Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to teacher preparation issues.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest honors that I have had as a Member of Congress has been the opportunity to serve on the Education and the Workforce Committee and on the conference committee that put the Every Student Succeeds Act together in its final form.

Before coming to Congress, I chaired the Colorado State Board of Education; I founded two charter schools, the New America School and the Academy of Urban Learning; and I worked closely with educators, school board members, and parents across our State to improve the quality of our schools in Colorado.

I know firsthand the impact that Federal education policy has on States, on school districts, on schools, and on the families that they serve. So when I arrived in Congress, I was excited to roll up my sleeves and get to work on education policy.

One of the top issues in education when I arrived has always been the desire to replace No Child Left Behind, an outdated and inflexible law that, in many ways, set schools up for failure, with a new and better way of making sure that every student has the opportunity to succeed.

I heard from so many of my constituents that, under No Child Left Behind, schools were testing too much, districts lacked the flexibility they needed, and the Colorado Department of Education--like so many other State departments of education--was effectively at the whim of the U.S. Department of Education with regard to their State plans, effectively living waiver to waiver. That is no way to go about Federal education policy. It is why the Every Student Succeeds Act was so badly needed.

Now, early on, the work on the Every Student Succeeds Act wasn't as collegial as it should have been. Republicans introduced a hyperpartisan bill. It passed this Chamber with no Democrat votes and many Republicans voting against it as well. But throughout the process, one thing remained the same: Members were committed to moving past No Child Left Behind and replacing it with a bill that put the interests of students first. Finally that happened last Congress, 15 years after the passage of No Child Left Behind and almost 6 years after the expiration of the authorizing statute; but, finally, Congress did its job.

I am proud to say that everyone on the Education and the Workforce Committee has shown that we believe that every child deserves a great education. We may have different ideas at times about how to achieve that goal, and that is okay, but we all value the result of ensuring opportunity for every child in our country.

It was that very commitment and value, as well as our willingness to work together, that produced the Every Student Succeeds Act. The bill passed overwhelmingly in the majority Republican House and Senate, and was signed by our then-Democratic President. It was and continues to be a bright spot of the last Congress, and what too often seems a Congress that is overwhelmed by partisanship.

Unfortunately, the bipartisanship under ESSA potentially ends with this bill. House Republicans have filed the resolution using the Congressional Review Act to overturn a key regulation consistent with the law that was finalized by the Obama administration in December. Now, before diving into the details of this particular Congressional Review Act that is considered under this rule, I want to say a little bit about the process.

We should look no further than the U.S. Constitution in learning how separation of powers works. There are three branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial. Each branch is separate, independent, and coequal, and different in how they function. That is an important background and a critical context in evaluating this legislation.

When Congress passed and the President signed the Every Student Succeeds Act in December of 2015, the process didn't end. Many bills, especially one as extensive as ESSA, require clarification from the Department of Education, the agency charged with executing the law. The text of the ESSA anticipated that. In fact, the law describes in detail how the Department of Education should and shouldn't write regulations. Frankly, that had been some of the problem under No Child Left Behind, is it lacked sufficient congressional direction with regard to the waiver process which was used effectively at the full discretion of then-Secretary of Education Duncan and President Obama.

It took the Department a year and a multistakeholder process, ensuring every voice was heard. Sure enough, a year after the legislation was passed, the Department of Education finalized its rules on accountability.

Last week, House Republicans took the first step towards taking a sledgehammer to that entire implementation. Rules that have extensive buy-in from stakeholders and are the blueprint for States in developing our State education plans would be thrown out

under this rule, effectively throwing public education into chaos across all 50 States and completely disregarding the hard work of educators, parents, school board members, superintendents, and principals over the last year.

The two education-related CRAs we are considering on the floor were introduced last Wednesday night. That is four legislative days between introduction and action. Once more, the CRAs weren't treated through the committee process. We did not consider them in the Education and the Workforce Committee. There were no hearings, no markups. In fact, the full Education and the Workforce Committee hasn't even had a markup yet with regard to a K-12 bill.

I am honored to be the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, which has jurisdiction over one of these three CRAs under this bill. We had no hearings or markups on this bill. It is really a disservice to the over 50 new Members of this Congress--no imprint on this bill--as well as the Members at large, that this committee avoids the regular process.

It is also counter to promises that were made by Republican leadership about returning to regular order. The actions today couldn't be further from regular order because Republicans have chosen to utilize the Congressional Review Act to move bills from introduction to the floor without going through committee.

Unfortunately, the Congressional Review Act not only overturns regulations, but it prevents the Department of Education from writing a new regulation that is similar to the regulation that was overturned.

Now, Mr. Byrne mentioned that there can be subsequent legislation that allows it. Let me point out that Every Student Succeeds Act was over 5 years overdue. It took Congress 5 years after the initial expiration of No Child Left Behind to even replace the authorizing statute. So if that is Congress' intent, we are putting the cart before the horse. We should alter or change the authorizing statute in a way that Democrats and Republicans agree, rather than throw out the work that has already occurred.

This statute would effectively tie the hands of the recently confirmed Secretary of Education DeVos and prevent her from implementing the will of this body through the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Over the past few weeks, my office has received hundreds of pieces of mail regarding education, largely in opposition to Secretary DeVos; but I think the issue is that Secretary DeVos, who was recently confirmed-- this CRA would prevent her from doing her job and implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Let me just say that this guidance on accountability isn't just for show. It is at the very heart of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which Democrats and Republicans supported. It has real impact.

I want to close my opening remarks with a story about that real impact from Christina in Pennsylvania, whose son has a learning disability. Christina's son has always had a tough time in school due to diagnosed dyslexia, dysgraphia, and ADHD. While he is a smart and personable kid, when it came time to read and write, he could be thought of as the ``bad'' kid too often, and he acted out.

It would have been easy for the school to write him off without the protections that are offered under IDEA, but, luckily, he was required to participate in assessments. That accountability encouraged the school to work harder and to stick with it and to figure out why this otherwise smart student couldn't read simple words in different places on a page or demonstrate his achievement of knowledge.

If his school wasn't required to show student progress, there wouldn't have been the incentive for them to invest their time and money in helping his special needs. Without accountability, Christina's son's school would have had little incentive to set appropriate educational goals for him and offer the support necessary to reach them.

Accountability requirements inform school administrators, teachers, parents, students, and the community at large that all students have a learning goal and make sure that all students have the tools to get there.

Today, Christina's son is a college freshman majoring in biology with a 3.2 GPA. The accountability in this CRA that would be thrown out would undermine the very accountability that allowed not only Christina's son to succeed but so many other children across our country.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am seeing a lot of feigned indignation about the accountability provisions of this bill. It wasn't that long ago when we passed the Every Student Succeeds Act when Democrats and Republicans came down here and said we are giving the Secretary specific authority around accountability for preventing Secretaries from doing rogue things that both sides have perceived previous Secretaries had done, and the authorizing statute was passed by Democrats and Republicans.

Now, all of a sudden, we have Republicans coming down here gutting the very accountability provisions that they themselves lauded under the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act, which passed in this body overwhelmingly, as well as in the U.S. Senate.

It is a little hard to understand how Republicans are upset with the very authority around specific parameters around that authority that they specifically gave to the Secretary of Education. Again, if there are particular quibbles, there is a different Secretary of Education now. Those rules can be changed through a stakeholder process--and they may very well be--but now Republicans are seeking to tie the hands of the new Secretary of Education and throwing out all of the hard work that I got to see people in Colorado working on, and I know occurred in many other States, to come up with thoughtful, sensible accountability plans that met the legislative intent of Democrats and Republicans in this body.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), the chair of the Democratic Caucus.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Holocaust was an unspeakable atrocity resulting in the murder of more than 6 million Jews. As a Jewish American, it is very difficult to talk about. But, of course, in my own family, I can only imagine the grief that my grandparents and great grandparents had not knowing, not hearing from their relatives in the old country. And, of course, finding out the very worst--that they had disappeared.

I know my Uncle Henry, who lives in New York with his wife, Arlene, my dad's sister, who was able to escape Vienna on a Kindertransport, one of the very last ones, as a young man, effectively growing up as an orphan in Switzerland during the war and escaping the mass slaughter that killed most of

his family targeted, of course, merely because they were Jews.

The Holocaust was a deliberate and planned act of slaughter and genocide against the Jewish people; and the fact that it was targeted against the Jewish people, resulting in over 6 million deaths, cannot be delinked from our remembrance of one of the greatest horrors of modern history.

It is especially troubling in the current environment, where we have seen an increase in anti-Semitism and racism, generally, since the election of President Trump. Just last week, the Jewish Community Center in my district in Boulder, Colorado, had to close because of a bomb threat, the families and children sent home. We have seen swastikas on New York City subways and in our schools.

Frankly, I think many Jewish Americans are fearful about what the intentions are of the occupant of the White House and his top advisers and what we can do as a country to combat this; and it is exactly the wrong message to send on Holocaust Remembrance Day, to leave out the obvious truth that continues to be denied by anti-Semitic leaders around the world, including former Presidents of Iran and Supreme Leaders of Iran and others, that the Holocaust was a deliberate effort of terror and genocide directed against the Jewish people by the Nazi regime.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Mr. Crowley's resolution which would reiterate the fact that the Nazi regime targeted the Jewish people and calls on the executive branch to affirm this fact.

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

Mr. Speaker, over the last few years, one complaint I have heard over and over is how inconsistent education policy has been. States have been using waivers at the discretion of the Department of Education. Finally, educators, school board members, families, hope that ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act, could provide more stability. Unfortunately for States, undoing the accountability CRA would only reenergize that uncertainty.

For months, States have been working on their State plans, and I have had the opportunity to join our Colorado group that has been working on that plan as required under the Every Student Succeeds Act. We have had guidance from the Department of Education since last November, and we have been writing our State plans with that in mind. Now, if this regulation is overturned, it would pull the rug out from States that have been working diligently to enact their plans.

Likewise, H.J. Res. 58, another education-related bill that would occur under this rule, would effectively unravel the Department of Education's teacher preparation regulations. In the Higher Education Act, States are required to assess the effectiveness of teacher prep programs, and this regulation simply provides guidance for how States can do that, making sure our teacher training programs work, making sure that we are improving the quality of our public educators.

This provision also requires that TEACH grant recipients attend high- performing teacher prep programs. It is not a matter of picking winners and losers; it is making sure that our taxpayer dollars are used effectively to train high-quality educators.

If money is going to be invested in future teachers at high-needs schools, we want to make sure that teachers are attending the highest quality programs available. At the end of the day, a great education starts with a great teacher in the classroom, and this requirement ensures that even the neediest students have access to a great teacher. Taken together, these two bills represent a strategic attempt by Republicans to undermine public education.

The other CRA, which is completely unrelated to the two education- related CRAs, is actually related to a land management issue. I want to describe why that is a bad idea as well.

I come from a Western State. My district that I represent is over 60 percent public lands, so this BLM plan will actually affect my district, and that is why I am so impassioned to speak here today and listen to others in my State about this rule.

A revision of this BLM plan is long overdue. Few plans or rules can remain relevant for decades, and BLM's planning was last drafted in 1983. Needing a new planning system may not sound like the most exciting thing in the world, but it is actually critical because it can impact everything from cultural to environmental resources, to jobs in the economy in our district which relate to our use of public lands. That is why I have been contacted by groups of sportsmen, county commissioners, outdoor recreation groups, and conservationists asking how Congress can be wasting their time repealing something that makes BLM's process more transparent and conclusive.

Local control and constituent input are top priorities for those of us who live in and around public land, particularly in the West, so it makes sense that many counties and groups in Colorado who have worked with BLM offices on land use are pleading with Congress not to use a CRA to repeal this commonsense rule and join their voices with ours in opposition to this rule and this bill. The kinds of groups opposed to this bill include the International Mountain Bicycling Association because they know that, even though the planning process isn't perfect and, of course, can be refined, it would be a huge mistake to throw out the whole thing and bar the BLM from making necessary modernizations moving forward, especially when the Republicans are in the driver's seat.

Hunting and fishing groups and outdoor industry businesses, like the Outdoor Industry Association, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, know that this planning process will give them the voice they need in the planning process without diminishing anyone else's role. I believe that those who have actually experienced and been part of the process are the voices that need to be heeded when we are determining if the planning has been a success.

Here are a few of the quotes from some counties in Western States that have been part of the process and support the new planning system. From Lewis and Clark County in Idaho:

A great example of the potential of Planning 2.0 can be

found in eastern and central Idaho, where the BLM is

preparing to engage in a land use planning process for public

lands from the big desert to the benches of the Salmon River.

At the behest of local BLM leadership, which has already been

operating under the spirit of Planning 2.0, a number of

sporting groups, conservation organizations, and Salmon

Valley stewardship have reached out to a wide-ranging

constituency of ranchers, loggers, motorized users,

sportsmen, and other groups. The benefit of this early

conversation can be very valuable to sportsmen. Take the

Donkey Hills at the headwaters of the Pahsimeroi River as an

example. There has been near unanimous agreement that the

critical elk calving area in the Donkey Hills needs

thoughtful consideration as a critical wildlife area.

From Missoula County, Montana:

Western Montana, where the Missoula BLM field offices

engaged in a land-use planning revision process for public

lands from the John Long Range to Joshua Park all the way to

the Garnet Range, through this process, BLM has piloted the

steps in Planning 2.0 to further engage the public in land

management decisions.

I include in the Record letters from both of these counties, as well as a letter from a group of outdoor industries asking for this body to oppose the CRA.

Lewis & Clark County,

Board of County Commissioners,

Helena, Montana.

Re the Bureau of Land Management's Proposed Resource

Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg. 8674 (February

25, 2016).

Neil Kornze,

Director, Bureau of Land Management,

Washington, DC.

Dear Director Kornze: The Lewis and Clark County Board of

County Commissioners offer this letter of support for

provisions of the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's)

Proposed Resource Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg.

8674 (Feb. 25. 2016) (the Proposed Rules). We appreciate the

effort to improve opportunities for public involvement

earlier in the planning processes, including the chance to

review preliminary resource management alternatives and

preliminary rationales for those alternatives.

We value our relationship with our federal partners, and

our constituents are impacted

greatly by actions taken by your agency. Increasing access to

the planning process and targeting your efforts towards

greater public involvement enhances the relationship between

the people and their government, and we support your

initiative.

Additionally, we note that the Proposed Rules also expand

opportunities for states and local governments to have

meaningful involvement in the development of BLM's land use

decisions. The Proposed Rules continue to provide for

coordination with state and local representatives in order to

ensure, to the extent available under federal law, that RMPs

are consistent with state and local land use plans, as

provided in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of

1976.

Sincerely.

Michael Murray,

Chairman

Susan Good Geise,

Vice Chair

Andy Hunthausen,

Member

Finally, in my home State of Colorado, a great example of stakeholders who know the new process is working is Park County, which I have the honor of representing part of. As part of revising the Eastern Colorado Resource Management Plan, the Royal Gorge Field Office in Colorado has already embraced and implemented some of the ideas for Planning 2.0, including recent envisioning sessions that involve multiple stakeholders.

I include in the Record a letter from Park County, Colorado.

County of Park,

Board of County Commissioners,

May 12, 2016.

Re the Bureau of Land Management's Proposed Resource

Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg. 8674 (February

25, 2016).

Neil Kornze,

Director, Bureau of Land Management,

Washington, DC.

Dear Director Kornze: The undersigned representatives of

local government are writing to share their support for

provisions of the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's)

Proposed Resource Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg.

8674 (Feb. 25, 2016) (the Proposed Rules). In particular, we

support the provisions of the Proposed Rules that provide

additional opportunities for public involvement earlier in

the planning process, including the chance to review

preliminary resource management alternatives and preliminary

rationales for those alternatives.

Each of undersigned representatives come from local

jurisdictions whose land bases include substantial amounts of

public lands managed by BLM. The management of these public

lands is vitally important to the citizens we represent Our

citizens and local economies depend on these lands for

sustainable multiple uses, from outdoor recreation to

livestock grazing to mineral exploration and development.

The current BLM planning methodology lacks adequate

opportunities for public involvement, particularly early in

the process. It also lacks transparency. It often results in

a range of alternatives that fails to address the concerns of

all stakeholders. The proposed changes would provide the

public with

an opportunity to raise concerns and review potential

management alternatives before these alternatives become

solidified in a draft Resource Management Plan (RMP). This

early public involvement will hopefully help resolve

conflicts and produce RMPs that better reflect the needs of

our citizens as well as others who use the public lands and

have a stake in their future.

In addition, we note that the Proposed Rules also expand

opportunities for states and local governments to have

meaningful involvement in the development of BLM's land use

decisions. The Proposed Rules continue to provide for

coordination with state and local representatives in order to

ensure, to the extent available under federal law, that RMPs

are consistent with state and local land use plans, as

provided in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of

1976.

Sincerely,

Mike Brazell,

Chairman, County of Park.

It reads, in part: ``The current BLM planning methodology lacks adequate opportunities for public involvement, particularly early in the process.''

This rule that the CRA would invalidate addresses some of the shortcomings in the current rule. This last point is especially important, that changes would provide the public with an opportunity to raise concerns and review potential management alternatives before those alternatives become solidified. By having an opportunity for early involvement, BLM can actually avoid expensive litigation after a plan is complete.

This legislation is not only good for transparency, public involvement, and environmental and wildlife protections, but it saves taxpayer dollars. I don't know how anyone can oppose that. The process has widespread support from those of us who live in and around public land, from people who are on the ground, including landowners, farmers, ranchers, sportsmen, and conservationists.

In a hearing in the Committee on Natural Resources, one of our witnesses was a rancher from my home State of Colorado, who eloquently spoke about how the old system was not working and how this desperately needed new system had worked well in its limited implementation.

BLM Planning 2.0 is working, and a CRA that will never allow the BLM to modernize its process, the process that has been locked in place since 1983, is simply thoughtless legislating for cheap political points.

Mr. Speaker, the resolutions before us today represent everything that is wrong with Washington. When our constituents sent us here to Washington, D.C., they weren't asking us to engage in partisan bickering and using brutal techniques to undo thoughtful, nuanced regulation. If Members of this body have problems with rules that have been promulgated, change the authorizing statutes; don't simply prevent the agencies from enacting the very things that this body has told them to do. It doesn't make sense.

We have not engaged in regular order. We have avoided a thoughtful, deliberative process, and, unfortunately, the resolutions before us are yet another example of that. These resolutions undermine the basic responsibility of the Department of Education and the Bureau of Land Management. They are a shortsighted strategy for governing that will have long-term negative consequences for our public lands and our use thereof, as well as for children in our schools and educators.

We should fix accountability and make it work in education rather than throw it out. We should make sure that our teacher training programs and those whom we support with your taxpayer money are the best possible teacher training programs; and, of course, we should have a multistakeholder process around use of our public lands, including recreationists, residents, county commissioners, and others.

For that reason, I strongly oppose the rules before us. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' I also urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so we can bring up Mr. Crowley's bill, which I think is a bill that would receive, hopefully, unanimous support in this body with regard to the remembrances of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. President, in recent weeks, we have seen an astonishing series of revelations about Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 election in support of the Donald Trump campaign. Last week, the Washington Post reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian Ambassador in July and September during the campaign. Yet, during his confirmation hearing, the Attorney General said under oath: ``I did not have communications with the Russians.''

Last Thursday, the Attorney General announced he would partially recuse himself from any investigation into the Presidential campaign. I note that this was a partial recusal when it comes to investigations into Russia's influence on President Trump and his circle of advisers and associates. The scope of the recusal is still unclear. For example, Attorney General Sessions does not even appear to believe that his own meeting with the Russian Ambassador on September 8, 2016, was related to the campaign. The scope of his recusal will need to be clarified.

We also continue to learn of previously undisclosed communications between the Russians and President Trump's inner circle. For example, we learned last week that Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, had met in December with the Russian Ambassador in Trump Tower, along with the President's National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, who resigned on February 13. People across America are wondering when the next shoe will drop.

It is becoming clear that the President is desperate to change the headlines from these Russian revelations--so desperate, in fact, that in a series of tweets on Saturday morning, President Trump claimed that President Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower in an act President Trump described as ``McCarthyism'' and ``Nixon/Watergate.'' Well, President Trump's tweets again made news but not in the way he had hoped. It quickly became clear that President Trump has no evidence to back up his claims. In fact, it appeared he got his information not from America's law enforcement or intelligence agencies but from rightwing talk radio.

On Sunday, the former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, denied the President's claims, and the Director of the FBI, James Comey, took an extraordinary step of calling on the Justice Department to publicly deny the President's claims. Even Republicans like House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy, chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, said they had not seen any evidence that would support what President Trump tweeted. Nonetheless, the President's spokespeople doubled down, saying that the President does not accept the contention of the FBI Director and he stands by his tweets.

Let's be clear. President Trump is playing games with the credibility of his Presidency. Donald Trump is destroying the credibility of the Office of the President 140 characters at a time. If President Trump had consulted with his adviser--any credible adviser--prior to his tweets, he would have learned something that is crucial, and it is as follows: The President of the United States does not have the authority to order a wiretap. Instead, such a wiretap can be granted upon a finding by a court that there is probable cause to believe the target has committed a crime or is an agent of a foreign power.

Clearly, there are more revelations to come. The only question: How long is it going to take? How much damage will be done to the credibility of the Office of the President and America in the process?

These recent events confirm yet again the need for an independent, transparent, bipartisan commission led by Americans of unimpeachable integrity to get to the bottom of this Russian attack on the United States. Russia attacked our democracy. We need to fully understand what happened. We certainly need to prevent it from happening in the next election or ever again.

This week, a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll found that Americans, by a margin of 58 percent to 35 percent, believe an outside independent investigation is needed into Russian involvement in our election. It is worthy of note that just a few weeks ago, only 30-something percent of the American people were aware of this controversy with Russia. Now over 55 percent of people want an independent investigation. America is listening.

We also need the Justice Department and the FBI to proceed with a credible, impartial investigation to determine if there may have been any criminal conduct involved.

Yesterday, the President's nominee for Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. If confirmed, Mr. Rosenstein would oversee any Justice Department investigation into the Trump administration's Russian connections after Attorney General Sessions has partially recused himself. So I pressed Mr. Rosenstein to clarify the scope of Attorney General Sessions' recusal commitment. I also asked, as did Senator Feinstein, whether Mr. Rosenstein had read the January 6 Intelligence Community assessment into Russian election interference. I cannot explain it, but in 2 months Mr. Rosenstein had not read this 15-page, unclassified report that is available on the internet. It focuses on the major issue he will face initially as Deputy Attorney General, and he told us he had not read it.

Let me add that I respect Rod Rosenstein. He served as U.S. attorney in Maryland, appointed first under a Republican President and held over under a Democratic President, and that says a lot about his professionalism as a prosecutor, his reputation, and his integrity. It is hard for me to believe that he could come before a hearing, which he knew would focus on the need for a special prosecutor to look into this Russian interference, and not have been briefed to read the 15-page public report that summarizes the conclusions of all of America's intelligence agencies when it comes to this Russian interference.

I am sure he is an excellent lawyer who wouldn't enter a courtroom or stand before a judge or jury without complete preparation to the best of his ability, but yesterday, time and again, he told us he didn't take the time to read this report. I urge him to do so as quickly as possible, and when he reads it, he will see that our intelligence agencies are unequivocal in their statement that Vladimir Putin was setting out to elect Donald Trump and to defeat Hillary Clinton. This is not a report from the Democratic National Committee; it is a report from our intelligence agencies. And whomever Putin was trying to help, that is secondary to the fact that he was hacking into the internet, disclosing materials, and trying to become a material player in our Presidential election.

Mr. President, 3 weeks ago, I went to visit Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine. They are watching this carefully because they have been the victims of Vladimir Putin and Russia's attempts to interfere in their elections, and now they hear the United States has been victimized by Putin, as well.

One of the scholars in Poland asked me what I thought was a very clear question, and I can't answer. He said: If

the United States will not take the interference of Putin in your election seriously, how can the people of Poland believe you will take your NATO commitment to protect us from Putin seriously? Important question. Valid question.

There are exceptions on the Republican side of the aisle, and I would like to point out one of them. My friend, my colleague, and the chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, made an extraordinarily forthright statement yesterday about the need for an investigation into this Russian interference. Thank goodness he is stepping away from party loyalty and stepping up when it comes to defending this Nation. I salute my Republican colleague for his leadership on this issue.

It is important to step back from the daily dysfunction we have when it comes to the Russian investigation and the White House and lack of governing and remember what is really at stake.

Five months ago, our intelligence services disclosed evidence that a foreign adversary--one ruled by a dictatorial former Communist KGB agent--was trying to help its preferred candidate in the U.S. Presidential election. Think about that for a moment. An adversary of the United States--a country which has imprisoned millions of Europeans in the Communist system for almost half a century and which today rigs elections and silences or murders members of the media and opposition-- committed what I believe is akin to a cyber act of war against America in trying to elect someone they saw as more sympathetic to their interests.

Since those early reports, we have been provided with damning evidence by our intelligence agencies on the depth and sophistication of this operation--so favorable to its nefarious goal that it had Russian intelligence operatives boastfully celebrating after the outcome of the election.

We also know that members of President Trump's campaign met with those thought to be Russian intelligence; had suspiciously timed communications with the Russian Government just after the Obama administration placed sanctions on Russia; and in the case of top Trump advisers Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions, refused to disclose those meetings, both in public and in one case to the Vice President and in another case to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

No candidate would or at least should want help from a foreign dictator to help win political office in the United States. So in a situation like this, the response is obvious: Help in any way possible to clear suspicions and concerns. Go forward and serve the American people with an investigation. It seems so obvious.

Leon Panetta was on one of the Sunday morning talk shows. Leon Panetta is a friend. I served with him in the House of Representatives. He was the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, President Clinton. He served as Secretary of Defense. He headed up the Central Intelligence Agency. He is an extraordinarily gifted and well- thought-of person who has a record of public service that is enviable. He was asked about what the Trump White House should do about this allegation of Russian interference in the election and the suggestion that they might have been complicit.

He said: Get out in front.

The President of the United States should say: I have nothing to hide, and we will fully cooperate with an independent commission to get to the bottom of what happened in that election. But instead, what do we have? Fanciful--in fact, patently false--tweets by the President, alleging a wiretap by the former President. President Trump, if he has nothing to hide, should help us clear this up once and for all.

To my Republican colleagues, so many patriots and champions of American national security, it is time for more to join Senator Graham and others to step up and speak out even on the floor of the Senate about this situation.

Each one of us in the Senate swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against enemies foreign and domestic. Clearly, the Russian attack is a call for all of us--of both political parties--to step up. This issue is not going to go away. We are going to continue to pursue the truth.

Nomination of Seema Verma and the Republican Healthcare Bill

Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about the recently released Republican healthcare repeal bill and to speak on the nomination of Seema Verma to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

CMS is an agency touching the lives of 125 million people, and 34 percent of Americans receive their health insurance under one of the three Federal programs run by that agency--Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program. These programs are vital to the health and well-being of seniors, children, persons with disabilities, and low-income families. Yet, with those vows to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Trump, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, and congressional Republicans are sadly attempting to gut the Medicaid program and to jeopardize the future of Medicare.

The head of CMS should be someone who believes in these core programs and is willing to fight to preserve them. Instead, Ms. Seema Verma's record--as well as comments she made during her confirmation hearing-- indicates she is more than willing to take dramatic steps to force people to lose their health insurance or dramatically increase out-of- pocket costs.

From her refusal to disavow efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act to her willingness to cut the Medicaid Program, I do not believe Ms. Verma is the right person for this job.

When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, our constituents-- Republicans, Democrats, Independents--are angry and frightened about what the Trump administration and congressional Republicans might do to healthcare. Based on what has finally been released, they have good reason.

In over 2 months, Republican leaders in Washington have taken numerous steps to change and even sabotage our healthcare system, jeopardizing patient access to care and throwing the system into chaos.

Before President Trump took office, congressional Republicans rammed through a budget bill, laying the groundwork for a quick, silent repeal of the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that they had no replacement. Then, on his first day in office, the President signed an Executive order to weaken the Affordable Care Act, instructing Federal agencies to stop doing their job under the law. The President then acted hastily to stop Federal outreach efforts--TV ads, radio spots, and emails intended to encourage more Americans to sign up for health insurance.

I watched yesterday as the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, said that the Affordable Care Act is collapsing. Well, I can tell you, it needs help and it should be bipartisan. Instead, the Republicans are doing everything they can to jeopardize it.

Last week, the President met with big insurance companies to discuss what they want for healthcare. But where were the patients, the hospitals, the doctors, the nurses, the community health centers in these conversations?

It is clear that congressional Republicans want to move full steam ahead on repealing our healthcare law. The problem has always been and still is that they can't agree on how to move forward. They don't have a plan to protect people. Some Republicans just want to repeal. Others want to repair. Others want to rebuild. They can throw out all the ``R'' words they can find in the dictionary, but at the end of the day, they don't know what they want to do. These disagreements are becoming even more obvious in the last week.

For the past few months, House Republican leaders have been meeting secretly to craft a repeal bill. Well, they finally unveiled it. No wonder they wanted to keep it secret.

Incidentally, this bill, which has been authored by the Republicans-- a party that claims a commitment to fiscal soundness--has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. We don't know, even as it is being considered by committees in the House of Representatives, whether it is going to add to the deficit or not. You would think that the party of fiscal integrity--the Republican Party--would ask that question early on. As yet, they have no answer, and they are proceeding full steam ahead.

The bill, first, would end Medicaid as we know it, cutting $370 billion from the program and limiting care. Who are the beneficiaries of Medicaid? The largest group of beneficiaries are kids and mothers. The second most expensive group are seniors, many of them in nursing homes who, without Medicaid and Medicare, could not even continue in a good nursing home environment.

Keep in mind that one in five Americans currently depend on Medicaid for their health insurance--65 million people nationwide. That includes 35 million children, 7 million seniors, 11 million people with disabilities.

We used to say: Well, Medicaid is for poor people. Well, it certainly is for lower income Americans, but many of them are working low-income Americans who still qualify for Medicaid.

My friend, who has worked in the motel-hospitality industry all of her life, in her sixties, sadly, is a part-time employee, despite her hard work. She can't afford health insurance, but she qualifies for Medicaid. She is part of the working poor, and she is one who needs this benefit. If the Republicans have their way and reduce Medicaid coverage, she could certainly lose it.

In my home State of Illinois, 650,000 people have gained healthcare coverage under Medicaid, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. For her and others I have met, it is the first time in their life that these men and women--often in their sixties--for the first time in their life have health insurance.

Of Illinois' 18 congressional districts, not a single one has less than 71,000 Medicaid enrollees. Nearly half of all the kids in Illinois, 1.5 million children, get their healthcare through Medicaid, and the Republican repeal bill is going to endanger that.

That is so obvious that yesterday the Republican Governor of Illinois, who was careful in his words and seldom reacts, came out publicly and said that the Republican repeal bill would significantly hurt our State of Illinois. That is from a Republican Governor.

Medicaid is the largest payer of long-term care for seniors in the Nation and in Illinois. It is one of our best tools, incidentally, for addressing the opioid epidemic, ensuring that those facing addiction have access to treatment. And the Republicans want to cut that.

Medicaid has been a lifesaver to Illinois hospitals, especially in my part of the State, downstate Illinois.

Repeal of the Medicaid expansion, as the House bill proposes, could result in the loss of up to 90,000 jobs in Illinois.

The Republican repeal bill on healthcare is a jobs killer in Illinois and across this Nation. We will see hospitals cutting back on personnel in an attempt to adjust to the cutbacks in coverage and the increases in cost brought on by the Republican repeal bill.

But the bill goes even further. It dramatically restructures the entire Medicaid Program. When talking about the plan for Medicaid, congressional Republicans throw around innocuous terms: per capita caps, block grants, more flexibility, modernizing. Don't be lulled in a false sense of security by these words. This Republican healthcare repeal bill would significantly cut back on Federal spending on Medicaid, shifting the cost to States, families, and individuals who are currently struggling to get by today.

With less funding, States would be forced to throw people off of Medicaid, limit the types of healthcare services offered, create waiting lists, and much more. In the name of State flexibility and modernizing, it would mean that more and more people would be showing up in emergency rooms in Illinois and across the Nation with no health insurance coverage under the Republican approach.

Oh, they will get care, and it will cost. They can't pay for it, and that cost will be shifted to others with health insurance.

Unfortunately, Ms. Verma has significant experience in this exact type of healthcare rationing. In her role as a private healthcare consultant, she championed radical Medicaid overhauls. She supports making low-income Medicaid beneficiaries pay more money. She believes that Medicaid beneficiaries need ``more skin in the game.'' I wonder how many Medicaid recipients Ms. Verma has actually sat down and met with.

The Illinois folks whom I know are the mom working two jobs, struggling to take time off from work to take her kid to the doctor, or the senior who has literally spent down all of her life savings on nursing home care and has no place else to turn.

Devising plans that restrict access to care for the most vulnerable among us are not the qualifications I am looking for in the person who wants to run the agency responsible for Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP.

Finally, on the House Republican repeal bill, in addition to gutting Medicaid, the bill eliminates the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which currently provides the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention $900 million, or 12 percent of their annual budget. The bill defunds Planned Parenthood. The bill allows insurers to charge older people significantly more in premiums than allowed under current law. The bill, incidentally, dramatically cuts taxes for the wealthiest people in America and increases costs for middle-income families. What is most telling, as I mentioned earlier, is that the House Republicans won't even send this bill or wait for a report from the Congressional Budget Office before proceeding.

How many people will lose their health insurance under the Republican repeal plan? How will out-of-pocket expenses go up for families under the Republican repeal plan? How much responsibility and burden will be shifted to the States under the Republican repeal plan?

For now, Republicans can claim ignorance because they have decided to move forward before there was a report from the Congressional Budget Office.

Thank goodness some Republicans are speaking out against this terrible plan--maybe not for the same reasons I oppose it. But conservatives say it doesn't rip health insurance away from more people more quickly, and moderates worry about Medicaid--demonstrating, again, the lack of a consensus on the Republican side when it comes to the future of healthcare.

We have big challenges ahead--challenges that will determine whether we have as many people in America with health insurance tomorrow as we have today and how much it will cost.

I don't believe the Republican repeal bill is the right path forward, and I don't believe Seema Verma is the right person to stand up and fight for our Nation's seniors, children, and low-income families. For that reason, I will be voting against her nomination to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 91, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 57) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to accountability and State plans under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.J. Res. 57.

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

I rise today in strong support of H.J. Res. 57.

Mr. Speaker, I was here also on this floor listening to the debate that just finished on H.J. Res. 58, and I have a feeling a lot of the same things are going to carry over because we are dealing with the same Department. In fact, we are dealing with the prior administration generally.

I was struck by the words that we need to ``give direction to the States.'' I think, by definition, those words demonstrate how one side here thinks that they know best; that their judgment is somehow better than the judgment of governors, of State legislators,

of parents, teachers, and superintendents themselves when it comes to this issue and, in fact, in a larger perspective, when it comes to most issues around here. We must give direction to the States--no.

The fact of the matter is, when the President signed into law, when we passed ESSA--the Every Student Succeeds Act--in a lot of ways we were saying to the States: You give the direction. You set the way that you think is best to educate your best assets. Your best assets, of course, being our next generation.

While we at the Federal level would like to be partners, the fact of the matter is it is their property. The tax dollars we are talking about are the property of the individuals living in the 50 States and other jurisdictions.

So now here we are using the Congressional Review Act to get rid of some regulations that are doing that very thing. We wrote a very specific law saying the States are in charge. Here we have a Federal agency inserting itself, not just interpreting law, but actually making law and taking us in the exact opposite direction that all of us intended.

When I say all of us, I say that in a very bipartisan way, Mr. Speaker, because--I am now in my fifth year of being chairman of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education here in the House. My first 4 years were consumed working with past Chairman John Kline, current Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, other members of the committee, and all our Democratic counterparts in getting this very bipartisan law passed and signed into law.

Let me go back, Mr. Speaker, and set the table here. You will have to remember that under the No Child Left Behind law, which was the law of the land for some 13 years--perhaps a well-intentioned law, but completely unreasonable in terms of its forced, ridged, one-size-fits- all accountability system that heavily dictated how we would gauge and address school performance--that system represented a top-down approach in K-12 education. After 13 years, the data is in and the results are in. It simply didn't work.

So that is why just a little more than a year ago, Congress passed-- again, former President Obama signed into law in a very bipartisan way--the Every Student Succeeds Act. With this law, Republicans and Democrats worked together to reform our education system to ensure that all children are able to receive the education they deserve. It represents a fundamentally different approach to education and, in the words of one superintendent, empowers local leaders to ``dream and lead and transform public education in this country.''

Unfortunately, almost immediately after the bill became law, the Obama administration began its attempt to roll back these bipartisan reforms. With the Every Student Succeeds Act, Congress promised to reduce the Federal role and restore State and local control over K-12 education. The law empowers States to develop their own policies to hold schools accountable to parents and taxpayers.

For accountability to work, Mr. Speaker, it must be driven by the State and local leaders who are best equipped to directly address the issues in their school. Those leaders know better than any Federal bureaucrat in the Department of Education what their kids need, even down to what their kids' names are. I challenge any Federal bureaucrat to know better.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration's flawed accountability regulation would reestablish the Washington-knows-best approach to accountability. It is the very same thing I mentioned earlier that we just heard regarding H.J. Res. 58. It is an approach that is deeply flawed.

How do I know? What is the best metric to prove the point that that Washington-knows-best approach is deeply flawed?

Look at it. Look at the test scores since the Federal Government has been involved in education. You see that they haven't gone up. Yet we have spent billions and billions of dollars since the 1970s here at the Federal level on local education to see no improvement in the test scores.

Not only does the regulation dictate prescriptive accountability requirements, but it violates many of the prohibitions that we put in on the Secretary of Education. As we all saw, the top-down approach simply didn't work. So that is why we repealed No Child Left Behind and passed a bill to transform K-12 education.

Our students deserve better than the failed policies of the past, and that is what the Every Student Succeeds Act does, if implemented as Congress intended.

Now, our intent was not ambiguous, and the law is far from silent. We were very specific in the law we wrote. Our specificity dictated that the States and localities were back in charge. They were driving the bus again. No pun intended.

The Department has taken some kind of ambiguity, I guess, some kind of silence, and has inserted themselves into the lawmaking role. That wasn't our intent.

Our intent was for a new role for the Department, a much smaller role for the Department, a less supervisory role for the Department, and a less punitive role for the Department, one that would simply ensure that our specifically written law, as passed off this floor, passed off the Senate floor, and eventually signed into law, was followed as we wrote it. So an example of that was we require the States to have plans for how they were going to test, that they would test, but nothing more prescriptive than that. That is just one example, the testing. There were some other parameters.

Then they were to submit those plans to the Federal Government, and the Department of Education was simply to check the box and make sure that the plans were done and otherwise comply with the law. The Department wasn't to be more prescriptive than that. It wasn't to give any more regulation than that. It wasn't to, frankly, give too much more direction than that because we recognize that this responsibility is primarily that of governors, State legislators, school superintendents, parents, and teachers.

Now, States are already working to implement the law in their school districts. I want to be very clear that this resolution in no way does anything to stymie those efforts. States should move straight ahead.

Instead, the resolution gives States the certainty they need to continue moving forward, confident that their plans will be reviewed by the Department of Education against the requirements of the statute and nothing more, with deference given to the judgment of these local legislators, local superintendents, et cetera, as the law requires.

We are also committed to working with the new administration to ensure States receive the support they need consistent with the limits placed in the statute.

So, my colleagues, by passing this resolution and blocking implementation of the Obama administration's flawed accountability rule, we can ensure that the promises we made under the Every Student Succeeds Act to restore State and local control in K-12 education are kept.

I urge my colleagues to support H.J. Res. 57 and protect those important bipartisan reforms.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would only comment that the comments made to the rule in this regard--the ones I have seen--were almost all bad. They were negative against this rule, except for maybe a few groups.

I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) who is chairwoman of the full committee.

Mr. Speaker, I finally realized what is happening here. What the other side considers ambiguous is really flexibility. I think that is the difference here. But, let's be clear. What we intended through ESSA was flexibility for the States. Nowhere in the law are we ambiguous about what we intended.

I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Ferguson), who, in the month that he has been here, has already injected a lot of energy to the committee and is doing a great job for his constituents.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentlewoman: ESSA was a landmark bipartisan achievement. Unfortunately, the Obama administration's partisan implementation of it is what brings us here today. Instead of choosing to take every opportunity to work with us, the Obama administration is choosing to do through the regulatory process what it couldn't achieve legislatively.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Costello), who is doing a great job for his State.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

The effect of this action will not halt State implementation efforts. Let me say that again. The effect of this action will not halt State implementation efforts.

Our intent is to require clarity and consistency so implementation can, in fact, continue. States are continuing to develop State plans that comply with the law, as you have already seen being done across the country. The States and school districts are in the driver's seat here, Mr. Speaker, and they should continue moving forward.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to say to the gentlewoman that I agree that we have to be careful to make sure underserved children are not vulnerable, which is what we did in the underlying law in a bipartisan manner when we passed it and when the President signed the law.

I reject the premise that State and local leaders, however, cannot be trusted to deliver an excellent education to all of their students. More importantly, that premise was rejected by Congresses in ESSA itself.

Beyond that, the criticism just levied is simply not true. The Department of Education has the right and, indeed, the obligation to enforce the law. That has never been in dispute.

There are clear requirements in this statute for States to develop ways to hold their schools accountable and to report information about school performance to parents and their communities. That duty continues.

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

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

The gentleman talks about accountability. I want to reassure all the Members here that will be voting on this joint resolution that we are not throwing accountability out the window.

What we decided last year when we passed the Every Student Succeeds Act is that accountability was a good thing. But the best leaders and the best persons to determine what that accountability should be and what that accountability should look like are found in our States and are found in our local jurisdictions. They know our best assets the best--our best assets being our children. They know what they need.

So we are not throwing accountability out the window. We are saying accountability is to be measured at the State level by the States, by the local jurisdictions, and they are to simply report to the Department of Education what their accountability plan is in a transparent way so that, again, parents, teachers, and taxpayers can decide if that State is doing a good job, so that people like the NAACP--if they are and should be, as we all should be, worried about achievement gaps--could affect how to close those achievement gaps in those respective States and, by the way, perhaps come up with a more effective way, a better plan, a more aggressive plan to close that achievement gap rather than the one-size-fits-all bureaucracy that is the Federal Department of Education. That is the whole point.

Secondly, regarding civil rights. Nothing in this resolution that takes back this draconian rulemaking from the Department of Education affects civil rights. We are very clear in the Every Student Succeeds Act that the civil rights protections remain. We agreed with that in a bipartisan way, and all of that remains. Don't let the gentleman from Colorado scare you into thinking anything different.

There was a lot of talk about uncertainty from previous speakers-- uncertainty for States--and that blocking implementation of these regulations will create that uncertainty. Let me address that for just a couple of minutes.

We, Congress, cannot allow Federal agencies to ignore the clear prohibitions against executive overreach. These regulations clearly attempt to reassert Federal control that was returned to the States by Congress under ESSA.

Repealing these regulations is the only way to give States and school districts the certainty that they need with sufficient time to move the implementation process forward. The law itself provides enough guidance. We were very specific how we wrote this law. We were very specific in the requirements needed. That removes the need to have the kind of rulemaking that the Department of Education, either through habit or through direct intent, is trying to do here. We don't need to do it here.

The law itself lays out clear criteria for the State plans. It states explicitly that the onus is on the Department of Education to demonstrate how a plan does not comply with the law that we wrote and that the President signed into law. It does not require, and the States are not required, to go jump through the hoops that the Department is trying to have them jump through now through this rulemaking.

The law also requires the Department to review the State plans with deference to State and local judgments. The Department is trying to take that judgment away from the States and put it under its own umbrella.

Under the law, as long as States can demonstrate that their plans comply with the statute, they will be approved. We wrote that into the law. Because of this, States can have the certainty that the work they began can continue. The Department, with this rule, is trying to unravel all that. The resolution stops the Department from doing that.

I know Congressman Costello mentioned teacher performance. Others have talked about student assessment participation rates. Let me give you a few examples for the record, Mr. Speaker. ESSA allowed States to determine how to hold schools accountable for assessing students. The final rule limits States to only four options for assessing students and requires schools to implement a plan to address low test participation--not required in the law, not part of what we are doing here. The Department, by doing that, is making up law.

Regarding teacher performance and some things that Mr. Costello referenced, ESSA explicitly prohibited the Secretary from mandating the creation of teacher evaluation systems. As the Federal Government, we are getting out of the business of teacher evaluation systems. It didn't mean the States couldn't do it. It didn't mean that most States wouldn't do it. However, the final rule requires States to establish a statewide definition for what an ineffective teacher means that differentiates between categories of teachers.

Now, if you look at this in effect, in practical terms, it would be almost impossible for States to fulfill this requirement without implementing a teacher and school leader evaluation, something the law specifically didn't require, specifically prohibited. Yet, here we are with the Department's rule basically making States do it. Not what was intended. Not what we wrote. Not what we voted on on the floor of this House, and not what was signed into law by the President of the United States at the time.

So these are the kinds of things that we are fighting against here, Mr. Speaker. These are the kinds of things that H.J. Res. 57, and H.J. Res. 58 for that matter, would stop the Department from doing. H.J. Res. 57 protects the positive reforms Congress made with Every Student Succeeds Act and ensures that those reforms are implemented as Congress intended. In doing so, the resolution preserves State and local control over K-12 education and provides States and school districts the certainty they need to proceed with the plans that they are already in the process of writing.

That is why a number of groups--including the National Governors Association; AASA, the School Superintendents Association; and the Council of the Great City Schools--have spoken out in support of the resolution. It is also why the National School Boards Association supports this resolution, and it is why H.J. Res. 57 is supported by Citizens Against Government Waste.

I am confident that Congress will continue working in a bipartisan manner to empower our State and local communities to take the lead in accountability. There will be accountability. By putting a stop to the Obama administration's flawed and overreaching accountability regulation, however, we can keep the promise we made to reduce the Federal role, restore local control, and ensure all children receive the high-quality education that they deserve.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about the replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act that is being considered by the House.

In December, I was informed that I was going to get one of my dreams to come true in the Senate. I had asked to be on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee when I came in, in January of 2013, and I was not on the committee. I had no complaints because I had other good committees, but I was told in December that, for this Congress, I would be added to the committee, and I am thrilled to serve on it.

When I found that I was going to be added to the committee, I knew one of the first issues we would be tackling is what to do about the Affordable Care Act. So I have started to pay visits around the State to as many stakeholders as I can, including patients, doctors, medical students, hospitals, behavioral health facilities, allied health training programs in regions all across the State, military families in Hampton Roads just last Friday, as well as patients and their families in Chesterfield County last Friday. In all of these visits, my question has been: We are going to be tackling the Affordable Care Act; tell me what works, what doesn't work, and what we can do better. That has been the goal.

Today's committees in the House, two committees, are considering a plan that House Republicans have put on the table and are touting as a replacement of the Affordable Care Act. I just want to talk about what it would mean, if passed, to Virginians and Americans.

This plan will reduce the number of Americans with insurance. We dropped the uninsurance rate to a historic low, but the gains that we made would be reversed and the numbers of Americans with insurance would go down.

It would raise healthcare costs, particularly on seniors, which I will discuss in a minute.

It would dismantle the Medicaid Program at the service of tax cuts for the wealthiest.

It is not an adequate replacement; in fact, it would be a dramatic retreat, and it would be a retreat that would violate promises that had been made by the President and other leaders.

Republicans--and I will get into this--have made a number of promises about what a replacement would look like, but this plan falls far short of that. That is why, within 36 hours of it being put on the table, stakeholders across the spectrum, including the American Hospital Association, AARP, the American Medical Association, nurses, nursing homes, and Republican Governors have come out to either dramatically and flatly oppose this plan or suggest significant concerns with it.

The bill has yet to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office, but the House is trying to push it through committee, and even through the floor, if they can, before the CBO tells the American public what this plan would cost and, every bit as importantly, what it would cost Americans in terms of the number of people who would lose their health insurance.

A very poignant comment about the plan that was in the paper this morning was from the Republican Governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval, who said: We Republican Governors have talked to Congress and said please pay attention to what we have to say. States bear a huge burden on these programs, especially Medicaid. He said: We gave ideas to the leadership, to the majority about the replacement, but none of our ideas are in this plan.

Without a CBO score, the American public and this body are completely in the dark about how many people will lose coverage and about how this will affect the American economy. Why would we move forward? Why would we try to push a vote even in a committee, much less on the House floor, before the CBO has given us this score? We don't serve the American public well by doing that.

What does the replacement bill do? One, it ends the expansion of Medicaid that was a core component of the Affordable Care Act--the expansion that has been embraced by more than 30 States. Then, it takes the traditional Medicaid Program and really dismantles it, instituting a per capita fee for enrollees, and moving it more towards a block grant program. That is the first thing it does.

Second, with respect to seniors, this plan would repeal a provision in the Affordable Care Act that says seniors cannot be charged more than three times the premium of a young person; it would repeal that, and it will allow insurers to charge older customers five times as much as younger customers. It would also give States the ability to set even more unfavorable ratios for seniors. This will have a significant impact on the premium of older Americans.

Third, the plan repeals the income-based subsidies, premium assistance, and cost-sharing reductions in the current Affordable Care Act and substitutes less generous tax credits that will not be adjusted to average costs of plans in particular markets. So if you are a middle-income individual in a high-cost market, you are really out of luck with this plan.

Let me give an example of how insurance would be affected in particular communities all over Virginia if the House plan were adopted. If you are 60 years old and you make $30,000 per year, under the House plan, here is

what happens. First, the cost of your insurance can be dramatically raised because you are not, at age 60 now, limited to three-to-one over a young person's premium; they can charge you five-to-one over a young person's premium. So the premium cost, if you are a 60-year-old making 30,000 bucks, goes up significantly.

Now, you get a tax credit, just as right now you get a subsidy, but the tax credit is much less generous. So the cost of your policy goes up, but here is what happens in communities all over Virginia--tax credit compared to the subsidy they currently get.

In 2020, in Augusta County, VA, in the Shenandoah Valley, the tax credit you get is worth only about half of the subsidy you would get if we continued the Affordable Care Act. So the price is up, but your tax credit is less generous by half of the current subsidy.

In Fairfax, your tax credit is 41 percent less than the subsidy; in Bedford, 51 percent less than the subsidy; in the city of Norfolk, 51 percent less; in Rockingham, 50 percent less; Pittsylvania, 49 percent less, and Pulaski County in far Southwest Virginia, 54 percent less.

So if you are a senior, your costs go up, but the assistance you get in the tax credit is dramatically less generous than the assistance you currently get with the premium subsidy.

The bill establishes a penalty if you don't have continuous insurance. An insurer can charge you 30 percent more in premiums if you go 2 months or more without insurance. So if you are unemployed, you lose your insurance. If you forget to pay a premium for two months, you lose your insurance. If you have any gap of 2 months, that is an opportunity for insurers to come in and sock you with a massive penalty.

The bill repeals funding to a healthcare provider of choice for millions of American women: Planned Parenthood. It is really important to be specific about this. There is not in the Federal budget a line item that says Planned Parenthood gets axed. What Federal funds go to Planned Parenthood? Well, first, the Hyde amendment says no Federal funds can go to any organization for the provision of abortions-- Planned Parenthood or anybody else. Planned Parenthood receives Federal funds because it provides healthcare to women who are eligible for Medicaid. So when Planned Parenthood treats a woman who is Medicaid- eligible for a medical service that is eligible for a Medicaid reimbursement, then Planned Parenthood is able to bill Medicaid just like a doctor's office is. And Planned Parenthood is the healthcare provider of choice for millions of American women to do annual checkups, pap smears, cervical cancer tests, and all kinds of basic healthcare provisions. But under this bill, Planned Parenthood will be disbarred from the Medicaid Program, even when they are providing services to Medicaid-eligible women--services that are covered by Medicaid.

The one thing about this bill that I would say--if you were going to say: Well, who is a guaranteed winner in this bill because there are a lot of losers, and I have tried to summarize them--the guaranteed winner is that this bill overwhelmingly repeals the provisions that raise revenue. This bill is a big tax cut bill.

The biggest revenue raisers in the Affordable Care Act were tax cuts on the wealthiest citizens. There is a tax increase for nonwage income by the top earners in the United States and an additional hospital insurance tax that also affected individuals of high income.

What this bill does is cut taxes that almost exclusively benefit the wealthy, while the bill is taking away these coverages and provisions that protect middle and lower income Americans. The tax cuts in this bill would save the top 0.1 percent of earners in the United States about an average of $195,000 a year. So if you are in the top 0.1 percent and this bill passes, you are going to get an average of a $195,000 tax break.

Millionaires get 80 percent of the value of the high income tax cuts in the House bill, with the elimination of the hospital insurance tax on high earners and the Medicare tax on investment income. In fact, a family who is going to do incredibly well under this bill is the family of our President, Donald Trump. As high earners, they are going to get a huge tax cut with this bill.

I have to ask: Is this bill a healthcare bill or is it basically a tax cut bill? You could look at this bill as basically being that the driver of it is who benefits from it. It is a tax cut on the wealthy, paid for by slashing Medicaid, slashing healthcare coverage, slashing Medicare's trust fund, slashing Planned Parenthood, taking protections like preexisting conditions that really matter to people and reducing them. So I have a real question about whether this bill is a healthcare bill at all or whether, under the guise of a repeal and replace of ACA, it is a tax cut for the wealthiest, financed by slashing the healthcare safety net.

Let me read to my colleagues what certain Republican leaders have said about this bill in the past. The deputy leader here in the Senate--a friend--from Texas, Senator Cornyn, said to Republican Governors--Governors have a lot at stake in this. I was a Governor. I know how much Governors depend on Medicaid and healthcare programs. Here is what he said on January 19, 2017: ``Nobody is going to lose coverage.''

No exception, no qualification. ``Nobody is going to lose coverage.'' That is what he said to the Republican Governors.

We were awaiting the CBO score suggesting potentially how many millions will lose coverage. Many people will lose coverage. That is not what was promised.

But, more importantly, probably, what did the President say? When the President was campaigning as a candidate, this is what he promised the American people: ``I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody's going to be taken care of much better than they're taken care of now.''

That was the test that he set for himself about an ObamaCare replacement--that no one would be worse off and that many would be better off. This does not meet that promise. It fails that promise.

At a December press conference the majority leader, Senator McConnell said: ``Surely, we can do better for the American people,'' and ``we will work expeditiously to come up with a better proposal than current law.''

Again, the promise was, we will take where we are right now and we will make it better. Nobody will lose coverage; everybody will be taken care of better. We will come up with a better proposal than the current law.

This is not that proposal. Turning Medicaid from a Federal guarantee to a per capita cap on spending doesn't mean everyone is covered; it means cuts to the States that would force States to cut eligibility, reduce benefits or provider payments. That is why providers, like the hospital associations and nursing homes, and the Republican Governors, like Governor Sandoval, are deeply opposed to this particular version. It is not better for the American people.

Protecting people with preexisting conditions, which the current bill does, but only if they have continuous coverage--that is not better for the American people because what if you lose your job or you can't afford benefits or you have a break in coverage for two months, and then you suddenly find that you are not protected, and your preexisting condition can be used against you to bar you from insurance for the rest of your life.

If you are unemployed and have a break in coverage, how do you afford a 30-percent surcharge on health insurance premiums like this plan proposes that insurance companies can sock you with? That is not better for the American people.

In closing, I will repeat something that 13 Democrats put into a letter to the Republican leadership in January: We want to work together to try to make healthcare better. We are willing to sit down at a table. We have ideas for how to improve not just the Affordable Care Act but prescription drug prices under Medicare Part D, something our citizens are deeply concerned about. We need to work together on affordability. We need to work together to make sure small businesses are able to afford coverage. We have to bring prescription drug pricing down. I know Republicans have ideas about how to do that and Democrats do too. The time is now to sit down and try to figure that out.

Passing a precipitous repeal, trying to rush it through before the CBO scores it--a precipitous repeal that would take health insurance away from many, that would jack costs up on seniors, that would punish so many Virginians by reducing the subsidies they get now and replacing them with a less-generous subsidy--that will break a promise the President made. That will break a promise other leaders have made.

We had a HELP Committee hearing recently where we had witnesses who had been called by Democrats and Republicans before us, talking about things we need to do to fix and improve the Affordable Care Act. They all agreed we needed to find improvements and fix it--all of them. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, they all agreed we need to find improvements. They all agreed a repeal of the Affordable Care Act would be a catastrophe.

There were four witnesses. I asked them this question: If we need to make improvements, what is the best way to do it? Should we do it fast, carelessly, and secretly or should we do it slowly, deliberately, and publicly transparently?

They all said: Of course, there is only one answer to that question. We are talking about people's health. We should do it deliberately, carefully, and transparently, rather than fast, carelessly, and secretly.

We are proceeding right now in the fast, careless, and secret mode. This particular plan comically was locked in a room and nobody was able to see it last week. One of our Senate colleagues went over and tried to get in to see what was in the plan--a Republican colleague, the Senator from Kentucky. Now that the plan is out in the light of day, I think we can see why they were hiding it--because it has so many elements that are frightening so many people.

We can get this right. We can get this right by sitting down and having a discussion about what I have been talking to my constituents about: in the healthcare system right now, what works, what doesn't work, and what we should change. If we bring constituents around the table--individuals, hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, businesses that are trying to buy insurance, doctors and nurses--if we get people around the table, they will break us out of the ``them versus our'' thing. We listen to them. We ask them those questions--what works, what doesn't, what can be fixed. We will find a path to meet the promise the President made, to meet the promise Senator Cornyn made, which is not make anything worse but taking the system as it is right now and making it better. We will only do that if we engage in a dialogue rather than trying to rush. That is what I encourage my colleagues to do.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 91 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 91 provides for consideration of three separate joint resolutions intended to address government overreach by using the Congressional Review Act process. The first measure deals with the Bureau of Land Management's Planning 2.0 rule. This rule represents a remarkable overreach that encroaches on State and local authority.

By law, BLM is required to coordinate with local governments, but this rule would disrupt that longstanding principle. Under the Planning 2.0 rule, faceless bureaucrats in Washington would be tasked with micromanaging much of our Nation's land and resources. The rule also disregards the Department of the Interior's multiple-use mission. If left intact, the rule will harm grazing, timber, energy, mineral development, and recreation on our public lands.

This is government overreach at its worst. The Federal Government should not be telling communities and States what works best for them. Decisions should be made on the local level, with site-specific considerations, not landscape-level analyses as called for in this rule.

For 4 years, I had the privilege of serving on the Planning Commission for the city of Mobile. Land use planning is and has historically been, in the United States, a local function.

Imagine a Washington bureaucrat trying to tell planning commissions in municipalities or counties anywhere in the United States how they are going to manage land down to the landscaping level. That is not the role of the Federal Government. That is not what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they created this government. Yet this regulation would take us somewhere we have never been before.

Making matters worse, this regulation was pushed through in the waning days of the Obama administration, making it one the many midnight regulations jammed through at the last minute.

This Congressional Review Act measure is supported by over 60 organizations, ranging from the American Farm Bureau Federation to the National Association of Counties, to the National Mining Association. There is broad support for revisiting this misguided rule.

This rule also provides for consideration of Congressional Review Act measures for two rules from the Department of Education. Now, typically, in America, we think of education as a local and State endeavor. The Federal Government provides 15 percent, on average, of the funding for local school systems. Yet, we know that the Federal Government comprises over 50 percent of the requirements for red tape and paperwork. That imbalance harms our ability to deliver education at the local level where it matters the most.

As a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, I have been a consistent advocate for ensuring control over education is largely left in the hands of local school boards, teachers, parents, and administrators who know their students best.

I was very pleased to see Congress pass the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, which replaced No Child Left Behind and fundamentally changed our Nation's K-12 education policies. Even better, this was a bipartisan effort that brought Members from both sides of the aisle together; and, yes, it was signed by President Obama.

The Wall Street Journal called the Every Student Succeeds Act ``the largest devolution of Federal control to the states in a quarter- century.''

A major goal of our reform bill was to empower States to create their own accountability systems. This is something else that has been consistent throughout American history. We have looked to the States to put in these accountability systems. I served on the Alabama State Board of Education. This is much of what we did.

While there are broad-guiding principles outlined in the law, the intent of Congress was for there to be very little Federal involvement in the accountability process. Despite clear efforts in the Every Student Succeeds Act to limit the influence of the Federal Secretary of Education, the rule proposed by the Department of Education dealing with accountability gave far too much control to the Secretary, which ultimately harms our students.

Most concerning, the rule will restrict the flexibility that was at the core of the philosophy behind the Every Student Succeeds Act.

We heard from local administrators, local school board members, State superintendents of education, State school board members from all over the country, from all types of States and all types of communities. They wanted to have more flexibility. They wanted to have their own control over their accountability programs.

When the rule was first proposed, leaders in the House and Senate sent a very clear and thorough explanation of their concerns to the Department of Education. In fact, I even expressed my concerns about the proposed rule's contradiction of the statute directly to the

then-Secretary of Education. Unfortunately, most of the concerns of Congress went unaddressed. The final rule gives far too much authority to the Federal Department of Education and stands in direct contrast to law passed by Congress.

As States work on their accountability plans, it is important that they have certainty that the Federal Government will not continue to exert undue power and influence over the process. Through this Congressional Review Act challenge, we can ensure control is at the State and local level and prevent unnecessary Federal overreach into our classrooms.

Finally, this rule provides for a Congressional Review Act resolution overturning the Obama administration's teacher preparation regulation. This is yet another rule that would exert far too much Federal authority over an area that has been traditionally reserved for the States. Teacher preparation is critically important to the success of our Nation's education system, but it is a process that has been successfully controlled and implemented at the State level with some grant assistance from the Federal Government.

What might work to prepare a teacher in one State is totally different from what might work in another State. This rule makes no acknowledgment of that fact. This regulation sets up a one-size-fits- all Federal system, which is not what Congress intended.

As a former member of the Alabama State Board of Education, I can attest that we have highly qualified people who worked very hard every day to make sure we have skilled teachers in our schools who are adequately prepared. These school board members do not need the Federal Government to intervene and place additional burdens and requirements on them. The challenges are serious enough as it is.

Sadly, this regulation is just another attempt to allow bureaucrats in Washington to micromanage our States and local school districts. Groups like the American Council on Education and The School Superintendents Association expressed their concerns with the Federal overreach created by this rule. This resolution would block this unnecessary Federal involvement and keep control in the hands of the States, where it belongs.

Each of the three bills covered by this rule focus on taking power away from bureaucrats in Washington and, instead, empowering States and local communities. Heavy-handed policies from Washington have failed time and time again. It is critical that we use our power to overturn these overreaching regulations. It is clearly what the American people elected to us do.

Many on the other side of the aisle claim that, while they disagree with portions of these rules, Congress should not use the CRA process because it blocks the agencies from reissuing a rule in ``substantially the same form.'' However, this argument ignores the fact that the statute clearly states an agency may enact a similar rule if it is subsequently authorized by law. Thus, the CRA gives Congress the ability to rein in an out-of-control agency until we, the legislative branch, can give it further instruction.

Members on both sides of the aisle should welcome the chance to use this tool to make sure our legislative intent is actually followed by those implementing the law.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 91 and the underlying bills.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond just briefly to a couple of points that my colleague from Colorado made, and I want to compliment him and his service on our committee. He is a tremendous member, and we appreciate his leadership.

We had a little bit of a constitutional law lesson there. The truth of the matter is, the Department of Education only exists because of an act of Congress. The only powers it has are the powers that we give them through the authorizing legislation. What we authorize, we can unauthorize.

The Every Student Succeeds Act took back a number of things we had authorized under No Child Left Behind. This is no violation of the separation of powers under the Congressional Review Act when we look at a rule-making authority that we have given to a Federal agency and see that they have done it in a way that is contrary to congressional intent and we take it back. We have the authority to do that, and we should take it back when we see overreach like this.

He also brought up how this might tie the hands of our new Secretary of Education, and I will take this point in time to congratulate her on her confirmation. What this will require her to do is to work with the Congress to make sure that we are on the same page.

I remember very clearly when the former Secretary of Education came before our committee. I, and many others, pleaded with him not to put out this rule because we told him this is not in keeping with the intent of Congress and with the words of Congress in the statute. He went forward anyway.

I believe Secretary DeVos is going to work with Congress to make sure, as the Department of Education, under her management begins to implement this law, it is done so in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the law.

I hope that that is what we will do between the legislative branch and the executive branch and every department of government, but, in the last 8 years, we didn't see very much of that. We basically had the executive branch of government force feeding things to us.

I think it is high time that we take action, whatever party we are in, to exercise our Article I powers to make sure we maintain control over the things we created through our authorizing statutes.

So I don't foresee the problems with the incoming Secretary of Education that my good friend from Colorado does.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin).

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the passionate remarks of the gentleman from New York. The Holocaust is something that all of us should learn more about and take seriously.

There are people today who would seek to destroy the Nation of Israel. The leadership of Iran has said that over and over again, yet the previous administration reached an egregious deal with them that puts the Nation of Israel at risk.

So I take no back seat to anybody in standing up for the Jewish people, as I and many other people in this body have done, but we are here today to talk about two education bills and a third bill dealing with the Bureau of Land Management. I would like to redirect our debate to those subjects.

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

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman talks about regular order. This particular regulation from the Bureau of Land Management was enacted very quickly and hurriedly without input from State and county governments. So, essentially, this was a hurried-through rule that didn't have the regular order input that it should have had, yet another reason why it should be reversed through this Congressional Review Act.

But it is also the case that this doesn't mean the BLM doesn't have any authority here. They can go back to their old regulation, which was already in place, and they can come up with a new rule so long as it is not a substantially similar rule, or they can come to us and seek specific authorization. The truth of the matter is this particular regulation has had so many problems, it cannot be tweaked or amended. They need to start all over again and take input from State and local government.

Now, I heard the gentleman talk about people who hunt and fish. I am a lifelong hunter and fisherman. In fact, I believe the gentleman has invited me to come to Colorado to go fishing with him, and I have invited him to come to the Gulf to come fishing with me. I spend a lot of my time with people who hunt and fish all over the country, and I have never heard anybody in the hunting and fishing community say: I really want the Federal Government to tell me when and how and where I can hunt and fish. Quite the opposite. My friends who hunt and fish want the Federal Government to stay out of it. They would rather let local and State people make those sorts of decisions, particularly as they pertain to land use management.

On the education issues, as I said before, I was an 8-year member of the Alabama State Board of Education. My colleague from Colorado said something that is so true: getting a high-quality, well-trained, caring teacher in the classroom is the most important thing we can do for our schoolchildren. I don't trust the Federal Government to do that better than I trust State and local officials to do it.

We had this law, No Child Left Behind, that gave the Federal Government the power to determine when a teacher was highly qualified or not. I don't think anybody in Washington knows better how to assess whether a teacher is highly qualified or not than the principal and superintendent that that teacher works for, than the local school board that that teacher works for. There is nobody up here who can know that better than they can.

There is nobody up here who can do a better job of looking at the teacher preparation programs and saying they are good or bad than State school boards, most of whom, like me, were elected by the people, accountable to the people, instead of somebody up here who sits in some office and makes that decision for them.

Do we really think that is what the American people want? The American people want control of their lives back. They are tired of Washington bureaucrats telling them what to do, and they are really tired of the Federal Government telling the people they entrust with the education of their children what to do and what not to do. They want the people who make those decisions to be the people who live in their communities, that they see in church, that they see at the grocery store, that they interact with at the school every day. That is what they want. And they want us, the Federal Government, to get out of the way.

I talked to dozens and dozens of people who are school board members and teachers and people involved in the school administration who said this regulation by the Department of Education Accountability is way over the line, please don't let them go through with that. So we are being responsive to those people in doing this, and I am proud that we are.

Mr. Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 91 and the underlying joint resolutions.

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