, people get hurt. These pension cuts will impact veterans across the country. As I said, they will even impact combat wounded veterans who have been medically retired. This is a provision my colleague from Washington State, the Senate Budget Committee chair, called a technical error.

As I said, not surprisingly, Members of both parties have come to the floor since this was highlighted and they have called either for rescinding those cuts to the pension benefits of our Active-Duty members or those who have been medically retired or they have proposed to come up with alternative measures to reduce the deficit by a commensurate amount. At the very least, the military retirees who have already sacrificed so much for our country should have been exempted. Well, they weren't.

I am encouraged there has been some talk across the aisle about acknowledging the problem and the mistake. Yet instead of taking action today or yesterday, when we passed the budget deal that discriminated against other Active-Duty military, we were told: Just wait until next month; we will take care of it then.

It sort of reminds me of why the most feared words in the English language are sometimes said to be: Don't worry, we are from the government. We are here to help.

These wounded warriors need more than our rhetoric. They need our action. And they are the ones who are

being punished by the strong-arm tactics of the majority leader and the majority party. Why should they have to wait? We know things don't always happen on schedule around here. There is time as the world knows it, and then there is Senate time, and those are very different things.

Shouldn't we do everything possible now, today, to make sure these folks have peace of mind, particularly during this season of the year? If it was a technical error to include military retirees in the pension cuts, why are we not fixing the problem today? There is no good reason. There is zero good reason.

These kinds of strong-arm tactics need to be called out. Because while some people seem to think these are technical rules of the Senate and they are bored by them--the press doesn't want to write any stories about them--what I am here to say is that people get hurt by hyper partisanship and strong-arm tactics in the Senate. People get hurt.

Let me tell you about some other folks who are being shown disrespect as a result of the strong-arm tactics by the majority leader. I have introduced legislation that would allow for medals to be awarded to members of the armed services and civilian employees of the Department of Defense who were killed or wounded in an attack perpetrated by a home-grown violent extremist who was inspired or motivated by a foreign terrorist organization.

Of course, what I am talking about is what happened about 4 years ago at Fort Hood, TX, when MAJ Nidal Hasan, who had been radicalized by a Muslim cleric the President subsequently put on his kill list, and who was killed in a drone attack in Yemen--Anwar al-Awlaqi. Nidal Hasan had communicated with al-Awlaqi more than 20 different times by email, and over the years he had shown increasing tendencies to blame the United States for what was happening in the Middle East. He basically ended up declaring war against his own country, even while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army. Hasan killed 12 people in Fort Hood, TX--Killeen, TX--while standing up and yelling ``allahu Akbar,'' the cry often used by suicide bombers and other terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Clearly, this was not a case of workplace violence. That is what the government called it: workplace violence. This was a terrorist attack, pure and simple; no more, no less than what happened that killed 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. And we know what the U.S. Government did in 2001, quite appropriately, in my view. The Secretary of Defense exercised his discretion to award Purple Hearts and the appropriate and commensurate benefits that go along with being casualties of war. That was war being declared against the United States. And the U.S. Congress issued an authorization for the use of military force, recognizing it as an act of war.

But when I tried to offer this amendment to recognize the loss of life in the line of duty of 11 military members and a Department of Defense contractor being awarded the Medal for the Defense of Freedom, which is sort of the civilian equivalent to a Purple Heart, when we sought to make sure the 30 other people who were shot but who survived would also be recognized and given the appropriate benefits, what was the response of the majority leader of the Senate? Well, about the same as it was for those military pensioners--the people who are wearing the uniform today and are hoping to accrue a retirement they can live on when they leave the military service. The majority leader's response to both the victims at Fort Hood and to Active-Duty military with regard to their pensions that are now being cut back as a result of the vote yesterday, was exactly the same: Tough luck. Tough luck. I don't care.

As I said earlier, while people may not care about the Senate rules and the traditions of the Senate, while they may not recognize this power grab that resulted in an unprecedented trampling of minority rights in the Senate, when these sorts of partisan power grabs happen, people get hurt.

The ones most people feel today are the broken promises of ObamaCare, which passed on a party-line vote in the Congress.

Mistakes get made. People get hurt. But today the people who are getting hurt the worst are the people we ought to be most concerned about--those who lost their lives in the line of duty in the war on terror, those who have been injured and survived those wounds, and those who keep us safe by fighting our Nation's wars. These are the people being hurt today.

I will support the underlying Defense authorization bill, but I did vote against closing off debate yesterday because I felt the denial of the opportunity to offer amendments and the opportunity to vote on important corrections to the bill, which I described a moment ago, was a terrible mistake. But those cries for rationality and reason were simply ignored.

I will vote for the underlying Defense authorization bill because it does contain some good work, but I am absolutely outraged on behalf of the people I represent in my State, some of whom I have described, by the majority leader's refusal to allow consideration of any amendments to the bill and his blatant disregard for the rights of my constituents.

I close by reminding the majority leader what he himself said--words out of his own mouth--7 years ago shortly before his party took control of the Chamber. And it is amazing to me to see how people change around here when they get in the majority. Sometimes they forget they will not always be in the majority. I have been here in the majority, and I have been here in the minority. I can tell you that I enjoy being in the majority more. But we need to respect minority rights in the Senate because eventually, if you serve here long enough, you will find yourself in the minority, and what goes around comes around.

But here is what the majority leader said before his party took control of this Chamber:

As majority leader, I intend to run the Senate with respect

for the rules and for the minority rights the rules protect.

. . . The Senate was established to make sure that minorities

are protected. Majorities can always protect themselves, but

minorities cannot. That is what the Senate is all about.

Back in 2006 I found those words inspiring. Today they are a bad joke.

I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), my good friend, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today we are breaking a record yet again for the most closed Congress ever. The majority has broken their own record for the most closed Congress in history. Again and again, they have wasted time, money, and energy on legislative proposals designed to distract us from the problems at hand. And that certainly is true today.

The American people are hoping that Congress will create jobs, expand educational opportunities, and support working families, but instead, we insist on spending millions of dollars on investigating made-up scandals and adding billions and billions to the deficit.

Today we have one rule for two bills: first, the bonus depreciation bill, and, second, the Financial Services Appropriations bill, two bills with nothing in common except to highlight the majority's insistence of choosing policy over people.

Now, H.R. 4718 would make bonus depreciation permanent. This is a policy that maybe you have never heard of, but it is a policy that used to be bipartisan and still would be on a 1- or 2-year basis, like the Senate has proposed. It is designed as a temporary measure, and I emphasize ``temporary'' because if it isn't temporary, it is not effective.

Bonus depreciation gives businesses an extra large immediate tax deduction for a portion of the cost of investments in equipment. Instead of spending more of the deduction over future years, it incentivizes purchasing equipment now in order to provide an immediate boost to the economy, instead of in the future when the incentive may not be available.

And that is how it has always temporarily worked. But if we make it permanent, then the taxpayers are simply subsidizing the cost of the equipment that businesses would need to purchase anyway.

My good friend from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), who is as good a businessman as he is a Congressman--and that is saying a lot--said yesterday that in 2003, his small business went out and bought $100,000 worth of computers specifically because he could take advantage of the bonus depreciation, which was in place and was a very smart thing for him to have done. And that is exactly how bonus depreciation is supposed to work.

Mr. Cole knew computers would be cheaper at that time than in a year or two, when the tax credit would have expired. So he spent the money on equipment. And that surely helped the economy, and I am sure it created some jobs.

But why would Mr. Cole buy the computers immediately if he knew the tax credit would be there forever? He wouldn't, I don't believe. We will talk about that later.

This tool was put in place between 2002 and 2005, at 30 percent and then at 50 percent. It was reenacted in 2008 and then extended four times, often as part of a larger stimulus package, most recently at 50 percent. That expired at the end of 2013.

Now, when enacted as a temporary measure, there has been bipartisan support. However, the bill we have before us intends to make it permanent, completely negating the purpose of the bonus depreciation as a temporary measure.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service looked into the change, and they said, ``Its temporary nature is critical to its effectiveness'' and that bonus depreciation ``was enacted for a specific, short-term purpose.''

Mr. Speaker, I would like to now insert the Congressional Research Service's report, ``Bonus Depreciation: Economic and Budgetary Issues,'' from March 24, 2014, into the Record.

[From Congressional Research Service,

Mar. 24, 2014]

Bonus Depreciation: Economic and Budgetary Issues

(By Jane G. Gravelle, Senior Specialist in Economic Policy)

Summary

The Tax Extenders Act of 2013 (S. 1859), which would extend

expiring tax provisions for a year, includes bonus

depreciation. The temporary provisions enacted in the past

for only a year or two and extended multiple times are

generally referred to collectively as the ``extenders.'' One

reason advanced for these temporary provisions is that time

is needed to evaluate them. Most of these provisions,

however, have been extended multiple times, and some suggest

that these provisions are actually permanent but are extended

a year or two at a time because permanent provisions would

significantly increase the costs in the budget horizon.

Historically, bonus depreciation has not been a traditional

``extender.''

Bonus depreciation allows half of equipment investment to

be deducted immediately rather than depreciated over a period

of time. Bonus depreciation was enacted for a specific,

short-term purpose: to provide an economic stimulus during

the recession. Most stimulus provisions have expired. Bonus

depreciation has been in place six years (2008-2013),

contrasted with an earlier use of bonus depreciation in place

for three years. Is bonus depreciation temporary or

permanent? The analysis of bonus depreciation differs for a

temporary stimulus provision, compared to a permanent

provision that can affect the size and allocation of the

capital stock.

A temporary investment subsidy was expected to be more

effective than a permanent one for short-term stimulus,

encouraging firms to invest while the benefit was in place.

Its temporary nature is critical to its effectiveness. Yet,

research suggests that bonus depreciation was not very

effective, and probably less effective than the tax cuts or

spending increases that have now lapsed.

If bonus depreciation is made permanent, it increases

accelerated depreciation for equipment, contributing to

lower, and in some cases more negative, effective tax rates.

In contrast, prominent tax reform proposals would reduce

accelerated depreciation. Making bonus depreciation a

permanent provision would significantly increase its

budgetary cost.

Compared to a statutory corporate tax rate of 35%, bonus

depreciation lowers the effective tax rate for equipment from

an estimated 26% rate to a 15% rate. Buildings are taxed

approximately at the statutory rate. Total tax rates would be

slightly higher because of stockholder taxes. Because nominal

interest is deducted, however, effective tax rates with debt

finance can be negative. For equity assets taxed at an

effective rate of 35%, the effective tax rate on debt-

financed investment is a negative 5%. The rate on equipment

without bonus depreciation is minus 19%; with bonus

depreciation it is minus 37%.

If bonus depreciation is permanent, estimates of U.S.

effective tax rates reflecting concerns that the U.S. rate is

higher than that of other countries overstate the effective

U.S. corporate tax rate; U.S. effective tax rates on

equipment would be significantly lower than the OECD average.

Moving to permanent bonus depreciation is inconsistent with

tax reform proposals made by the Wyden-Coats bill, the Senate

Finance Committee Staff discussion draft, and Chairman Camp's

proposal. All of these proposals would reduce the current

accelerated depreciation for equipment.

The usual extenders cost a fraction of the cost of

permanent provisions in a 10-year budget window, but bonus

depreciation is a smaller fraction because it is a timing

provision. A one-year extension costs $5 billion for FY2014-

FY2024, less than 2% of the cost of $263 billion for a

permanent provision.

What the majority is fond of saying is that this bill would bring in $10 billion in revenue. And I heard it over and over again at the Rules Committee last night, that we are going to have $10 billion in revenue. But what they fail to say is that over 10 years, it is going to cost us $287 billion, nearly $300 billion, which could buy us a lot of high-speed rail, a lot of bridge infrastructure, a lot of highway work. But what we are now doing is a permanent subsidy to make tax cuts to every business that wants to buy equipment.

Now, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation scored this at $287 billion over 10 years. We are not making that up. The majority is cobbling together a piecemeal approach, and it will not work. We would love to have tax reform, we cry out for tax reform, but this isn't it.

To cap it all off, this is another closed rule. And let me say what that means. Even if a Member wanted to offer an amendment to pay for the nearly $300 billion cost of this bill--which is the rules under which we operate, you know, PAYGO--they wouldn't be allowed.

There are so many better things to spend that $300 billion on, the things that we really need in this country. But the closed rule ensures that it would stifle the debate and hijack the process. And, more than that, we know the Senate will not take this up.

So, once again, we are doing a bill that might make some people feel good but not if they think about it a little bit. Because even the businesses who are going to be prospering from the tax decrease are going to be responsible for the loss of $300 billion.

So with the second bill, which is H.R. 5016, the Financial Services Appropriations, the majority is cherry-picking which agencies to fund and which to strangle for purely political purposes. They will continue chasing down the all-but-defunct IRS conspiracy rabbit, getting funding for the IRS but making it so that $2 billion worth of the tax revenue will not be collected because they have cut the budget of the IRS so much. So add that $2 billion to the $300 billion that we are voting on today for depreciation, and add that onto the deficit, too, since it is not paid for.

In addition, as the majority crisscrosses the country touting states' rights, they have also put forward legislation that obstructs, once again, the District of Columbia's home rule by restricting funding for constitutionally protected medical care. The majority insists on ensuring that women are second-class citizens, and they continue to chip away at our constitutional rights.

Furthermore, this bill continues to prevent multi-State policies under the Affordable Care Act from providing coverage for abortions under the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, except in the most desperate of circumstances.

We need to say over and over again that, of the women in this country who are using birth control, 58 percent--more than half of them--are using it for medical reasons. And they are being deprived. Mr. Speaker, 58 percent of the women in this country who are using prescription contraception are using it because they have medical issues, and it is expensive. But we will not let them get any help because we simply don't believe in providing health care for women.

Government workers deserve the same benefits and the same access to comprehensive health care as those in the private sector enjoy. It is, in fact, dangerous for the majority to target abortion care and require its exclusion from health insurance plans that include other important and necessary reproductive health services. Women expect and deserve the best health care and coverage that fits their needs.

And let's remember that 58 percent of the women who use oral contraceptives use them for medical purposes, not just for birth control.

I would like to be able to say that women should expect their government to be able to put their health and safety above election- year politics, but this is what we have come to expect here. Women deserve better. But I am afraid in the House, women's rights, again, continue to be undermined. Time and again, we have prioritized in this House--some of us--politics over people.

Let me mention the veterans, for example. Listen to this. This is really important to know. While those veterans who have served and sacrificed for our country are waiting months in line for medical care, the House majority will spend more money investigating and trying to debunk a nonexistent Benghazi scandal than helping our veterans get the care they need. That is right. The committee investigating Benghazi has a much larger budget than the Veterans' Affairs Committee. If that is not a political statement, I don't know what is.

And I need to point out that just yesterday, transcripts from the Armed Services Committee about Benghazi proved that everything that could have been done was done.

And I know that when I last did the rule on the floor on the special Benghazi committee that I received a call from the mother of one of the Navy SEALs that died, saying that she really wished the Congress would stop dragging their family back through that horror. They know what happened.

Instead of working on the real problems--and we have got them--they are finding time to sue the President for doing his job, to hold vote after vote to repeal ObamaCare. And let's remember the shutdown of the government that took $24 billion in that short time out of this economy.

So we come here to make things better. And with these actions and with this behavior, we make things worse.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 2 minutes.

May I inquire if my friend has any more requests for time?

We are going to call for the previous question, Mr. Speaker, and if we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule to bring up the legislation that would treat wildfires like similar major natural disasters and ensure that money intended for managing public lands is actually used for that purpose.

It is time to make commonsense changes in the Federal wildfire budget.

Mr. Speaker, to discuss our proposal on wildfires, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Natural Resources.

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

Mr. Speaker, if my colleague is prepared to close, I will close.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the majority continues to choose politics over people, create problems instead of solving them, and insist on silencing debate in the Chamber. It is time to consider the real problems facing the country, and with summer comes the destructive fire season that affects so many of my colleagues' districts.

I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question and move to consider the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act to make the commonsense changes in the Federal wildfire budget.

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

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

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Michigan for her heartfelt words. I couldn't agree with her more. I thank the majority leader and my colleagues from Ohio and New Jersey as well for recognizing the importance of this package of tax relief.

The Tax Extenders Act of 2013 would extend tax relief which business and middle-class families in my home State of New York and across the country depend on. They are noncontroversial. They have received bipartisan support in the past. And because of the great uncertainty over our economy, doing this quickly and not saying we will do it 3 months after they expire makes a great deal of sense. I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have objected to all of these. I hope they will reconsider, because for the good of the economy--which is just beginning to pick up a little bit--we need to do these extenders.

I am going to talk about four of them, but one is particularly critical because it doesn't work very well retroactively. The others do. That is why I urge my colleagues to reconsider and will ask for a separate UC before we leave here on this particular one because it has particular need right now, and that is the mass transit commuter tax benefit.

There are about 700,000 commuters in the New York metropolitan area, including from the Presiding Officer's home State, who take advantage of this current incentive. The commuter benefit currently covers up to $245 a month from a person's income to pay for their mass transit commute to and from work. So whether you take the subway, bus, train, or drive to work and park, the benefit provides significant savings.

The tradition, unfortunately, in this Senate and in this Congress was to treat mass transit as a second-class citizen, because the benefit traditionally had been significantly greater for those who drive and park than for those who take mass transit, and we have had serious problems.

First, until we changed it a few years back, the mass transit was half the benefit of parking and driving. Second, it was not indexed for inflation the way the parking benefit was. So if we let this provision expire, the mass transit benefit will revert to $130 a month, while those who drive and park will actually get an increase to $250 for 2014 because of inflation.

We cannot let these transit benefits for mass transit users get left behind. To do them is a win-win. It is a win, of course, for those who use mass transit--and we have so many in the New York area. It is also a win for drivers, because every person who is encouraged to use mass transit by this benefit will actually take a car off the road, remove some degree of congestion, and allow drivers to move more quickly. And, of course, it is a win for our environment, because mass transit is a far more effective way environmentally of moving things along.

So when the leader a few minutes ago requested the Senate pass the tax extenders act, I was disappointed it was blocked, and particularly disappointed that this benefit was blocked, because while we can do it retroactively, it is harder to implement than the others that are done retroactively, because most of them take effect when you pay your taxes in 2015, whereas this one takes effect month by month.

The proposal we are asking for is exactly the same as was included in the bipartisan negotiated tax extenders package considered by the Senate Finance Committee and passed by the Senate on a bipartisan basis for one additional year, through 2014. I hope we will consider it now, not retroactively later next year as we did last year. Employers need to plan whether they will provide the benefit. Commuters need to elect to take it. And as I said, it is done on a monthly basis. You can do it retroactively, but it is much harder.

I know we have lots of problems here between the parties, but we should not hold the mass transit commuters of America hostage. We should not make

them second-class citizens. Their deduction is every bit as important, every bit as justifiable, as for those who drive and park. I hope my colleagues, before we adjourn this year for the Christmas holiday, would in the Christmas spirit extend this benefit.

Now I wish to talk about a few other credits which are also part of the package being blocked right now. One is the new market tax credit. Individuals and businesses across my State are counting on the new market tax credit. The new market credit program was created to stimulate private-sector investment in economically distressed communities. It has done exactly that. I have seen it work in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and the capital district in New York.

Over the first decade of the program, $20 billion in new market tax credit investment leveraged an additional $25 billion in capital from other sources to finance economic development in communities where financing might be difficult to come by.

The program is a proven job creator. Between 2003 and 2010, new market tax credit investments created over 500,000 jobs across the country. Again, it has always had bipartisan support. It is sort of a no-brainer. It should be continued.

I will now talk about the short line rail tax credit. It is a little like the new market tax credit in that it is a tax credit which encourages private investment and jobs.

We have short lines all across the country. They connect the main trunk lines on rail to the more isolated regions. But in those somewhat isolated regions are factories. We have opportunities for tourism, say, in the Adirondacks, and the short line rail tax credit helps maintain and renovate the short line rail system.

Rail is very prosperous these days. The big carriers can maintain the trunk lines very well. But it is harder to maintain the short line, and Congress in its wisdom decided to give a tax break for those. If you are unfamiliar, the short line rails are a web of tracks all over the country connecting local businesses and manufacturers to interstate rail systems. The unheralded links that bring raw materials into our businesses and connect them with other cities and supply chains must be maintained. Over 50 percent of rail track in my home State is short line rails. Approximately 550 short line railroads provide 50,000 miles of track in the country, and the credit is extremely useful in my State, financing hundreds of thousands of dollars of rail infrastructure investment annually. It is used all across the country. We have 42 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate for this legislation. So I hope we will consider this one and pass it.

Finally, the IRA rollover. The IRA rollover provision is also set to expire, affecting so many retirees. They need to know whether it will be extended in order to plan their charitable giving in the coming year. If it isn't extended, many taxpayers over 70\1/2\ years of age will be surprised with a tax bill when they transfer funds from their IRA to their favorite charity in 2014. So this is important and, again, is one that truly is in the Christmas spirit.

In conclusion, businesses, families, retirees will pay the price if all of these valuable tax relief provisions, and many of the others mentioned by Senator Reid, are not extended by the end of the year. I would hope, in the same spirit of comity that we passed the budget, we could come together and pass these extenders. They have always had bipartisan support. They are, after all, tax reductions. I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe in tax reductions. To delay them and do them retroactively would be doing a disservice to our economy and to the millions of Americans who are working or seeking work in our country today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to echo the outstanding words of my colleagues from both Florida and Louisiana. They echo the views of many. Everyone says the public is exasperated with the Congress. Our approval ratings are low. They are. Why? It is simply because when huge problems occur that affect ordinary people, we seem paralyzed. What is happening with flood insurance embodies what I am talking about. Average homeowners who purchased flood insurance through the years for $800, $1,000, are now being hit with bills of $4,000, $5,000, $6,000. If you are rich, that is nothing. But the vast majority of people who have flood insurance, whether they live on the oceans in my State or the State of the Senator from Florida or on the gulf of the State of the Senator from Louisiana or on the bodies of water such as the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers, are not wealthy people. You tell them all of a sudden out of the clear blue they have to pay $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 for flood insurance, they do not know what to do. It is a crisis for them. They say to us: Congress, fix this.

This is what we are supposed to do. So in their wisdom, the Senator from New Jersey, the Senator from Louisiana, the Senator from Georgia, the Senator from Florida, myself, many others have come up with a proposal that says: We know flood insurance is broken, but we do not want to see it broken on the backs of average homeowners. We have a plan that will delay these increases until 2017, while FEMA studies affordability, and while Congress reexamines this issue.

There was an affordability study in Biggert-Waters. Somehow FEMA ignored it. We are not letting that happen. So that is why we have to act here. There are three types of people who are in danger. The first are those who know or are about to know they are going to be hit. They have flood insurance already and their costs are going to go way up. The vast majority are middle-class people.

The second are those who will be told: Your insurance will not go up, but when you sell your home it is going to go way up. Any bureaucrat who tells us, well, that does not affect the average person--it affects the value of their home immediately. But it also says they cannot sell their home. In my area, if flood insurance is going to be $8,000 or $10,000 or even $20,000 a year, who is going to buy the home, except at a greatly reduced value?

But, my colleagues, there is a third group. They do not know who they are. FEMA is changing flood maps throughout the country. They will get to your State, unless maybe Utah or a State such as that does not have any flood insurance. I do not know. But the vast majority of our States that either bound the Great Lakes, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the gulf, the great rivers--the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, the Platte--are all going to be affected.

A year from now your constituents are going to come to you and say: Stop this. This will affect the overwhelming majority of States and Senators, even if they do not know it now. So our solution is not an ideological solution, it is not a solution that picks one side or the other. It says: Put a moratorium on this until we can figure it out in the right way that does not put the burden of flood insurance solely on the backs of people who cannot afford it--average folks.

In my State--my good friend from Florida mentioned it--we have people who have struggled to fix their homes from Sandy, spending tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then all

of a sudden they are hit with a huge flood insurance bill. They are already in debt.

That is not fair. Just when they move back finally into their homes, FEMA comes in and tells them in a year or two they cannot afford to live in those homes they fixed. That is intolerable.

The bottom line is simple. We have a good piece of legislation. We would hope we could pass it by unanimous consent, as my colleagues from Florida and Louisiana said, as a nice Christmas--not present, because it is not a present. These are people who deserve to have this. But it is a nice Christmas thought. But if not, we will come back in January. That is my expectation. That is what the leader has told us. We are willing to go through a cloture vote and bring this legislation to the floor. We expect and hope that we will get the same kind of bipartisan support that has helped us put this bill together with Senators from every part of the country.

I would say to homeowners: It is my hope and prayer and indeed expectation, although around here expectations sometimes are not met, that we will have this bill on the floor and then passed so that homeowners, millions of homeowners across America, can breathe a sign of relief; they can stay in their homes, and flood insurance will be amended in the right way.

I would be happy to yield for a question.

My understanding is just that, that in the--even possibly in the first week when we get back, that the leader, having rule XIV'd it, which means he can bring it to the floor right away, can put it on the floor and, of course, then people can demand--those opposed--that we invoke cloture so we can proceed to the bill and then vote on the bill. But if we have 60 votes, we will be able to meet that cloture barrier. So it is my understanding the plan is to actually do it as soon in January as the first week we get back, which I believe is January 6. If we cannot do it then, we will be pushing very hard to do it shortly thereafter.

I thank my colleague for that question. Exactly. This is affecting so many people in so many parts of the country. It does not affect just Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or moderates, Independents or liberals. The support is building daily. Senators and Congress Members are getting calls from their constituents pleading with them to do something.

So it is my view, it is my understanding that the House is undertaking a very similar piece of legislation. I would expect it would pass the House, where they do not even need the 60-vote majority. I know in my delegation it has bipartisan support. As I understand it, in most delegations it has bipartisan support.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 661 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my 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, on Wednesday the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration on two measures: H.R. 5016, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, and H.R. 4718, that would permanently extend the bonus depreciation.

The resolution provides a modified open rule for consideration of H.R. 5016 so that all Members have the opportunity to come to the floor and offer any amendment to the bill that complies with House rules on this important piece of legislation.

The resolution also provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 4718, and provides for 60 minutes of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means. In addition, the rule provides for a motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, a little over 2 months ago, I was pleased to present the House the rule for consideration of the first two appropriations bills. This rule will provide for the consideration of the eighth appropriations bill by the House.

In the Appropriations Committee, we have already reported out 10 of the 12 required appropriations bills and are moving closer to finishing the two remaining bills. Contrast this with the other body, where they have yet to pass even a single appropriations measure.

Mr. Speaker, the Financial Services Appropriations bill maintains the fiscal discipline agreed to as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 that this country desperately needs. While the President requested an additional $1.7 billion over fiscal year 2014-enacted levels, this bill actually funds these programs at $566 million less than last year's level.

In addition, this bill maintains a number of important funding restrictions over the IRS. Given their unconscionable targeting of conservative organizations and their deliberate stonewalling of legitimate inquiries by the Ways and Means and Oversight and Government Reform Committees, these funding prohibitions are necessary and appropriate.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, this resolution provides for consideration of H.R. 4718, which permanently extends bonus depreciation. During this extended time of sluggish economic growth, it is important for the Congress to pass legislation that will encourage our job creators to do just that--create jobs.

An analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that permanent bonus depreciation would actually grow the economy by 1 percent, adding $182 billion to the economy; increase the capital stock by over 3 percent; increase wages by about 1 percent; and create 212,000 new jobs.

Since its creation in 2002, this credit has routinely been extended on a bipartisan basis. It is important that we do so again today.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend Chairman Rogers for making good on his commitment to ensure orderly and timely consideration of appropriations bills. I also want to commend Chairman Camp for examining the Tax Code, ensuring we can provide the tax certainty that so many businesses need in order to make investment decisions that benefit us all.

I urge support of the rule and the underlying legislation. And with that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

As usual, my friend is a sharp and acute debater and makes points over a broad number of issues.

I do want to say, for the record, I am not such a great businessman, but I have a great business partner who has been my partner for 25 years. She is the managing partner. She made the call. And I have been very fortunate to be friends and partners with her for many, many years.

I think she probably moved as quickly as she did because she didn't think the government would have the good sense to keep this open. But the fact is, under both Republicans and Democrats, we have done bonus depreciation. When my friends were in the majority, they continued to routinely extend it themselves.

And after more than a decade, it has become, frankly, pretty much a permanent feature of our Tax Code. Now it is not so permanent that you can absolutely rely on it in the business sense. But I still accept the argument, after something that has been repeatedly confirmed by both sides, and both sides have repeatedly extended it and made it effectively permanent, we ought to go ahead and provide business with that certainty. Again, we will have a debate on that, and that is appropriate.

The second point I want to discuss, where I do differ with my friend a little bit: look, we always quibble no matter who is in the majority over how open the process is and how much the minority is allowed to participate in it. When we do that, we usually need to remember, if we are in the minority, what our record was when we were in the majority.

I want to remind my friends on the other side that throughout the 111th Congress, the final 2 years of their time in the majority, the House never considered a single bill under an open rule. That is the definition of a closed process. On the contrary, under Republican control, the House has returned to the consideration of appropriations bills under an open process, with 22 open rules.

Again, I was on the Appropriations Committee when my friends took the opportunity that every Member enjoys, to come down and participate in the appropriations process, away from everyone--their side and our side alike.

Additionally, the Congress has allowed under our control more than 1,000 amendments to be offered on the House floor, including a total of 488 amendments offered by Democrats and another 137 bipartisan amendments. Forty percent of all submitted amendments have been made in order. Compare that to our friends, who made only 17 percent in order under their majority regime in the 111th Congress.

So when you actually compare the record of the Republican majority to the most recent Democratic majority, any fair analysis would show that Republicans are running a far more open and transparent House. I think that is something that my friends need to recall when they raise this particular critique.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I have enormous respect for my friend from the District of Columbia. She does a tremendous job representing her community, and she is an articulate and able Member of this body. It is true. We do have an unusual degree of authority as Congress over the Capital of the United States. That is a constitutional issue and an article I, section 8 issue.

Being the Capital brings great privileges and benefits to Washington, but it also, unquestionably, at times, brings some difficulties and some strains as well; so we all--whoever is in the majority--try to manage that as best they can.

In terms of the abortion issue, the language in this bill that applies to D.C., as I understand it, has been pretty routine under both Democrats and Republicans over the years, and so that is my understanding of that issue.

On the marijuana issue, the Federal prohibition here has existed for many years and was actually proposed in the President's budget. The amendment that was offered and adopted in the committee--and there was a very spirited debate about this by Dr. Harris--does add new language to prohibit local funds for recreational use of marijuana. The intent is to prevent D.C. from legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

D.C. has enacted a law which makes possession of small amounts of marijuana a civil offense, carrying a $25 fine, and that goes into effect later this month.

In November, D.C. may have a ballot initiative to legalize possession of

small amounts. I suspect this will be an ongoing discussion and concern between the Congress and the community.

I yield to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.

Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman for the points that she made. I would just say that, again, this is going to be an ongoing source of tension--it has been.

To clarify, when I said the Capital benefits, I meant to imply in no way that citizens here don't have the same obligations, same responsibilities, and bear the same burdens. I happen to have two wonderful military bases in my facility. We think we are privileged to host them. We derive considerable benefit and employment from their presence.

I will note, just as the gentlewoman suggests, we pay taxes, too. We are American citizens, and those weren't put there for our benefit. They were put there for the purposes of defending the country, but we are happy to have them.

I suggest there is probably a lot of that same pride in this community for hosting the Capital of the United States, so that was my intent in that remark.

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

I do not.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by agreeing with the last two speakers, in terms of the substance of their argument. I happen to be a cosponsor of that legislation, which is proposed by

my good friend, Mr. Simpson, and I think they are discussing a very real and very important issue, and this is an issue where there is considerable bipartisan agreement.

Mr. Speaker, I probably will end up opposing the manner in which you are going to try and bring this to the floor, but I do think it needs to come to the floor. There is an orderly process to do that. There are discussions underway to continue to work on it; but, again, my friend makes a very good point.

I have tried consistently during my tenure here, no matter who is in control, to recognize that, when we have disasters, that people who are dealing with them need immediate help, and you need to vote accordingly and try and make that occur.

I sit on the Interior Subcommittee where we wrestle with this funding issue that both of my friends brought up, and they are precisely right. Since you can't predict a fire, you can't produce the amount, we end up treating fires differently than every other kind of disaster and we savage the normal budget process and actually drain a lot of accounts, accounts that in some cases would help us prevent future fires by helping us get rid of hazard fuel buildup in forests and things of that nature.

Again, I think my friends make a good point. I think we are going to continue to work on this in a bipartisan manner. I hope we will get there.

I will note for the Record that when we were actually considering the Republican budget, we were engaged on that committee, which I sit on as a representative from Appropriations, in discussions with one of our Democratic friends on the other side of the aisle about bringing an amendment and actually writing it in the budget. We had Republicans prepared at that point to vote for that amendment in sufficient numbers. The White House, I was told, was actually in favor of doing that. For whatever reason, the decision was made not to do that. Again, I cast no aspersions here, but I think we probably missed a more appropriate opportunity of actually cementing it down.

But I will say this: both of my friends have my commitment to continue to try and work with them and find an appropriate vehicle and appropriate time to get this done. I appreciate very, very much the fact that you came to the floor and brought it up and reminded us of how significant an issue this is. This is something we should be able to work across the aisle and accomplish. I thank my friend.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am prepared to close.

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

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would like to say that one of the basic functions of Congress is to actually fund the government. This rule would continue that process for consideration of appropriations bills for fiscal year 2015. In addition, it would allow for consideration of legislation that makes bonuses depreciation permanent, a provision that has existed as part of our Tax Code under both Democrats and Republicans since 2002.

I have enjoyed the debate. As always, I appreciate exchanging views with my good friend from New York, by way of Kentucky, two States blessed, and I would urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation.

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