Save American Workers Act of 2015

Mr. Speaker, I would like to elaborate on the chairman's retort to what we just heard about criticisms pertaining to this law.

Number one, this law is inherently unfair. Trying to finance health insurance for some Americans by cutting hours and wages for other Americans is just, frankly, not what we should be doing as a country. The Save American Workers Act would actually save most workers from a potentially massive loss in hours and wages, and I will walk the gentleman through that momentarily. It will also cause fewer workers to be directly impacted by this employer mandate.

Very briefly, let us start with saving most workers from a potentially massive cut in hours. Under current law, if you work between 40 to, say, 45 hours and your employer happens to not offer you employer-sponsored health insurance, you are in the minority. An employer is incentivized to offer these typically higher-wage, higher- skilled workers employer-sponsored health insurance, and that is why so many do. It is part of our normal functioning labor market.

So if one were to be moved hypothetically from 40 hours down to 29 hours, they would lose roughly $270 a week or $14,000 a year, according to the American Action Forum.

Under the Save American Workers Act, these 40- to 45-hour workweek individuals would no longer be at risk of such a massive cut in their wages or their hours.

Let's take someone working 30 to 35 hours, just above that new full- time employment threshold in ObamaCare. They tend to be lower-wage hourly workers, according to the Hoover Institution, and let's assume they had no employer-sponsored health insurance. There are 9.8 million Americans who fall into this category. They are vulnerable to a cut in their hours and wages.

Were one to move from 35 hours a week down to 29, they would lose on average $148 per week, or $7,694 a year--again, according to the American Action Forum.

Under the Save American Workers Act, these individuals, 30 to 35 hours a week, would no longer lose any hours or wages, just reinforcing the point that the good chairman made.

Well, this is why I introduced the Save American Workers Act. Let's restore the 40-hour workweek that so many people worked so hard to put in place, that has long been understood to be the gold standard of the workweek in this country.

Over the past few years, I have witnessed a strange phenomenon in our country. In Indiana, we have seen local school corporations announce they will limit the hours of substitute teachers, classroom assistants, cafeteria workers, custodians. We have seen retailers limit the hours of their cashiers. The list goes on and on, from hotels to manufacturers to colleges and universities.

I guarantee that every Member of this body back in their district has heard similar stories. This is happening because of the new 30-hour definition of full-time employment.

Now, there is no good reason to do this, other than, perhaps, to arbitrarily set this new definition of full-time employment to fund the massive cost of this national health care bill. It has ignored decades of practice in the labor market reality of our 40-hour workweek. It has distorted that market.

As a result, the Hoover Institution estimates that as many as 2.6 million American workers are at risk for lost hours.

Now, it is not just the lost hours that should concern us. Again, it is the lost wages. An employee losing 10 hours a week is also losing an entire week's paycheck each month. An employee going from 35 to 29 hours is seeing a 17 percent pay cut, courtesy of ObamaCare.

The people most affected by this provision are the people who can least afford it--89 percent of them do not have college degrees, 63 percent of them are women. Perhaps, ironically, it sounds a lot like the people ObamaCare was supposed to help.

CBO analysis indicates that it comes at the expense of up to $105 billion in cash wages. Now, I defy anyone to say that it is fair to expand coverage to a half-million people--that number from the CBO--on the backs of 2.5 million people who can't afford it. How fundamentally inefficient is the health care system that potentially requires the loss of over $200,000 in cash wages for each person it insures.

I authored H.R. 30, the Save American Workers Act, to help these hardworking Americans. And I introduced this bill jointly with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), who happens to be a Democrat. He, too, realizes that ObamaCare is littered with serious unintended consequences that need to be addressed.

In the Senate, we have seen a similar version of this bill introduced in a bipartisan manner.

Now, this isn't a Republican or a Democrat issue; this is a serious solution to a very real problem facing American workers.

I urge all my colleagues to support the Save American Workers Act.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you so much for this opportunity to try to advance legislation to improve the Nation's health care law in a bipartisan fashion.

You know, I don't understand the visceral resistance to trying to lighten the load on our Nation's hourly workers. The wage earners, the people who need it most--our cafeteria workers, our substitute teachers, our people at retail centers all across the country--they are the ones during this still-recovering, seemingly dormant recovery for so many of my constituents, they are the ones who are demanding these sorts of changes.

Much has been made of the evidence here. There is plenty of evidence in every congressional district across the country that people are hurting on account of this 30 hours is full time provision in the Affordable Care Act. And this all comes before the employer mandate had kicked in, and it has followed in the recent days since it officially kicked in on January 1.

This was just implemented. It will be amazing to see the evidence come in, should we not change the definition of full-time employment up to 40 hours, once people figure out that they are going to be paying a big old tax for not buying every single employee above that 30-hour threshold government-sanctioned health insurance.

More evidence: there are over 300 groups that have associated themselves with this legislation and ask that we pass it. Among those groups is the More Time for Full Time coalition, which includes such groups as the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, Indiana Grocery and Convenience Store Association, Indiana Restaurant & Lodging Association, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Grocers Association, the Michigan Lodging and Tourism Association, the Michigan Restaurant Association.

For more examples, I will enter this document into the Record.

More Time for Full Time,

January 6, 2015.

Hon. Mitch McConnell,

Senate Majority Leader,

Washington, DC.

Dear Leader McConnell: The More Time for Full-Time

Coalition (www.moretimefor

fulltime.org ) greatly appreciates your steadfast support for

restoring the traditional definition of full-time employee to

40 hours per week and urges you to move Senate consideration

of legislation to do so as early as possible in the 114th

Congress.

Many employees are being hurt by lost wages and hours

because the 30-hour-per-week definition in the Affordable

Care Act is forcing employers to restructure their workforce

by reducing their employees' hours to alleviate the burden of

compliance. Harmonizing the definition of full-time employee

in the ACA with the traditional 40-hour definition would

benefit both employees through more hours and income, and

employers now able to focus on growing their business and

creating jobs rather than restructuring their workforce.

In this is not addressed soon, our country will experience

significant workforce disruptions and individuals as well as

companies will lose valued workforce flexibility. We urge you

to work in a bipartisan way to restore the traditional

definition of full-time employment by changing the Affordable

Care Act's 30-hour-per-week definition.

Many Americans are drawn to part-time jobs with flexible

hours to suit their personal needs. Further, employers with

variable-hour workforces and flexible scheduling have been

appealing and critical for students, single parents, and

other individuals struggling to balance various obligations

and commitments. This critical flexibility will be lost if

employers are forced to abandon current practices in order to

avoid significant financial penalties.

Aligning the law's definition of full-time employee status

with current levels would help avoid any unnecessary

disruptions to employees' wages and hours, and would provide

significant relief.

Thank you for considering our concerns and for your

leadership in addressing a fundamental challenge employees

and businesses face in implementing this law.

Sincerely,

National Associations: American Hotel & Lodging

Association, American Rental Association, Asian American

Hotel Owners Association, Associated Builders and

Contractors, College & University Professional Association

for Human Resources, International Franchise Association,

National Association of Convenience Stores, National

Association of Manufacturers, National Association of Theatre

Owners, National Association of Truck Stop Operators,

National Club Association, National Council of Chain

Restaurants, National Grocers Association, National

Restaurant Association, National Retail Federation, Society

for Human Resource Management, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

State and Local Associations: Adirondack Regional Chamber

Commerce (NY), Alabama Grocers Association, Alabama

Restaurant & Hospitality Alliance, Alaska Chamber (AK),

Alaska Hotel & Lodging Association, Alaska Restaurant &

Hospitality Alliance, Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber (NY),

Alexander City Chamber of Commerce (AL), Ames Chamber of

Commerce (IA), Angel Fire Chamber of Commerce (NM), ARA of

Alabama, ARA of Arizona, ARA of Arkansas, ARA of California,

ARA of Colorado, ARA of Connecticut, ARA of Florida, ARA of

Georgia, ARA of Idaho, ARA of Illinois, ARA of Indiana, ARA

of Iowa, ARA of Kentucky, ARA of Louisiana, ARA of Maine, ARA

of Maryland, ARA of Massachusetts, ARA of Michigan, ARA of

Montana, ARA of Nebraska, ARA of New Jersey, ARA of New

York, ARA of North Carolina, ARA of Ohio, ARA of Oklahoma,

ARA of Oregon, ARA of Pennsylvania, ARA of Tennessee, ARA

of Vermont, ARA of Virginia;

ARA of Washington, ARA of Wisconsin, Arizona Food Marketing

Alliance, Arizona Lodging & Tourism Association, Arkansas

Grocers and Retail Merchants Association, Arkansas

Hospitality Association, Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce

(AK), Ashland Area Chamber of Commerce (OH), Associated

Industries of Massachusetts, Inc. (MA), Baltimore Washington

Corridor Chamber of Commerce (MD), Bangor Region Chamber of

Commerce (ME), Barrow County Chamber of Commerce (GA), Beaver

Dam Chamber of Commerce (WI), Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce

(FL), Brownsville Chamber of Commerce (TX), California

Grocers Association, California Hotel & Lodging Association,

California Restaurant Association, Campbell County Chamber of

Commerce (WY), Cape May County Chamber of Commerce (NJ);

Carolinas Food Industry Council, Catawba County Chamber of

Commerce (NC), Central Chamber of Commerce (LA), Central

Delaware Chamber of Commerce (DE), Chester County Chamber of

Business and Industry (PA), Clearwater Regional Chamber of

Commerce (FL), Cobb Chamber of Commerce (GA), Colorado Hotel

& Lodging Association, Colorado Restaurant Association,

Committee of 100 Louisiana (LA), Connecticut Food

Association, Connecticut Lodging Association, Corning Area

Chamber of Commerce (NY), Council Bluffs Area Chamber of

Commerce (IA), Dakota County Regional Chamber of Commerce

(MN), Delaware Restaurant Association, Delaware State Chamber

of Commerce (DE), Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce (CO), Des

Plaines Chamber of Commerce & Industry (IL), Dublin-Laurens

County Chamber of Commerce (GA);

Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce (VA), Florida Chamber of

Commerce (FL), Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, Fox

Cities Chamber of Commerce (WI), Fresno Chamber of Commerce

(CA), Fullerton Chamber of Commerce (CA), Galesburg Area

Chamber of Commerce (IL), Garrett County Chamber of Commerce

(MD), Georgia Food Industry Association, Georgia Hotel &

Lodging Association, Georgia Restaurant Association, Glendale

Chamber of Commerce (AZ), Goshen Chamber of Commerce (IN),

Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce (CO), Grand Rapids

Area Chamber of Commerce (MI), Grapevine Chamber of Commerce

(TX), Greater Burlington Partnership (IA), Greater Durham

Chamber of Commerce (NC), Greater Flagstaff Chamber of

Commerce (AZ), Greater Green Bay Chamber (WI);

Greater Louisville, Inc. (KY), Greater North Dakota Chamber

of Commerce (ND), Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce (AZ),

Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce (RI), Greater

Shreveport Chamber of Commerce (LA), Greater Springfield

Chamber of Commerce (VA), Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce

(KS), Greece Chamber of Commerce (NY), Hardy County Chamber

of Commerce (WV), Harford County Chamber (MD), Harlan County

Chamber of Commerce (KY), Harrisburg Regional Chamber & CREDC

(PA), Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association, Hotel Association

of New York City, Inc., Hotel Association of Washington DC,

Hueneme Chamber of Commerce (CA), Idaho Lodging & Restaurant

Association, Idaho Retailers Association, Illinois Chamber of

Commerce (IL), Illinois Food Retailers Association;

Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association, Illinois Restaurant

Association, Indiana Chamber of Commerce (IN), Indiana

Grocery and Convenience Store Association, Indiana Restaurant

& Lodging Association, Iowa Chamber Alliance (IA), Iowa

Chamber Alliance

(IA), Iowa Grocery Industry Association, Iowa Restaurant

Association, Irving Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (TX),

Jacksonville-Onslow Chamber of Commerce (NC), Jefferson

Chamber of Commerce (LA), Kansas Food Dealers Association,

Kansas Restaurant & Hospitality Association, Kentucky

Association of Convenience Stores, Kentucky Chamber of

Commerce (KY), Kentucky Grocers Association, Kentucky

Restaurant Association, Lemoore Chamber of Commerce (CA),

Licking County Chamber of Commerce (OH);

Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce (CA), Loudoun County

Chamber of Commerce (VA), Louisiana Association of Business

and Industry (LA), Louisiana Hotel & Lodging Association,

Louisiana Restaurant Association, Louisiana Retailers

Association, Lubbock Chamber of Commerce (TX), Maine

Innkeepers Association, Maine Restaurant Association, Maine

State Chamber of Commerce (ME), Marshall Area Chamber of

Commerce (MN), Maryland Chamber of Commerce (MD), Maryland

Hotel & Lodging Association, Maryland Retailers Association,

Massachusetts Food Association, Massachusetts Lodging

Association, Michigan Chamber of Commerce (MI), Michigan

Grocers Association, Michigan Lodging and Tourism

Association, Michigan Restaurant Association;

Mid-America Grocers Association, Mid-Atlantic Hispanic

Chamber of Commerce (MD), Minnesota Grocers Association,

Minnesota Lodging Association, Minnesota Rental Association,

Minnesota Restaurant Association, Miramar Pembroke Pines

Regional Chamber of Commerce (FL), Mississippi Hospitality

and Restaurant Association, Missouri Grocers Association,

Missouri Restaurant Association, Mobile (AL) Area Chamber

of Commerce, Monroe Chamber of Commerce (LA), Montana

Chamber of Commerce (MT), Montana Lodging & Hospitality

Association, Montana Manufacturing Council (MT),

Murphysboro Chamber of Commerce (IL), Myrtle Beach Area

Chamber of Commerce (SC), Nebraska Chamber of Commerce &

Industry (NE), Nebraska Grocery Industry Association,

Nebraska Hotel & Motel Association;

Nebraska Restaurant Association, Nevada Hotel & Lodging

Association, New Hampshire Equipment Rental Association, New

Hampshire Lodging & Restaurant Association, New Hampshire

Restaurant & Lodging Association, New Jersey Food Council,

New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce (NJ), New Mexico

Restaurant Association, New York Hospitality & Tourism

Association, New York State Food Merchants Association, New

York State Restaurant Association, Newberry County Chamber of

Commerce (SC), Nome Chamber of Commerce (AK), North Carolina

Chamber (NC), North Carolina Restaurant & Lodging

Association, North Carolina Retail Merchants Association,

North Country Chamber of Commerce (NY), North Dakota Grocers

Association, North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce (SC),

North Shore Chamber of Commerce (MA);

Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce (KY), Ohio Chamber of

Commerce (OH), Ohio Grocers Association, Ohio Hotel & Lodging

Association, Ohio Restaurant Association, Oklahoma Grocers

Association, Oklahoma Hotel & Lodging Association, Oklahoma

Restaurant Association, Orange County Business Council (CA),

Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association, Oshkosh Chamber of

Commerce (WI), Overland Park Chamber of Commerce (KS), Oxnard

Chamber of Commerce (CA), Ozark Empire Grocers Association,

Palm Desert Area Chamber of Commerce (CA), PennSuburban

Chamber of Greater Montgomery County (PA), Pennsylvania

Chamber of Business and Industry (PA), Pennsylvania Food

Merchants Association, Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging

Association, Portland Chamber of Commerce (TX);

Rathdrum Chamber of Commerce (ID), Rensselaer County

Regional Chamber of Commerce (NY), Retail Grocers of Greater

Kansas City, Rhode Island Hospitality Association, Rochester

Business Alliance (NY), Rocky Mountain Food Industry

Association (CO/WY), Rome Area Chamber of Commerce (NY),

Roseburg Area Chamber of Commerce (OR), Rowan County

Chamber of Commerce (NC), Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce

(UT), Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce & Convention--

Visitor's Bureau (CA), Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of

Commerce (CA), Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce (PA), Simi

Valley Chamber of Commerce (CA), South Baldwin Chamber of

Commerce (AL), South Carolina Restaurant & Lodging

Association, South Carolina Retail Association, South

Dakota Retailers Association Restaurant Division, South

Padre Island Chamber of Commerce (TX), Springfield Area

Chamber of Commerce (MO);

State Chamber of Oklahoma (OK), Tempe Chamber of Commerce

(AZ), Tennessee Grocers & Convenience Store Association,

Tennessee Hospitality Association, Texas Association of

Business (TX), Texas Food & Fuel Association, Texas Hotel &

Lodging Association, Texas Rental Association, Texas

Restaurant Association, Texas Retailers Association, The

Business Council of New York State, Inc. (NY), The Chamber of

Reno, Sparks, and Northern Nevada (NV), The Greater Cedar

Valley Alliance & Chamber (IA), The Greater Hartsville

Chamber of Commerce (SC), Thibodaux Chamber of Commerce (LA),

Tucson Metro Chamber (AZ), Upper Tampa Bay Chamber of

Commerce (FL), Utah Food Industry Association, Utah Hotel &

Lodging Association, Utah Retail Merchants Association;

Valley Industry & Commerce Association (CA), Vermont

Chamber of Commerce, Vermont Retail and Grocers Association,

Virginia Chamber of Commerce (VA), Virginia Hospitality &

Travel Association, Virginia Hospitality & Travel

Association, Virginia Retail Merchants Association,

Washington Food Industry Association, Washington Lodging

Association, West Chambers County Chamber of Commerce (TX),

West Virginia Chamber of Commerce (WV), West Virginia

Hospitality & Travel Association, West Virginia Oil Marketers

and Grocers Association, Western DuPage Chamber of Commerce

(IL), Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce (KS), Wilsonville

Area Chamber of Commerce (OR), Wisconsin Grocers Association,

Wisconsin Hotel & Lodging Association, Wisconsin

Manufacturers and Commerce (WI), Wisconsin Restaurant

Association, Wyoming Lodging & Restaurant Association,

Wyoming Restaurant & Lodging Association, Yuba-Sutter Chamber

of Commerce (CA).

Why wait? We know we are headed off a cliff here. This is a fiscally irresponsible provision within the Affordable Care Act. Who would imagine that we would try to insure 500,000 additional new workers at the expense of up to $105 billion in cash wages? It is unfair. We ought not try to finance health insurance for some Americans at the cost of hours and wages for other Americans.

And finally, the Save American Workers Act will remedy these defects in the current law, resulting in zero workers who work 40 or more hours being put at risk of a possible massive cut in their hours and wages down to 29 hours. And it will enable those who work 30 to 35 hours to no longer be at risk of cuts in their much-needed hours and wages.

For those reasons and so many others, I just encourage my colleagues to have an open mind here and work with us for the good of the country to improve our Nation's health care laws.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate it very much. Like my colleague before me, I am grateful for the opportunity to be here on the floor to speak about issues that are of concern to the American people.

My colleague from California (Mr. LaMalfa) is joining me for a short period of time, and I would like to give him the opportunity to speak for a few minutes. I believe that he has some important things to say, and I would like him to share those.

I now yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, Mr. LaMalfa from California. I have heard him often speak on the floor. I have invited him several times to speak and do 1-minute speeches because I am the person in charge of getting people to the floor. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to hear him speak in a little longer time because I found out how much we agree on issues.

I am particularly keen about the water issue that he spent some time talking about. I grew up in a house with no electricity and no running water. I grew up carrying water. Water has always been a precious, precious commodity to me.

We are the most fortunate people in the world in the United States that we

have the greatest resources available to us. Many times I think we don't appreciate the scarcity of some of those resources or the need to husband those resources in a way that protects them not only for ourselves but for future generations.

I have always felt that people who are farmers are among the most eloquent speakers for our environment. As Mr. LaMalfa said--and I completely agree with him and said it many times myself--farmers are the best stewards of our land. They believe in sustainability. They believed in sustainability long before sustainability became a catchword in the community because if they didn't keep the land sustainable, then they wouldn't have the land in order for their own livelihood.

I am a person who also grew up farming, sometimes on a very small scale. My husband and I still have a garden every year. We certainly understand the importance of taking care of all of our resources, but particularly our natural resources. I think so often Republicans don't get the credit that they deserve for being good stewards and for looking after our land and all of our resources.

I also am very keen on the fact that we have a diversity of people serving in Congress. Again, I think it is very important that we have people from all walks of life serving in here because it is the diversity of experiences that are so important to us in terms of having the different points of view as we consider legislation, so that there are people who grew up in cities who have no idea what it is like to farm, have no idea where food comes from exactly, and it is important for us to get the different points of view. We need farmers, we need educators, we do need some lawyers, but we need people who have had all kinds of experiences. We need people who have driven trains, train engineers. But every kind of diversity that is at all possible here. I think it is very important, though, that we have particularly a large share of farmers. Our numbers of farmers have gone down over the years, obviously, as we have left the farm and as farmers have become so incredibly productive in this country. They provide so much more than they have in the past. So I really appreciate the eloquence of my colleague from California in presenting the issues that he has presented.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the other things that he talked about. He talked about our need for jobs and for, again, maintaining what we can in this country, improving the economy. I want to talk about the three focuses that we in the majority have in this session of Congress, the three initiatives that we are going to be working on: energy, jobs and the economy, and regulatory reform.

This week already we have already passed two bills that we think will help us with the creation of jobs and the economy. On our first day here on Tuesday, it got very little attention, but we passed a bill, the Jobs for Heroes Act. The idea for it came from a constituent of one of our colleagues from Illinois. The constituent said: Look, I was a veteran, couldn't get a job because the employer was concerned about going over the 50 limit, or hitting the limit of 50, which then his company would be subject to ObamaCare, and companies are avoiding being subject to ObamaCare.

So we passed a bill introduced by Congressman Rodney Davis that said veterans don't have to be included in the 50 persons in a business requirement and then be forced to go into ObamaCare; that if they are covered by TRICARE then they don't have to do that. That is a positive bill to help create jobs.

Today, we passed another bill that we think will help with employment in this country. As many people know, ObamaCare has told employers if people are working 30 hours or more then you have to cover them with ObamaCare. So we changed the definition of full-time employment from 30 hours to restore the traditional 40-hour workweek. As I have said in other comments that I have made, from adjunct professors to hourly workers, I have heard from constituents all across North Carolina's Fifth District who have one thing in common: their work hours are being reduced. ObamaCare has placed an undue burden on employers and their employees by undermining the traditional 40-hour workweek, which has long been the standard for full-time work.

This legislation will help protect the estimated 2.6 million Americans at risk for lost hours and wages at work under this destructive rule. The employer mandate in ObamaCare defines a full-time employee as someone who works an average of at least 30 hours a week. But H.R. 30, the Save American Workers Act, which passed the House today by a vote of 252-172, changes that definition, and that is a good thing for American workers.

As I said, we have three big initiatives: energy, jobs and the economy, and regulatory reform. So the American people are going to see us passing bills all this year and next year focused on these three issues, in addition to the other things that we work on. We work on a plethora of subjects here.

But I introduced a bill on the first day which will help us deal with regulatory reform. It is a bill I am proud to say has passed the House before with bipartisan support. I am very proud to say that when I introduced the bill on Tuesday, it had bipartisan original cosponsors. I am very pleased that Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, from Mr. LaMalfa's State of California, joined me in introducing legislation to shed light on how Federal policies impact the budgets of State and local governments and private sector employers.

The bill is called the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act--H.R. 50--and it would fix loopholes within the bipartisan regulatory reform act, known as UMRA, which passed in 1995. I introduced this legislation in the past four Congresses, and it has successfully passed the House with bipartisan support on three separate occasions.

Every year, Washington imposes thousands of rules on local governments and small businesses. Hidden in those rules are costly mandates that stretch State and city budgets and make it harder for North Carolina businesses to hire. While Congress cannot create prosperity, we can work to ensure entrepreneurs and employers aren't crushed under costly regulations. This legislation will help restore transparency and hold Washington bureaucrats accountable for the true cost in dollars and in jobs that Federal dictates pose to the economy. Americans are better served when regulators are required to measure and consider the cost of rules they create.

The bill ``increases transparency in the regulatory process and protects State and local governments from the burden of unfunded and often unnecessary mandates that waste time and money,'' is what my colleague Loretta Sanchez said. H.R. 50 would increase transparency about the cost imposed by unfunded mandates and holds the Federal Government accountable for considering those costs before passing them on to local governments and small businesses. The legislation would make it easier for people to determine how much these regulations are going to cost and make sure that we are not imposing unnecessary rules and regulations on both State and local governments and the private sector. So I am very pleased that that bill has passed. It is going to be a part of the regulatory reform package that passes this House.

I encourage people watching this to contact your Member of Congress if you are aware of unnecessary rules and regulations that are out there that we could do something about. Obviously, we need rules and regulations. We want to make sure that we have safe food, that the airlines are flying correctly and safely, we want to make sure the railroads are operating safely, we want to make sure our cars are safe to drive in.

But as we all know, often bureaucrats in Washington, and sometimes at the State and local level, look for ways to create jobs for themselves, create a reason for their being, and pass along rules and regulations that are simply unnecessary for the health and safety of the people in this country.

So what we want to do is reduce those rules and regulations. That reduces cost, that helps with our emphasis on jobs and the economy. I believe that is going to be very important to us in getting our economy going again.

As I mentioned, we are going to be working hard on our third initiative: energy. We will be passing another

version of the Keystone XL pipeline. We will do that tomorrow. That bill will then go to the Senate. The Senate is already holding hearings on the bill, but the Senate does work a little bit slower than we do here in the House. We hope very much that the President will work with us in a bipartisan fashion and sign that bill.

We are all very happy about the cost of gasoline having gone down in our country in the past few months. It, of course, doubled under President Obama, and now it is coming back down. It is because in many cases we have been able in the private sector to create more energy supply, and that's been helping bring down the cost. We know that the economies in Europe and Asia have slowed down considerably so there is less demand. We are all very grateful for the price of gasoline going down. I am very grateful for it. Every Member of Congress is very grateful.

So what we hope is to help that cause even further by passing the Keystone XL pipeline and have more energy available in this country. We want to do everything we possibly can. Republicans have always believed in all of the above. As Mr. LaMalfa said, we want solar, wind, and all those other things, but they are primarily operating now because of giant government subsidies. What we would like to see is renewable and sustainable energy that doesn't require government subsidies, and we believe Keystone XL pipeline will help us along those lines.

I am looking forward very much to our passing that legislation, the Senate passing that legislation, and our being able to send that bill to the President for his signature. I am hoping that he will sign it.

I oftentimes get people quoting the Constitution to me and talking about what the Constitution says. Particularly, I hear from people a lot about the role of the House of Representatives. I want to talk a little bit about that in terms of our work in appropriations.

In particularly the last few weeks, many people have expressed genuine concerns to me about the appropriations bill that passed Congress in December. Unfortunately, many Washington-based special interest groups are confusing the matter of what happened in December with the omnibus bill that we passed with incomplete and sometimes, frankly, false messages aimed more at fundraising for themselves than uniting behind our shared goal of stopping President Obama's executive overreach on immigration.

One of the most misleading and commonly circulated suggestions is that the Constitution grants the House of Representatives alone the ``power of the purse,'' or giving the House exclusive authority to withhold funding for targeted initiatives.

I am going to be reading a part of the Constitution in a moment that relates to this, but I want to read another part of the Constitution that I think often gets misquoted to prove this example.

We often hear the quote from the First Amendment, ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.''

This comes oftentimes from groups who protest Ten Commandments being placed in public buildings or creches being placed on public land. They often quote that, but they usually forget to quote the second part of that sentence, which says ``or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.''

Congress has a dual responsibility there. It is the same when people, I believe, are attempting to quote the Constitution when it comes to their version of what they call the power of the purse.

As I said, they are, I believe, misconstruing a part of the Constitution. Specifically, it is article I, section 7, clause 1, of the Constitution which states, ``All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.''

I believe many well-meaning people believe that that means the House of Representatives has total control over what happens with appropriations, but they have forgotten that there is another phrase there, and it is ``but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.''

While the House may pass an appropriations bill, it still has to go to the Senate for the Senate to pass. As we all learned in civics, the bill has to pass the House and pass the Senate in exactly the same form and be signed by the President in exactly the same form.

There is another clause that people are often thinking about also. Article I, section 9, clause 7 states, ``No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.''

Those two are often talked about as power of the purse, meaning that is what people are talking about when they talk about power of the purse. As I said, all bills, including the appropriations bills that pass the House, must also pass the Senate and be signed by the President in the exact same form.

What happened, particularly last year, is the Democrat-controlled Senate could reject a House-passed bill. It could pass liberal amendments and return it to the House, forcing the House either to accept a worsened product or risk a Federal Government shutdown, which would still not stop the President's executive overreach.

What we did last December was pass a bill that would fund the rest of the government, except for the Department of Homeland Security, in a negotiation with the Senate because we needed to not shut down the government. Most of what was in that bill had already been passed by the House.

We passed seven appropriations bills and sent them to the Senate, but the Senate had refused to act. We had also passed four more appropriations bills out of committee, but hadn't taken them up on the floor because they take so many hours to pass, and once the Senate made it clear they wouldn't take any of our appropriations bills, we thought we shouldn't waste additional time.

While H.R. 83 was not a perfect bill, we are all faced here with making decisions on what is presented to us rather than what we would like to be presented. We did have a lot of conservative victories in H.R. 83. It continued our track record of cutting wasteful discretionary spending by $165 billion since FY 2010, but it is no small achievement that the Republican-led House has been able to implement overall spending cuts to save taxpayers more than $2 trillion over the next 10 years since taking the majority 4 years ago. Certainly, we want to do more, but we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

We cut back spending to the Internal Revenue Service to pre-2008 funding levels. We blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating farm ponds and ditches. There was no new funding for ObamaCare, and a host of pro-life and conservative, pro-gun policy ``riders'' were protected in that bill also.

House Republicans have worked extremely hard in the past 4 years to stop President Obama and the Senate Democrats from furthering the damage they did to this country when they and Nancy Pelosi were in control.

In fact, Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren both stridently opposed that legislation. However, unfortunately, when people focus on the perfect instead of the good, they don't give credit to us, and we were criticized by the liberal media and the conservative media.

Despite the short time we have had, the obstacles we faced, and the enormity of our task, House Republicans have still managed a number of conservative victories. Last summer, a bill I authored was passed. It streamlined the Federal workforce development system, including the elimination of 15 duplicative programs.

I would have liked to have eliminated more than that, but again, we take the victories that we can get. It is like being on a football team. You get the ball, and you look down field, and you think, ``Gosh, I can't score a touchdown,'' so I just sit down because I can't score a touchdown.

No, that is not what the receiver does. The receiver says, ``If I can make a few yards, if I can make a yard, I'm moving in the right direction.'' That is what Republicans have been doing for the past 4 years, moving us in the right direction.

Occasionally, we are going to score a touchdown, but if we are moving in the right direction totally, then we are going to win this game, and that is what we are doing. We wish we could

have done more, but we are going to have greater opportunities over the next 2 years with the Republican-led House and Senate.

This 114th Congress offers us new chances to pass legislation that will lead our country down a road of economic recovery. We are going to work to reduce the size and scope of the Federal Government, protect against executive overreach, reform Federal spending, and keep America strong.

This is America's Congress, and we are going to be addressing the American people's greatest priority in the 114th Congress. We are going to work hard to build a better future for American families. I believe we will accomplish that.

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

I appreciate it. Thank you to my colleague from North

Carolina. You are very gracious in yielding to me, and it has been a pleasure to work with you.

Mr. Speaker, I thank those assembled here tonight. I just want to talk a little bit about some of the issues we have going on in the West, in northern California.

First of all, the excitement we have of coming in--it is a new Congress, it is a new direction for our country, I think. We have a stronger majority in the House of Representatives, of the Republican House. As well, it is a different majority over in the Senate. A lot of people aren't too concerned with what party it is or what partisan issues are; they want to see results. That is what I am looking for as well.

Many bills were sent out of the House last session and languished on a desk over on the Senate side, and I think we will now see action on those commonsense measures that are going to help jobs in America, help our economy rebound, and help people get out from under the grip of government power and government regulation that is just killing their hopes and killing their ideals.

We are looking for that in this new session, and we expect we will be held accountable to make that happen. It is not going to be a miracle. We are not going to get all the results we hoped for, but at least there are going to be things on the Record now that have gone through this House and have gone to the Senate that will be showing the American people what our agenda is and what it has been about.

Bringing it back home to California, I represent the First District in the northeast portion of the State. It is a beautiful district. I am very proud to have been elected for a second time to represent the First District. It is an area that has a lot of great resources that benefit our whole State, even our whole country.

To be able to have my family here with me in Washington attending the festivities, the honor of being sworn in and getting started, getting a fast start, going to work here in this new 114th has just been a real delight.

What we need to be happening in California is a better and wiser use of our resources. You may have seen, at the end of the last session, we were working towards better management of our water supply. Now, we have a deluge of rain once in a while, even when we are suffering drought for the last few years in California.

The water seems to all come at once. If it isn't being saved in snowpack, it will come quickly via rain through our streams, and that is an opportunity for us that we should be retaining that behind the dam, so that we have as well the water that gets down the Feather River and the Sacramento River and can be transferred and put somewhere to be used later.

We have the ability to have the water allocated as needed for fish, for habitat, but there is excess water that needs to be stored. I don't know why that isn't the automatic protocol, but Congress--a bill I cosponsored with many of my other colleagues put forward reminding the Bureau of Reclamation and others that they need to retain this extra water.

It isn't needed for fish, and it isn't needed for the normal runs, so we will have more stored later.

That is what we will continue to work for. But I still go back to the vision that people before us had that have given us Shasta Dam, Lake Oroville, and the whole State water project and the Central Valley project that we have in our State that we have benefited from for so many years, that everybody benefits from, whether you are an environmentalist, a farmer, a person who lives in a city, or if you just have a tap in the country. If you are not on a well, you are probably benefiting from these projects because we had the vision in the past to build them and we didn't have nearly the roadblocks.

Now, of course, we have great environmental concerns and environmental awareness to do things better than we did in the 1850s or the 1880s or what have you. We know how to do these things. But it doesn't mean that, because of a handful of people who don't want to see things happen, we stop the progress for all the rest of us.

So that is what we will be pushing for in this new Congress, to build more water storage. We can do that in northern California. Sites Reservoir, and there are other projects that can be enhanced to retain more water, and there are smarter ways to keep the water that we do have to make the water go further because it is necessary. The way California is suffering from droughts, agricultural land is going to be the first thing to go. Any time an emergency can be declared to switch whatever water does get to agriculture to meet other needs around the State, we have to take care of people first and we have to take care of cities, but when we see so much being run out through the Golden Gate that could be saved, or for questionable tactics on fish that really haven't been proven for that kind of habitat, then we are missing the mark.

So we will be working very hard to add to our water storage and to be smarter with the water we have available to us because we can't count on a record rainfall this year. We are very thankful and we have been blessed with good rainfall in November and the early part of December, but it has tailed off lately. We will need record rainfall the rest of the season up through the spring to have the kind of water we need to get through a good crop year. In the meantime, we should be doing everything possible in government to enhance, to retain, to be smarter with the water we have.

When we hear ideas of removing dams in the north part of the State, part of my district, that produce hydroelectric power because of dubious studies that might benefit fish, we are hurting our region of the State. We are hurting our grid by taking enough renewable electricity off the grid that would somehow need to be replaced with other green power to manage 70,000 homes in the State because of dubious lack of science. We need to battle through this and have smarter use of our resources.

Another thing that we are very rich in in our part of the State is timber. Each summer we see the crisis of nonmanagement of our timber and what that looks like. It is in the air. It is in our brown skies. We get to breathe that. The people within those communities are wondering why their mills are shut down and why their storefronts are boarded up and why they don't have jobs and why they have things like domestic violence increasing because people don't have work in those communities sometimes because their industry has been taken away from them.

I sit on the Natural Resources Committee to get after both of these and other issues--our water, our timber use, and other resources--that are so necessary to the rural part of the State, the rural West that has been languishing for many years, ever since the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, for good reason at the time, to save the bald eagle. We have bald eagles in our rice fields where I live at home. But we have gone so far beyond that rural America is suffering from this type of regulation that it isn't even proven to help recover a single species. Indeed, somewhere around 1 percent, at best, of species have been recovered after 40-plus years of the Endangered Species Act. That is pretty deplorable for what the cost has been to the people, to the jobs, and for the communities and their values.

But I am still optimistic that America is turning the corner and seeing things a little bit differently and that the job needs to come back home. And the jobs at home need to be revived once again. As a grower of grain myself, we look at our alternatives. Do we want to be in a situation where in the past we were dependent on oil from people who don't like us much? Do we want to be in a position to have our grain crops, the breadbasket of our Nation, do we want to become more dependent on that from people who maybe aren't always a reliable ally overseas? Wheat from Russia and rice from China, do we want to rely on that, or do we want to do the best we can?

My fellow farmers across the country and in my area, they are good stewards of the land. Many have been there for many, many generations. Some of the ranchers I know, their families have been farming and ranching for 160 years in northern California, my own family 80-plus years. We know how to take care of the land. We know what needs to be done. It is sustainable, to

use that buzz word that goes around a lot these days. If it wasn't sustainable, the land wouldn't still produce.

So this is the type of thing we are fighting for. If we don't have a breadbasket in this country, what will America rely on to keep us fed? With the unrest we have in the world, ultimately, if we can't fuel our own Armies if it becomes necessary, what kind of position will we be in to defend ourselves or our allies, like in Europe, like in Israel, like in Japan, or others we have great relations and great trade with? We are in great peril right now if we keep our head in the sand on these issues. We need to look at the resources we have.

As I look at the young people in the audience tonight, one of the first things that I am reminded of is that we are running an $18 trillion national debt. We have lived for the future in the present on someone else's money. And so every dollar we have, every dollar that comes in, we have to be good stewards of, much better than in the past. So every dollar has to go for the type of infrastructure that will improve our transportation system, our water system, our flood control system, and keep our communities safe, and not on frivolous things.

I am reminded in California, instead of this water infrastructure that we so desperately need, we have had several years of drought to remind us, they are still pursuing a high-speed rail system in California. As a former State legislator, we were right in the middle of that as it was coming to a head. What will the rail cost? Voters were told then $33 billion to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles at 220 miles per hour. It isn't even close to being that project anymore, and the price has tripled, at least. It has gone from $33 billion to at least $98 billion by the admission of the rail authority in a hearing we had in the State legislature back then. They are still chasing this dream. Now they have tried to downsize it to be a $68 billion project. To this day, right now, they have still only identified $13 billion-- $10 billion from the State bond and $3 billion from the Federal Government via the Stimulus Act of 2009. So $13 billion of a needed and downsized $68 billion project. They are $55 billion short, and they still think today they are going to go find that money. From the private sector, they are staying away in droves.

There is no way that it is going to be built anywhere near on time, anywhere near on any kind of budget, or that the riders they would have will ever be able to afford to ride it. Why don't we take a fraction of that money, of the $13 billion or the $68 billion, or whatever number it is, and put it towards the water storage we need?

We could build two really nice dams with $68 billion, especially with private sector money that wants to come in and be a partner on this. Let's get it done, because this is the infrastructure that will help our State and help the people and help bring jobs back to rural California and rural America.

I am looking for help from my other colleagues from other States, especially other Western States that have water infrastructure needs they are looking at themselves. Let's work together on this. That is what made us great back in the day.

We have had these huge projects that have made so much hydroelectric power. We like green power. We like renewable power. When it rains behind a dam, you have renewable power and it is reliable. And it is low cost, much more so than windmills and solar panels that require government assistance to put them in and keep them going. Let's do the right thing here and allow these things to happen, all that private sector to happen.

I am optimistic in this Congress that we can make that case and put it in front of the American people. I ask the President to join with us and help on that, whether it is that or the further development of energy that we need in this country to stay ahead of the curve. We are seeing prices coming down, amazingly. Hydraulic fracturing has played a big part in us seeing the price of fuel in some areas--not in California, but other States going below $2 a gallon. In California, we are still taxing ourselves and thinking up cap-and-trade measures to drive the cost up so we will be our own island of high costs. But the other 49 States, God bless you, you have it pretty good.

The vision that we have had to do these things is what we need desperately going forward in 2015 because when we are productive, like what we can produce in northern California with agriculture, with timber, with our mine resources, all of the other things that come from the land, that sets the table for everything else across our district and across our State and across the whole country. That puts us back to work again.

We have trillions of dollars offshore that would love to be repatriated back to this country if we had any kind of constant as to what the tax burden would be for those dollars, for those businesses and investment that needs to be here, any kind of consistency for what our regulatory burden would be so they could predict. If they are to put 30-year loans and 30-year infrastructure in place, will they be able to do business 5 years from now? We would be bringing American jobs back if we could repatriate that money back here. So let's get it done.

We don't come here in Congress--at least I haven't--because it is nice to wear a suit and tie. We come here to get results. To be results oriented, we need to use real facts, real figures, real budgets, real numbers to get to the core of what we are supposed to be doing as to what the Founders had set for our government. The government is doing a lot more things it has no business doing and it can't do well. Let's make sure that we are doing and we have the economy, we have the engineering to generate so we have a functioning school system, it has the funding it needs at fair and proper levels; for our law enforcement, so they are not left wanting for the equipment and backup they need; and for the folks deployed overseas defending our borders as well as helping our allies. We shouldn't leave them wanting while they are deployed; and certainly with the mess that the VA system is, when they come back home, the promises made to them are broken and the shame that we should all feel when our veterans, so many are left homeless or simply begging to have their claims processed.

I am confident in this new Congress that the House and the Senate can work together and put these ideas forward. We can put them out in front of the American people, have the accountability, have the oversight that our job demands. We will get there.

So whether it is now or 2 years from now, I challenge the President to look at these things from a commonsense way of thinking. Think about America first. That is what we will be doing in this House and over in the Senate.

So from northern California to the rest of the country, help us all to be productive and to live the lives we choose to give our kids a chance to live at home, to find jobs and opportunities in their own communities--farming, ranching, mining, whatever it is, or related industries in those small towns that so many are boarded up now. Let them have that chance to live at home, not have to go someplace else, go to a big city somewhere, a different State, or even overseas to try to find good employment so they would have the dream they see fit and the one that their parents would like to pass along to them.

My colleague from North Carolina, I appreciate the time tonight and the opportunity to talk about my district and the things we need to do there, as well as what we need to do for our country. I bid you a good evening, and thank you.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule and both of the underlying bills. Let's talk a little bit about how these bills got before us, what the process of this body is, as well as the content of these two bills.

I ask my colleague from Texas: Did either of these bills go through committee here in this 114th Congress, this new Congress?

I am happy to yield to the gentleman.

Let's talk a little bit about what that means. The Rules Committee is not the committee of jurisdiction for these bills. Now, that sounds complicated, but what does that mean? We have specialists here in Congress, specialized staff, Members who really roll up their sleeves and get to know about natural resources: what is this pipeline, what does it do about health care. They know far more than I might know or Mr. Burgess might know or you might know, Madam Speaker, on a particular topic. We all try to learn about those in our committees.

The Rules Committee simply packages these bills for the floor. All the Rules Committee did yesterday was say no one can amend these bills. That is this rule that is before us. The Rules Committee simply said: These bills--which nobody who has any expertise actually got to vote on in committee, they just appeared--the Rules Committee said--and, by the way, no Republican or Democrat can even try to improve these bills, even Republicans and Democrats who serve on the committees of jurisdiction.

Now, we are supposed to have something called regular order around here. What does that mean? It means a bill, somebody has an idea. Let's have an idea: 40 hours, 30 hours--let's have an idea. Let's talk about whether this pipeline should be built or where it should be built. Okay. Well, that goes to a committee, which has Democrats and Republicans on it. They have the chance to amend that bill, to change that bill. They report out that bill.

Then it is supposed to go to the Rules Committee, and the Rules Committee hopefully will say: By the way, we want other good ideas from other Members of Congress that aren't on that committee. Let's allow a discussion on this amendment and that amendment. Mr. Courtney had a great amendment that he offered yesterday. Rules Committee said: No, we can't even vote on it here on the floor of the House. It doesn't mean it will pass, but it means that Members have the opportunity to offer new ideas to improve legislation.

Well, guess what? Guess what, Madam Speaker? This bill didn't have any hearing or markup in any of the committees of jurisdiction--neither of them: Energy and Commerce, Natural Resources, Transportation--all bypassed for this bill that then went directly to Rules Committee. And the Rules Committee said: By the way, nobody can change these bills that no committee has even looked at.

So that is how we got to where we are today. That is the wrong process. A vote against this rule today is a vote for regular order, a vote for making sure that Members of this body--Democrats and Republicans--both on the committees of jurisdiction and in the general body can have their say on bills. That is why it is so important to defeat this very first rule here today.

Because if this passes, it is very dangerous. It can become the precedent for all the bills this Congress. This starts with an innocuous bill. This is the 50th-something repeal of ObamaCare. I don't know how many times the Keystone pipeline has been passed. So it seems innocuous. I am not for the policies. We will talk about them in a minute. Some people are. There is nothing new under the Earth here. We have seen these are in different forms, different versions, but they haven't passed through committee.

But the procedure here is saying: Guess what? No committee of jurisdiction can look at these bills. Rules Committee is not going to allow any amendments from Democrats or Republicans. If this rule passes, that has the danger of becoming the precedent for this entire Congress. The committees of jurisdiction will be avoided and overruled and gone around, and Members will have no opportunity to even offer their ideas here on the floor of the House to improve bills.

Now, let's talk a little bit about the content of these two bills before us today.

First, the so-called Save American Workers Act. Mr. Burgess says that it changes labor law in this country, somehow defines full-time workers and full-time work, and that is simply not what it does. It simply addresses the benefits and whom companies will need to provide benefits to.

And, frankly, if this bill were to be the law, a company could very easily say: By the way, Mr. or Ms. full-time worker who works 40 hours a week, you now get off Friday at 4 o'clock. Sorry, you are 39 hours a week, you don't get any health care. And they are going to do it. That is why some companies want this to pass. Most companies provide benefits to all their employees, and it is not an issue.

But the folks that might be lobbying Members of Congress about it, of course that is their intention. They want to cut people from 40 hours a

week to 39 hours a week and not give them health care benefits. Ask them questions, Democrats or Republicans. If you are thinking of voting for this, ask them why they want it. That is why, of course, they want this bill. Right now, they would have to cut them all the way down to 30 hours, which is a much more complicated endeavor, because they probably would have to add new employees and have to manage that from an HR perspective. It is probably just worth it to let people continue working 40 hours and give them their benefits.

But if this very dangerous provision were to become law, many, many Americans would find themselves cut from 40 to 39 hours, 39\1/2\ hours, go home at 4:30 on Friday. Sorry, no health care. Sorry, no health care.

Now, look, if there is a real discussion about how to improve health care in this country, Democrats and Republicans, we are happy to be part of that. Let's talk about what health care should look like. When we have an idea to change something, to remove part of the Affordable Care Act, let's talk about what replaces it. This is simply a bad idea. It is a disincentive for companies to even provide health care to their employees.

Not only that, it is a deficit buster. It increases the deficit by $53 billion. Is the first bill that we are looking to pass under a rule a bill that didn't even come through a committee, that no Member of Congress can even offer a pay-for on? If we allowed an open rule here, I would love to offer a pay-for for that. How are we going to pay for this $53 billion that this costs?

If you want to do this bad policy, that is one thing. I don't think we should do it. But if you want to do this policy and risk having companies cut their employees from 40 hours to 39 hours, if it is going to cost $53 billion, I want to know how we are going to pay for it. I don't think that we should go to our Federal deficit and debt and leave that to the next generation to pay for. How many times does Congress do that? Oh, we will just have somebody else pay for it. Our kids will pay for it, our grandkids will pay for it. That is exactly what is going to happen with this bill, like so many others.

Several third-party economic analyses have found that five times as many employees would be at risk of having their hours reduced to part- time status under this bill than under current law. That is right. Five times as many are at risk of being cut from 40 to 39 hours than are currently at risk of being cut from 40 to 30 hours. Oh, so endanger the benefits of more employees--that is exactly what this bill does.

This bill is no way to create jobs. It is a way to prevent many Americans from having the health care through their employer that they already enjoy, forcing them to get taxpayer subsidized health care through the exchange instead.

That is why it costs money. That is what the $53 billion is. It is a fact that what Republicans are saying is: Sorry, I don't think you should pay for your own health care. I think taxpayers should pay for it. They are trying to force you and me to pay for your health care, rather than getting your own health care, paying your employees' share.

It is simply bad for the country, bad for the deficit, bad for the next generation, and as I said, just as importantly, a bad precedent for the way that this Congress works.

Let's talk about the Keystone pipeline. This is really a phantom pipeline because yesterday in committee I asked, ``Does anybody actually want to finance or build this pipeline?'' I haven't seen any evidence that there is, at the current rate of oil.

Mr. Burgess, have you heard? Yesterday, I asked in committee if anybody had any evidence that could go out on the floor that anybody wanted to pay for or build this pipeline. Have you had the opportunity to hear if anybody wants to build a pipeline?

I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, if it exists already, I don't know why you are passing this bill. The truth is it does not exist to move the oil from the tar sands of Canada to our ports for export. That is what we are talking about here.

As far as I can tell, there is nobody who wants to pay to build it because it doesn't make economic sense with oil at $52 a barrel. It might be a different discussion when oil is $110, $100, or even $90 a barrel.

We had statistics that about 90 percent of the tar sands production requires oil at $75 a barrel and about 100 percent of it requires oil at $65 a barrel. When oil is about $52 a barrel, nobody is going to pay for this pipeline.

It is a phantom pipeline. We are talking about issues that might have made sense to talk about if somebody actually wanted to do this pipeline, but before we waste the deliberative efforts of this body on a topic like this, we would like to see some evidence that somebody actually wants to build a pipeline there in the first place, not to mention that the other reason it is a phantom is nobody knows what the routing is going to be.

It is still in flux. There is a lawsuit. Where is the final routing going to be? Not only are there serious doubts about who will finance the pipeline, but in addition, we don't even know where it is going to be.

By the way, the costs of the pipeline have gone up. Transcorp says the pipeline will cost $8 billion--up from their estimates of $5.4 billion just a couple of years ago--not to mention that we are being asked to approve a pipeline that we don't even know the final routing of.

Again, as one of the very first bills that bypasses committee, that nobody can amend here on the floor, we are asked to encourage employers to cut their employees from 40 hours to 39 hours, so they can eliminate their benefits and force taxpayers to pay for it to the tune of $53 billion over 10 years.

We are being asked to approve a phantom pipeline that nobody wants to pay for and nobody knows where it is going to go. What a way to start a Congress. Let's do better. Let's defeat this rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) who, by the way, had an idea to try to improve one of these bills, and his idea is not even allowed to be discussed or debated or voted on here on the floor of the House.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

(Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes and 15 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer) for his very first speech here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

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

So here we are, Mr. Speaker. We have two bills that didn't go through any committee and that no Member of this body, Democrat or Republican, had a chance to amend. They went to the Rules Committee. No Members are allowed to amend them on the floor of the House, and they have to vote for them.

One of those bills is for a phantom pipeline. We don't even know if anybody wants to build it, and we don't know where it is going to go. We don't even know whether this right of eminent domain might be given to a private company over this so that a company can condemn private property of a private landowner's and take it away. Those are some of the things that are being fought out in court and in law in States like Nebraska. Without even knowing where it is going to go or if anybody wants to pay for it or build it, somehow we are engaged with a permitting process. Let's go ahead and approve a 7-Eleven in Gerry Connolly's district. I would like a hotel at the corner of 29th and Arapahoe in my district, if we can do that, too.

What are we doing--seizing all control here in Washington and taking it away from States and local governments and individual landowners, who normally have a say in these matters?

Of course, there is the other bill that we have here. Again, it didn't go through committee. Nobody could amend it. It is a bill that increases the deficit by $52 billion by forcing Americans to take taxpayer subsidies for their health care rather than buying it themselves with their employee's share and their employer's share. It is a bill that encourages companies to cut their employees from 40 hours a week to 39 hours a week. It is a bill that will lead hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans to lose their health care and have to take taxpayer subsidies through the exchange to be able to even have any kind of health care.

Look, instead of rehashing proposals that we voted on I don't even know how many times--in fact, we voted on

this phantom pipeline when it was a little less phantom. I think there were actually people who wanted to build it when oil was $110 a barrel. Guess what? The costs of the pipeline have gone up by about 30 percent, and as far as we can tell, there has been no evidence presented, either in the Rules Committee or here on the floor, that anybody wants to build it. By the way, that is what congressional hearings are about in normal regular order, where there would be somebody to testify: ``Well, yes, we can build it at $70 a barrel. No, we can't build it at $70 a barrel.'' We don't even have that information. I have seen an independent report that said that the tar sands are not profitable at anything less than $65 a barrel. We are at $52 a barrel now.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 35 seconds to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

We are prepared to close if the gentleman from Texas is prepared to close.

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

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and on the underlying bills--no committee hearings, no committee markup, no amendments on the floor of the House, a phantom pipeline, job-destroying, deficit- busting.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 19 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 19 provides for the consideration of two important pieces of legislation to help the American economy, both of which passed in the 113th Congress with bipartisan support. H.R. 30, the Save American Workers Act, is designed to address a critical flaw in the Affordable Care Act which is causing workers to lose hours at their jobs and, thus, lose wages--those wages that help put food on their tables, those wages that help feed their families, pay their utility bills, heat their homes during the winter, and cool their homes during the summer. H.R. 30 fixes this flaw by changing the newly created labor rule in the Affordable Care Act which defines full-time work at 30 hours a week and places that definition back where the American public has believed it to be for the last 100 years, that is, at 40 hours.

The second bill contained in today's rule is H.R. 3, the Keystone XL Pipeline Act, and that would put an end to what has been a 6-year process for approving a pipeline that should have simply been common sense for America's economy a long time ago.

The rule before us today provides for 1 hour of debate for each of the bills. This allows the House to fully debate these crucial issues. These bills are targeted pieces of legislation dealing with one single provision in the Affordable Care Act and one single pipeline, respectively. No one is trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act today. For that, stay tuned. But I have no doubt that Members of the minority will claim that this bill is an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But, in fact, it simply makes changes to a definition and interpretation by the Department of Labor in the bill. As always, the minority is also afforded the customary motion to recommit on each of the bills.

Madam Speaker, as a result of the Affordable Care Act's requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees provide health insurance coverage to those employees working 30 hours per week, employers across the Nation--from schools to universities to municipalities to restaurants--are being forced to cut workers' hours or face unsustainable employment costs to their businesses and to their organizations. As a result, we are seeing--and this is what Republicans predicted prior to the controversial and contentious passage of the Affordable Care Act--but what we are seeing is the bill has fundamentally changed labor law in this country, creating a new, standard 30-hour workweek. As a result, workers' hours are being cut, and productivity in this country--a country that has always prided itself on the work ethic of its citizens--will decrease over time. This is what onerous government regulations do--suppress innovation and hamper businesses.

Many Members of the Democratic Party have been outspoken in clamoring for an extension to long-term unemployment benefits, which would extend government assistance to all unemployed Americans well beyond a year's worth of benefits. Yet there is something that can be done now, there is something that can be done today, which will have an actual, practical effect of putting more money in more people's pockets.

We have heard story after story from every State in the Union that employers are dropping workers' hours from less than 39 hours a week to perhaps less than 29 hours or fewer--potentially 10 work hours a week that workers won't see in their paychecks, which could mean hundreds of dollars that men and women won't have to feed their families and pay their bills. Increasing workers' hours increases money that people have to spend.

The Affordable Care Act fundamentally changed labor law in this country, and the repercussions of this may not be felt for years to come. This is a dangerous, slippery slope. What other labor laws will be reinterpreted now to define ``full-time employment'' as 30 hours per week? Do people intend to impose overtime rules on employers who employ people for over 30 hours per week? This is yet another regulation which would only result in businesses cutting more hours. What will the National Labor Relations Board reinterpret, knowing that the very fabric

of labor law is now based on a 30-hour workweek instead of the 100-year standard of the 40-hour workweek?

Prior to the Affordable Care Act, employers were already overwhelmingly providing health insurance to their employees working 40 hours per week. Making the change contained in Mr. Young's legislation will cause the least amount of disruption to the labor market, and that is an important thing.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor. Because of this, the Congressional Budget Office projects a decline in the number of workers of about 2 million in 2017, rising to 2.5 million in 2024, as a result of the Affordable Care Act. The latest Congressional Budget Office figures show that the Affordable Care Act will increase spending by almost $2 trillion, double the estimate from 5 years ago. And the Joint Committee on Taxation says that taxpayers will be on the hook for over another $1 trillion over the next decade. Americans earning as little as $25,000 annually will pay more because of the law, even after accounting for the $1 trillion in premium cost-sharing subsidies.

H.R. 3, the Keystone XL Pipeline Act, is an issue that Congress and the American people have been supportive of for the past several years. It has now been over 6 years since TransCanada first submitted its application for a Presidential permit to cross the United States- Canadian border with a pipeline bringing oil to refineries in Houston, Texas. The President's own State Department, in a several thousand-page document, stated that the pipeline would be cleaner and more environmentally friendly. It is a way to transport oil than other means, namely, with trucks, trains, and ships. This is common sense. The issue has been debated here in the House I don't know how many times over the past several years. Enough is enough. It is time to approve this application and put men and women to work who will be building this pipeline.

Madam Speaker, let us be clear about what is happening today. We are not repealing the Affordable Care Act. We are not undermining the Affordable Care Act. The bill does not take health insurance from a single person in this country. It is a fix to a fatal flaw in the legislation, a fix similar to the seven other fixes that have passed both Houses of Congress and, in fact, been signed by the President. It is similar to the 37 unilateral fixes that the President and his Secretary of Health and Human Services have made on their own. This is a fix to stop this legislation from resulting in people losing work. If Democrats can't agree to fix a provision in the Affordable Care Act that is preventing people from working, then it is simply empty rhetoric to claim that they are interested in any fixes at all.

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

Both bills were before the Committee on Rules yesterday, and you were present.

The pipeline, in fact, exists between Cushing, Oklahoma, and Houston, Texas, this very day.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller), the chairwoman of the House Administration Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois

(Mr. Shimkus), a fellow member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber).

I have no additional speakers.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

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

It has been an interesting afternoon, and we have heard a lot of discussion. The first week of a new Congress is a little bit different from other times. None of our committees have been constituted. Yet, in this Congress--in this historic Congress--we have been left an enormous amount of work by the previous Congress, not because the House wouldn't do its work. Republicans and Democrats showed up and passed bills and sent them over to the Senate, and there they languished. Well over 300 bills are stacked up on the former majority leader's desk. I stress the word ``former'' in that statement, and I believe that is why he is the former majority leader.

Now it is a new day and a new Congress. No, the committees have not yet been constituted, but there is an enormous amount of work--there is an enormous body of work--that has already been accomplished by the House of Representatives that now needs to move forward on behalf of the American people, on behalf of our economy, on behalf of our jobs, on behalf of heating our homes. Look, I am old enough to remember when the Democrats assumed power in 2007, in the 110th Congress. It was kind of an unusual time for me because I had been in the majority previously, and I didn't know what it was like to be in the minority, but let me just take everyone back for a moment.

The rules package that the Democrats passed in the 110th Congress-- their first year of the majority--provided for the consideration of five measures. I never quite understood that because the Democrats ran on ``six for '06.'' Nevertheless, five measures were included in their rules package. They went directly to the floor with these bills, with no committee consideration, not even the consideration of a hearing in the House Rules Committee, which they controlled at the time. So it is a little disingenuous to say, ``Oh, we are rushing things. Oh, we have not had adequate consideration.'' You heard the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) describe the number of hearings and markups that have been done on just the Keystone pipeline.

In the time I have been sitting here I have heard discussions that there is nothing in the Affordable Care Act that actually cuts a worker's hours, but a plain reading of the legislation--of section 1513, page 158, paragraph four, for those who are keeping score at home--reads:

A full-time employee, section A, in general: The term

``full-time employee'' means, with respect to any month, an

employee who is employed at least 30 hours of service per

week.

That seems pretty straightforward.

What has happened as a result of that very plain language even before the Department of Labor issued its rules, which were even more restrictive, is employers made the decision of: Do you know what? We are not going to employ anyone over 29 hours because we don't want to run the risk of invoking this employer mandate.

Now, it is true enough that the administration did delay the mandate. Yes, we are criticized for passing things that are restrictive on the Affordable Care Act. The administration has done so so many times--30, 35--I don't even remember how many. One of the things they delayed was the employer mandate. In fact, later on, in this very section, section 1513, it states:

On the effective date of the employer mandate, the

amendments made by this section shall apply to months

beginning after December 31, 2013.

That is in the past.

It is important to bring this up. It is not part of our discussion today on the rules, but it is for employers--for small businesses--in this country to recognize, with the delay of the employer mandate-- actually, it started last week, January 1 of 2015--no taxes for calendar year 2015 will be paid until next year. So the fines under the Affordable Care Act will, in fact, not start until next year, but the reporting requirements started 7 days ago. Big companies understand this. Big companies get this. Big companies have got lots of lawyers on retainer who are working on this every day. It is the small employers with 50 employees back home in our districts who need to understand that they have to be keeping these records today so that they will be able to go back and verify the statements on their tax bills next year.

Mr. Shimkus said it very well. On the Keystone pipeline, there have been 15 hearings in the House and Senate, four markups, 10 votes--10 votes on the Keystone pipeline. Tell me we haven't studied this situation.

We heard discussion from the other side that this was a phantom pipeline, that no one is even interested in building it anymore, and that the price of gas is so low that no one would be interested in building the Keystone pipeline. In fact, the president and CEO of TransCanada, in a statement yesterday, said that Keystone XL is a project that was needed when oil prices were less than $40 a barrel.

That was in 2008 that it was less than $40 a barrel. It is a project that was needed when oil prices were less than $40 a barrel. It was needed when prices were over $100 a barrel, and it is certainly needed when prices are $50 a barrel, as they are today.

He went on to say that the review process for the Keystone XL has been anything but a well-established process. For decades, the normal process to review and make a decision on an infrastructure project like Keystone would take 2 years. He went on to say that we are well over the 6-year mark in reviewing the final phase of Keystone with, seemingly, no end in sight. The bar continues to move again and again.

What business can function like that, Mr. Speaker?

TransCanada has patiently and diligently worked since 2008 to comply with every twist and turn in this unparalleled process. We have done this to ensure that the Keystone XL is built and operated safely. The State Department has concluded this to be the case time and time again, and it can be done.

Mr. Speaker, I would just submit that that does not sound like a CEO who is not willing to invest his money. We are not even talking about government money here. We are talking about private money. This private investment, indeed, is going forward. I would just submit again, from Cushing, Oklahoma, to Port Arthur, Texas, the pipeline is actually in the ground and exists today--far from a phantom pipeline.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for the consideration of important bills pertaining to health care and energy--the two very centers of excellence within the Energy and Commerce Committee.

I applaud Mr. Young and Mr. Cramer for their thoughtful pieces of legislation. I applaud them for working across the aisle to offer bills that both Republicans and Democrats have publicly supported. Over two- dozen Democrats voted for the 40-hour workweek the last time it came to the floor. I urge my colleagues to support both the rule and the underlying bills.

For that reason, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.