Restoring American Privacy Act of 2017

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

Over the last several months, I have heard from thousands of my constituents over the phone, by email, and record numbers at townhalls. Frankly, the overwhelming message is frustration with the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress--no calls to pass this bill, which every group that advocates for workers' rights and unions opposes. The people in my district say that, to the contrary, Republicans continue to put the priorities of the few over the priorities of hardworking Americans.

People are frustrated that, instead of working with Democrats, Republicans are focused on gutting healthcare coverage, increasing premiums, and stripping away workers' rights. People in my district, across my State, and across the country are worried. The members of our immigrant community--our neighbors, family, and friends--will continue to be demonized by the President of the United States. So while I don't expect this kind of rhetoric or policies to change overnight, I feel it is important to share these concerns with this body.

Now, earlier this week, frankly, I was encouraged. There were some signs of positivity. Congressional Democrats and Republicans announced a bipartisan funding bill through the end of the year that shows a bright spot of what we can do together when we try. I hope we can all agree that a government shutdown would be catastrophic. In my district alone, I am reminded of the devastating impact of congressional inaction when I hosted a townhall in Estes Park just last week. The government shutdown in 2013, right during tourist season, cost our small and vibrant town nearly half a million dollars in tax revenue and millions of dollars in sales, threatening the existence of many Main Street businesses that rely on that tourism revenue and keeping Rocky Mountain National Park open. Estes Park sits at the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park was closed for most of the 16-day shutdown a few years ago.

But somehow, despite those obvious economic indicators in jobs, Donald Trump tweeted just this morning that our country ``needs a good shutdown.''

What does that even mean?

We need a good shutdown like we need a root canal. It would put people in my district out of work and cost the private sector millions of jobs.

But I am hopeful now that we will avoid a shutdown; that, thankfully, the spending bill, through 2017, prohibits funding on a new border wall. It minimizes cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, allowing them to continue their work to keep our air and our water clean; and Planned Parenthood will continue to receive Federal funding.

Now, that being said, of course, that budget isn't perfect, and we will have the chance to debate it on the floor. The Republicans insist on massive government deficit spending for increased military spending that digs our mountain of debt for the next generation even bigger. The tax-and-spend Republicans continue to spend hand over fist and increase the deficit at the cost of the next generation of Americans.

Now, the bill before us, the Working Families Flexibility Act, is another example of Republicans putting ideology and special interests over the needs of workers and American families. The trend isn't new. It comes out of the typical playbook we have seen for decades.

In fact, this very bill has been introduced multiple times over the past 22 years, never with any success. Nearly identical bills were introduced in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2015, and now 2017. That is 10 times over 22 years. Each time, the bill never becomes law, and it won't become law now either. But that is how the Republicans want to spend their time in this body when we actually have important things to discuss that could become law, like fixing our broken immigration system.

This bill somehow claims to provide employees with more flexibility, but the only flexibility are for the bosses. Instead of receiving overtime, workers would receive comp time; so their paychecks won't get anything out of extra time worked. It is important to note that this legislation applies to the private sector and only to employees subject to overtime provisions in the Fair Labor Standards Act. The current overtime threshold is set at just under $24,000, so only employees that make less than $24,000 are affected by this bill. We have tried mightily to increase that threshold to keep up with inflation, but we have met resistance by the Republicans every step of the way.

In 2017, the Federal poverty level for a family of four is about $24,000. So we are talking about only giving overtime to families that are below the poverty level. These families rely on that overtime to pay their bills, to pay their rent, and to put food on the table. These are the families who would benefit most from receiving overtime pay. In fact, a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute showed that 40 percent of people making less than $22,500 a year worked some overtime hours and needed that income to get by. This same 40 percent are the very people

who would lose out under the Republican bill today.

My Republican colleagues claim that no one is forcing workers to accept comp time instead of overtime pay, and comp time is technically optional. But this argument represents how out of touch Republicans are with the real-life workforce conditions and actual working families.

In practice, the power differential between employers and employees means that many employees would feel obligated to accept comp time instead of overtime pay, even if that is not what works best for them. Especially in nonunion workplaces, employees could feel pressure to go along with their employers' demand or risk not even being offered overtime or comp time in the future.

Now, Republicans have also made the argument that public sector workers receive comp time. They are right. But that is not apples to apples. Public sector union membership is around 34 percent, and public sector employees have vast protections that private sector employees lack. As an example, public sector workers can't be fired except for good cause, and they have administrative appeal rights. They can't be discriminated against based on their desire to take overtime pay instead of comp time. Nonunionized private sector workers can be legally discriminated against in assigning their hours based on their decisions to take comp time versus overtime pay.

If the Republicans want to enlarge this discussion to include providing additional workplace protections to workers in the private sector, we are happy to have that discussion both on the committee where I serve with my colleague, Mr. Byrne, as well as on the floor of the House.

Republicans somehow argue that this bill provides flexibility for workers to get time off, but I will remind my colleagues that nothing in the current Fair Labor Standards Act prevents employers from offering time off right now. In fact, the Fair Labor Standards Act allows the ultimate flexibility. Employers can already provide paid or unpaid leave on sick days, maternity, and paternity under the FLSA. They don't need this legislation to provide them flexibility. They just need to do the right thing.

This bill also ignores the fact that not all businesses are successful. Before coming to Congress, I started several businesses. I know this firsthand. A statistic is that 59 percent of restaurant businesses go out of business within 3 years. I am zero for two. I tried starting two restaurants. They both failed. Maybe that means if I try again someday, I will be finally due for a success.

But what is important is that when something goes out of business, we don't leave the employees in the lurch. What you are effectively doing here by deferring the overtime pay into potential future time off, if the company goes out of business, that employee would have to get in line with other creditors and risk never being paid. That is not a theoretical risk. The majority of new businesses don't last 10 years. They go out of business. Depriving people of the payment for the work they have done already is not the right way to treat workers in those businesses, and it is not their fault when the bad decision is made by their bosses.

In our committee markup of the bill, my Democratic colleagues offered a number of amendments to improve the legislation. Representative Bonamici offered an amendment that would allow comp time to earn interest before workers' use. Under the current way this bill is written, low-wage workers are being asked to give an interest-free loan to the company. That doesn't make sense. The amendment didn't pass. If employees receive overtime pay, they should receive interest on it as well.

Representative Wilson offered an amendment that would exempt workers who are earning less than 2\1/2\ times the minimum wage, so the employees earning the very least wouldn't be subject to the law and could actually rely on their overtime pay. Again, that amendment was rejected by Republicans.

Representative Blunt Rochester on the committee offered an amendment that would limit the bill so only workers eligible for at least 7 days of paid sick leave receive comp time. Yet, again, Republicans rejected this amendment.

In total, committee Democrats offered eight amendments to try to improve this bill. Every single one was rejected.

Instead of bringing forward the same, tired, 22-year-old policies that I certainly don't hear my constituents requesting, Democrats have offered real solutions that benefit working families. Working families would benefit from an increase in the overtime salary threshold. Last year, the Department of Labor proposed an increase to that threshold, and 248,000 workers in Colorado alone would have benefited under that rule.

Democrats continue to write bills that provide commonsense solutions. We have offered legislation that would provide up to 12 weeks of partial-paid parental leave. Only 14 percent of the workforce has paid family leave through their employers. As a parent of a 5- and a 2-year- old, I know how important that is to be able to spend time with your newborn kids.

Democrats have also introduced a bill that would allow employees to earn up to 7 sick days per year. That would be a tremendous help to the 4 in 10 private sector employees who don't have access to any paid sick leave at all under current law.

Democrats have also offered legislation to combat pay discrimination. In 2017, women working full time are still paid 80 cents on the dollar compared to what men make. Democrats have offered legislation that I am proud to cosponsor that would address that kind of pay disparity. Those are the kinds of bills that the American people need, that workers need, and that we need to help lift people out of poverty and into the middle class.

Today, House Democrats introduced the Equality Act. I was proud to join so many of my colleagues in a bipartisan bill to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Sadly, in many States, it is still legal to fire someone just because they are gay. The Equality Act would finally extend Federal workplace discrimination protections to LGBT Americans in all 50 States and the territories.

Finally, House Democrats will soon be introducing the bill that would raise the minimum wage. In my home State of Colorado, voters chose to raise the wage last November, and many other States have minimum wages higher than the Federal minimum wage. But it shouldn't come down to what State you live in to determine if you even earn enough to put food on the table and pay your rent. It is long past time we update the Federal minimum wage, and the Raise the Wage Act would do just that.

Yet, again, we are offering many solutions that we would love to discuss and love to vote on, and, instead, the Republicans are offering a bill to strip existing rights away from workers.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us represents the same old policies the Republicans have offered for decades. They have never succeeded, and they won't succeed now. This time around, they are offering a bill that might be great for some of the bosses, but it undermines the lives of hardworking Americans that keep our country going.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose the Working Families Flexibility Act and the rule before us, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a document from 1997 from then-President Bill Clinton who opposed a bill that is basically identical to this one in its current form. The President said he would veto this bill, if passed, because he said this bill purports to give working families greater flexibility, but, in reality, it grants employers more rights at the expense of working people.

I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle stop using President Clinton's good name in vain in passage of a bill that is nearly identical to the one that he threatened to veto.

Of course, Democrats want to talk about flexibility. President Clinton, myself, and Democrats of the Education and the Workforce Committee are happy to do that, if there is a way to provide workers with real choices to protect workers against employee abuse in making their decisions, but the current bill, and the same bill that President Clinton opposed, fails in that regard and fails to give employees the rights that they deserve to exercise their comp time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Adams).

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the Statement of Administration Policy from President William Jefferson Clinton from 1997, in which President Clinton lays out the criteria, by and large, which is still the criteria under which Democrats would support a comp time flexibility bill, had the Republicans been at all serious about actually passing one into law rather than just passing a symbolic bill that they have passed for 22 years.

[From the American Presidency Project, John T. Woolley & Gerhard

Peters, Santa Barbara, CA]

William J. Clinton: Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1--Working

Families Flexibility Act of 1997, March 19, 1997

(House) (Ballenger (R) NC and 99 others)

The President will veto H.R. 1 if it is passed in its

current form. The President will not sign H.R. 1, or any

other comp time legislation, unless it adheres to three

fundamental principles: (1) real choice for workers; (2) real

protection against employer abuse; and (3) preservation of

workers' rights.

H.R. 1 purports to give working families greater

flexibility. In reality, it grants employers more rights at

the expense of working people:

H.R. 1 fails to offer workers real choice. In particular,

H.R. 1 would allow an employer to decide when a worker could

use his or her compensatory time-off by disapproving such

time-off if the employer claims it would ``unduly disrupt''

its operations. In addition, H.R. 1 would permit an employer

to ``cash out'' a worker's earned compensatory time over 80

hours.

H.R. 1 fails to protect workers against employer abuse. For

example, H.R. 1 offers inadequate protections for vulnerable

workers and part-time, seasonal, and temporary employees,

including garment and construction workers, and those who are

employed in industries with histories of Fair Labor Standards

Act violations. H.R. 1 also fails to prohibit employers from

substituting compensatory time-off for paid vacation or sick

leave benefits. Furthermore, H.R. 1 lacks meaningful remedies

for workers when employers penalize them for electing to

receive overtime pay in lieu of compensatory time-off. In

addition, H.R. 1 contains inadequate worker safeguards in

cases where an employer goes bankrupt or out-of-business.

H.R. 1 fails to preserve workers' rights. Workers who take

compensatory time-off

can be forced to work additional overtime in the same week--

even on the weekend--without being paid overtime premium pay.

The Administration supports the substitute amendment to be

offered by Representative George Miller, although procedural

obstacles in the House have prevented the amendment from

addressing all of the important issues that need to be

treated, including expansion of Family and Medical Leave Act

(FMLA). The Administration strongly believes that any

legislation to authorize compensatory time under the Fair

Labor Standards Act should be linked to expansion of the

FMLA. Expanding the FMLA to give working families greater

flexibility to foster the education of their children or

provide routine health care for their children or elderly

relatives will go a long way toward achieving the stated

goals of H.R. 1.

The Miller amendment, however, would ensure real employee

choice, by adding crucial provisions not found in H.R. 1. For

example, employers that adopt comp time programs would have

to make comp time available to similarly-situated employees

on a fair and non-discriminatory basis. Working families are

guaranteed real protection against possible comp time abuse

through the Miller amendment.

Furthermore, the Miller amendment would preclude employers

from using comp time to modify or reduce existing paid leave

plans. It would entitle employees choosing comp time to get

regular statements of their accrual and use of comp time; put

a reasonable limit on the number of hours of comp time that

can be accrued; and allow employees to seek damages when they

incur costs because an employer wrongfully denies them use of

the comp time they earned. The Secretary of Labor would have

the authority to bar employers with a pattern and practice of

comp time abuse from continuing to offer comp time. H.R. 1

has none of these protections. These are all improvements to

H.R. 1 that guarantee the legislation enhances rather than

decreases flexibility for America's working families.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Brown).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell).

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

Mr. Speaker, while we are debating a rule for a bill that would strip workers of their overtime pay, since President Trump took office, dangerous bills like this are more likely to become law.

Just a few weeks ago, President Trump signed a bill into law that strips the American people of our online privacy, allowing internet service providers to sell yours and my sensitive information to the highest bidder without our permission.

This information includes location, financial and health data, information about our children--even pictures of our children--Social Security numbers, web browsing history, app usage history, content of communication: emails, video chats. It is simply wrong.

For this reason, when we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Jacky Rosen's bill, H.R. 1868, which would reinstate the Federal Communication Commission's internet privacy rule.

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, sometimes you need a redo or a retake. When this body narrowly passed the bill that President Trump signed that took all of our private data and allowed internet service providers to sell it without our permission, it was a mistake. Hopefully enough Members of this body have since realized it is a mistake and they will now change their vote and support defeating the previous question

allowing for immediate consideration of Representative Rosen's bill to protect our privacy.

As we know, broadband access through internet access providers is a critical way to have access to a world of information and commerce, but the price of that access should not be all of your private information, including your kids' photographs and birthdays and your Social Security number.

Under the bill that became law, everything you enter on the internet on any site, regardless of their privacy policy, would be owned by your broadband provider and be able to be sold by your broadband provider without your consent.

That is simply wrong for America; it is wrong for consumers; it is wrong for innovation. It casts a shadow over the entire internet ecosytem, which not only has brought so much enjoyment to so many but has created millions of jobs in my district and across our country.

If we can defeat the previous question, we can do a redo on this bill. We can pass H.R. 1868, which would reinstate a rule that has broad, popular support. I haven't heard a single constituent of mine say that they don't want their broadband privacy protected, and I have had hundreds of them say that they do want their broadband privacy protected.

I am hoping that, since my Republican friends have now had the chance to have townhalls and to listen to their constituents, they will agree that we should reinstate the Federal Communications' internet privacy rule to protect our privacy subject to the terms of use; information can be sold if you consent for it to be sold, but without your consent, all the information you enter on the internet should not be the property of the broadband provider for their use and for sale. It is common sense. The vast majority of the American public agrees. I think it is time to call the question on Congress to see if we can get Congress to agree.

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

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

I am surprised that people in Alabama weren't clamoring to protect their online privacy at the gentleman's townhall meetings. I will certainly take him at his word. Perhaps it is because they were so concerned with Republican attempts to increase their healthcare insurance rates by 15 to 20 percent, Republican attempts to raise their taxes, and Republican spending that will increase the deficit by $12 billion in this continuing resolution that were brought before us. Maybe they were so overwhelmed by the Republican efforts to get rid of their health care, increase the deficit, spend more money, and take away their rights that they didn't get down their list of concerns to broadband privacy.

Certainly in my district, Mr. Speaker, dozens of constituents in my townhalls--both Republican and Democratic constituents--brought this issue up as a way of arguing how out of touch House and Senate Republicans are to say that, at this time in our Nation's history, what we need is less privacy, not more. I think that there are a lot of things that people are concerned about, and that is certainly one of them.

This debate is about that, frankly, Mr. Speaker, because, if we defeat the previous question, I will be bringing forth Ms. Rosen's bill. Members of this House will have an opportunity to vote on bringing up Ms. Rosen's bill to protect our broadband privacy.

Mr. Speaker, the more work, less pay bill before us is yet another example by Republicans to roll back workers' rights under the guise of doing the opposite. Again, if the Republicans have a sincere desire to actually enhance and improve workers' rights, then we are all for that. The labor movement is for that. Let's talk about that. But don't pretend like you have the voices and concerns of workers in mind when workers' advocacy groups say you are stripping away their rights. We are happy to have that discussion.

In many ways, the veto statement from President Clinton in 1997 still lays out as relevant, today, some of the very criteria the Democrats would want to see in a bill that we could support that would empower workers to choose additional comp time, a concept that many Democrats support.

I wish we were working to protect American families today. But instead of collaborating with Democrats to produce a bill that actually accomplishes the stated goal of increasing worker flexibility, instead, the Republicans have chosen to move forward with their 22-year-old bill that weakens the 40-hour workweek, that President Clinton threatened to veto, that hasn't become law and won't become law, just perhaps as a check-off box rather than to do anything to actually empower workers to choose comp time instead of overtime. They are just checking the box for the big bosses and moving on to the next item without seeing this through into law.

There are a lot of bipartisan bills this body could be taking up this week. Frankly, one of them is Representative Rosen's bill that I will be bringing up when we defeat the previous question, but, sadly, this bill is not one of them. I am very disappointed that even in the majority, even in the governing capacity, even controlling the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, Republicans are wasting time on what we around here call messaging bills rather than real bills to address issues that Americans want us to work on, like bringing down the cost of college, fixing our broken immigration system, rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, or reforming our complicated tax system to make it more friendly for growth in our country.

Mr. Speaker, I support legislation that puts the needs of workers first, but this bill before us does the opposite. This legislation lifts up the big bosses with the hope that a worker may or may not see a benefit down the line without interest if the company stays in business. It is the wrong way to go about it. I oppose the rule. I oppose the underlying bill. I urge a ``no'' vote.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule for providing debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, often called the NDAA, and also the

Gaining Responsibility on Water Act. First let me address that act.

They tried to create an acronym called the GROW Act, Gaining Responsibility on Water, trying to make it seem like it actually might help things grow, when it actually picks winners and losers in water-- and the losers are the environment, the State of California, and many others.

There are also a lot of problems around the process for the GROW Act. It bypassed hearings and markups. In fact, up until this bill was published on the Rules Committee website, only lobbyists and a few Republicans even knew what many of the provisions in this bill were. This kind of backroom dealmaking is one of the reasons the general public holds Congress in such low esteem.

There is an immense amount of opposition to this legislation, including from conservation groups, fishing groups, Native American Tribes, and the State of California.

Mr. Speaker, I have several letters that I include in the Record in regard to opposition to H.R. 23. One of the letters is signed by groups ranging from the American Bird Conservancy to the Animal Welfare Institute, to the Humane Society and a number of others, discussing how this bill would dramatically weaken protections for salmon, birds, and other fish and wildlife.

Another letter that I include in the Record is from a former colleague of ours, now the attorney general of the State of California, Xavier Becerra, and, finally, a letter from the Governor of California as well.

Please Oppose H.R. 23

July 11, 2017.

Dear Representative: On behalf of the undersigned

organizations, we write to urge you to oppose H.R. 23

(Valadao, R-CA). This bill would dramatically weaken

protections for salmon, migratory birds, and other fish and

wildlife in California's Bay-Delta watershed and would

threaten thousands of fishing jobs in California and Oregon

that depend on the health of these species. In addition to

gutting critical federal environmental protections in

California, H.R. 23 also preempts a wide range of state

environmental laws and would prevent the State of California

from protecting and managing its own water and wildlife

resources. In addition to these provisions focused on

California, the bill also includes titles that would reduce

public and environmental reviews of new dams and water

infrastructure across the Western states. Both the Obama

Administration and the State of California opposed similar

legislation in recent years, including opposition to H.R.

3964 (Valadao, R-CA) and H.R. 5781 (Valadao, R-CA) in 2014,

and H.R. 2898 (Valadao, R-CA) in 2015.

California has just emerged from a devastating drought, and

the state is taking proactive steps to protect cities, farms,

and the environment from future dry spells. However, several

provisions in H.R. 23 would undermine California's efforts by

permanently preempting critical state laws that protect

salmon and other native fisheries and the jobs they support.

In addition, this legislation would effectively repeal and

preempt state and federal laws and a binding settlement

agreement that require restoration of the San Joaquin River

and its native salmon runs, instead permanently drying up 60

miles of California's second longest river. H.R. 23 not only

preempts state law as applied to federal water projects in

California, but it also preempts the application of state

laws to the State Water Project and virtually all water

rights holders in California's Bay-Delta watershed. This

extensive preemption of state law in H.R. 23 is contrary to

over a hundred years of Reclamation law and would set a

dangerous precedent for other Western states.

H.R. 23 would also override the Endangered Species Act,

increasing the risk that winter-run Chinook salmon and other

native fish species are driven extinct. Further, H.R. 23

could devastate wildlife refuges that provide habitat for

millions of birds that migrate along the Pacific Flyway by

undermining the refuges' water rights and threatening

critically important funding sources. H.R. 23 would also

eviscerate the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act,

eliminating instream flows to benefit salmon and funding for

habitat restoration projects, which help to mitigate the

adverse effects of the Central Valley Project. The impacts

from these provisions would reverberate along the entire West

Coast, affecting fishing jobs and related industries in

Oregon and Washington that depend on salmon from California's

Central Valley and threatening populations of waterfowl and

shorebirds that migrate to and from Alaska and Canada each

year.

In addition to these provisions focused on gutting

environmental protections in California, H.R. 23 also

includes several titles that would weaken the public's right

to know and environmental protection across the western

United States. For instance, the bill's dam permitting

provisions would give the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

unprecedented control over the environmental review process

and could undermine the ability of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service and N.O.A.A. Fisheries to share expertise and inform

the development of major infrastructure investments. These

provisions would make it difficult, if not impossible, for

responsible agencies to meaningfully analyze proposed

projects and could limit the public's ability to weigh in on

infrastructure that could affect communities for decades.

H.R. 23 has not been the subject of a single committee

hearing to receive public input from the State of California,

hunting organizations, sport and commercial fishermen,

tribes, or conservation groups, even though the bill could

greatly interfere with state water rights and cripple the

ability of state and federal agencies to manage limited water

resources for all beneficial uses. Last year Congress passed

legislation addressing California's water operations in the

Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016

(P.L. 114-322). H.R. 23 would undermine that legislation,

which supporters claim requires that state and federal water

projects are operated in compliance with state law and the

Endangered Species Act.

H.R. 23 also threatens thousands of fishing jobs in

California, Oregon, and beyond that depend on healthy salmon

runs from the Bay-Delta. The closure of the salmon fishery in

2008 and 2009 resulted in thousands of lost jobs in these

states. The livelihoods and recreational interests of salmon

fishermen, Delta farmers, fishing guides, tackle shops, bird

watchers, waterfowl hunters, and communities across

California and along the West Coast depend on the

environmental protections that H.R. 23 would eliminate.

For these reasons, we respectfully urge you to oppose H.R.

23. Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

American Bird Conservancy,

American Rivers,

Animal Welfare Institute,

Audubon California,

Center for Biological Diversity,

Center for Food Safety,

Defenders of Wildlife,

Earthjustice,

Endangered Species Coalition,

Environmental Protection Information Center,

Friends of the River,

Humane Society Legislative Fund,

International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island

Institute,

Klamath Forest Alliance,

League of Conservation Voters,

Natural Resources Defense Council,

San Juan Citizens Alliance,

Sierra Club,

The Bay Institute,

Turtle Island Restoration Network,

Western Nebraska Resources Council,

Western Watersheds Project,

WildEarth Guardians.

Mr. Speaker, the only winners under this bill are actually a few large agricultural producers who will take all the water, leaving none for many others. This bill is a water grab, plain and simple. The so-called GROW Act provides no new water, but it takes the existing water and gives it to those with the best lobbyists here in Washington.

Instead of this highly partisan bill, we should be taking steps to actually grow the water supply for everybody, with water recycling, with water conservation, water efficiency, many other nonideological, nonpartisan fixes, water infrastructure that can actually help deliver water to small farmers, protect our environment, and, yes, our legitimate agricultural producers as well.

Unfortunately, instead, we are stuck with this so-called GROW Act, which jeopardizes fishing jobs, preempts State conservation laws, overrides the Endangered Species Act for salmon and wildlife, weakens critical safeguards under the NEPA process, and undermines water rights. In doing so, this bill would permanently destroy California's rivers, Bay-Delta Estuary, needed fisheries, and the thousands of jobs that depend on those natural resources.

This bill is not a balanced protection. It picks winners and losers and hands over water rights to those who are present for the backroom deals in Washington.

Let's go back to the drawing board. I come from the State of Colorado, and we know how important water is. Let's find a way to find a bipartisan path to grow the water supply across the Western United States.

Let me address the other bill that is contained in this rule, the NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act. For 56 straight years, the United States Congress has come together to craft policies and recommendations for the United States Armed Forces and to put those policies into law under the authorizing statute for our military. Without question, this bill is one of the most consequential and important items that Congress undertakes each year.

Personally, I have found objections to policies, and I have been a fan of other policies contained in these bills while I have been in Congress. And I want to commend the work of my colleagues, Democratic and Republican, who serve on the Armed Services Committee for their important work on this legislation so important for our national security.

Many of my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee have served or do serve in our military. Members of the committee are dedicated public servants, they are experts in their field, they travel and learn and hear from experts, and they set aside many of their political differences to do what it takes to keep America safe and secure, something that Republicans, Democrats, Independents are all committed to. We need to make sure that we give our military the tools they need to safely carry out the tasks that the Commander in Chief and elected officials ask them to undertake.

I commend the committee for putting forth a bill that takes constructive steps in filling military readiness gaps, requiring strategies from the administration and the Department of Defense with regard to contingencies in several countries, and acknowledging and planning for the real climate change threat that is posed to our national security.

Yet the work of the NDAA is not limited to members of the Armed Services Committee. The Members of this body as a whole, Democrats and Republicans who don't serve on that committee, have submitted over 400 amendments to do what each one of us believes would, in some way, improve this bill and strengthen our national security.

But the work of NDAA continues, and before this week is over, I expect to see the Rules Committee make in order an even greater number of these amendments. We took the first step in this rule by making a few dozen amendments in order, and we will continue that work in Rules Committee this afternoon as we thoughtfully go

through the 400 amendments so a representative number of those from my Democratic and Republican colleagues who don't have the opportunity to serve on the Armed Services Committee can present those ideas for consideration by the full House.

But for all the hard work that the Armed Services Committee has done, what we have before us this week is essentially an argument that needs to be solved by the Budget Committee and can't, frankly, be solved by the authorizing committee.

What we are doing is we are having a very strange debate in this body. We are having effectively a budget debate within the defense bill. We are discussing authorization levels, when we know that the real discussion and battle over tradeoffs will be around the funding levels, not so much the authorization levels.

One of the tricks that we worry about is by blatantly disregarding the proper use of the overseas contingency fund and by deliberately flouting limitations set by the Budget Control Act, this Armed Services authorization bill has been completely overtaken by the debate on the Federal budget.

So this week we see a debate about the inability to pass a budget, adhere to a budget, and balance our budget, and, rather, we are operating kind of in this lala world of, if we had all the money in the world, here is what we would do, but as my Democratic and Republican friends know, we live in a world of tradeoffs, and we as Democrats and Republicans will need to decide what those tradeoffs are. That is not being done in this bill, and, in fact, it is one week less that we have to have those important discussions about how to actually secure America and protect our country.

If the debate over armed services wasn't such a serious topic, I would, frankly, give the Republicans kudos for building such an elaborate and complex budget scheme. It is very clever, more so than the traditional overseas contingency gimmicks that have been presented within recent years. It took me a little while to even understand what this budget gimmick was, and I am going to now seek to explain it.

The Defense spending budget is capped at $549 billion by the Budget Control Act of 2011. $549 billion is the maximum that would be spent on defense. This bill authorizes $621 billion as its discretionary base budget authority. That means that the bill we are debating today goes $70 billion in spending above the spending caps that Congress agreed on. That is all deficit spending. That means Congress will increase the deficit by $70 billion under this bill, but it gets worse.

The United States has been embroiled in conflict abroad since 2001, and many administrations, Democratic and Republican, have requested another pot of money that we call the overseas contingency fund. These funds, as the name indicates, are supposed to be used for paying costs that are incurred due to U.S. engagement in contingency operations, not baseline operations. And they are exempt, rightfully so, from the budget caps, because we never wanted to constrain our ability to provide funding for an unforeseen contingency situation that becomes a necessity for our national security.

This year, however, the bill provides for $74 billion for this overseas contingency fund, a full $10 billion above what was even requested by the President.

Now, a reminder, the Republicans haven't actually produced a budget this year, so we can't exactly make a comparison between the President's budget and the Republican majority's budget. I think one of the reasons they might be afraid to is they will show substantially increased deficits with these tax-and-spend Republican policies that have come to typify the Republican approach to grow our government with every new spending bill.

What the NDAA does is it takes this overseas contingency account, which is often called the slush fund for the Pentagon, it adds $10 billion to that fund, but instead of paying for future contingencies, that will pay for baseline operations. Some of that $10 billion goes to the unfunded priorities of the Pentagon, things it couldn't quite fit in the $621 billion, which already increases Federal spending by $70 billion.

So it is just throwing money, Federal money, your taxpayer money, Mr. Speaker, hand-over-fist, without a plan, indebting future generations for spending money today. The Pentagon gets more big ticket items they want.

And, likewise, it is hard to argue with funds being allocated to operations and maintenance. We are all for maintenance, we are all for readiness, but we are all for understanding the tradeoffs that we have. We cannot simply continue to spend irresponsibly, indebting future generations.

At some level, Mr. Speaker, and I think this kind of throwing additional money well above and beyond the budget caps reaches that level, we make our Nation less secure rather than more secure by making us economically beholden to foreign nations and indebting future generations of Americans.

Congress has set limits on how much we can spend on defense versus nondefense. So when we run out of money under this NDAA plan, either we are going to be forced to spend more, which is what you and I can predict what will happen, of course that is what is going to happen, or they are somehow going to find the money elsewhere, which I can pretty much assure you, Mr. Speaker, is not going to happen. That is a prediction that I am giving you.

And not having seen a budget, by the way, this is, we think, why Republicans haven't come up with a budget, because they know they can't make enough devastating cuts to possibly pay for this military increase, and they certainly don't want to put their name to paper on those cuts. And we all know what is going to happen. They won't make those cuts, spending will go up, debt will go up. I mean, that is what we know will happen. We have been here before, seen that movie.

Now, again, theoretically, Draconian cuts can be made to schools and Head Start and NASA and medical research, money fighting the opioid epidemic, homeland security, police. Yeah, theoretically they can devastate everything inside of our country, leaving a hollowed-out core, a well protected hollowed-out core, but I know Republicans aren't cruel enough to do that. Instead, they are going to kick the can down the road and indebt future generations and make our country less secure by borrowing money from China and Saudi Arabia to fund today's military, making us economically beholden to the very foreign powers that represent a real geopolitical threat to American interests.

That is why budgets matter, that is why these budget gimmicks that are being used through the overseas contingency fund matter, and that is why we need to have a budget debate, not a fake budget debate in the context of a national defense debate, which is what is being done here today.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), a distinguished member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

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

Mr. Speaker, in April, President Trump and congressional Republicans rolled back the FCC's rule to protect Americans' personal information and their internet browsing history. By doing so, they effectively sold personal privacy to the highest corporate bidder.

Today is Net Neutrality Day of Action, protesting the FCC's proposal to end equal access to online content, which would destroy the internet as we know it. What better day to also protect the future of our privacy by undoing the Republicans' reckless rollback that placed cable profits above our privacy and consumer protections.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Rosen's Restoring American Privacy Act, H.R. 1868. This bill will restore Americans' privacy protections and tell internet service providers they can't sell their customers' personal information without the knowledge and consent of the customers.

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

Mr. Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Rosen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

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

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

This bill has several other policies I want to address. For one, it ties our participation in the critical New START with Russia to a separate Europe-focused treaty that Russia is not in compliance with.

The New START is a nuclear arms reduction treaty between our Nation and Russia, and we should not remove ourselves from that, from an agreement that allows us to inspect and gather information about Russia's nuclear facilities.

In addition, this rule, if adopted, would fail to extend the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance, causing it to expire in May of 2018. The Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance is a program that was originally created in the NDAA, and goes a long way to helping to mitigate the problems that recipients of the Defense Department's Survivor Benefit Plan face.

There are other provisions of this bill which I object to in their current form but are going to be debated through amendments very likely over the course of the next week. For instance, the bill currently prevents the transfer of any detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. This detention facility that is extralegal should be closed, not repopulated, and we certainly will have that debate this week.

This bill, unfortunately, also authorizes far too many funds and continues to overfund our nuclear weapons activities, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, in fact, as much as $1 trillion over the next 30 years, for a stockpile of weapons that, even if substantially cut, would be enough to end life on the planet.

I testified before the Appropriations Subcommittee with regard to this matter and argued how can we possibly go before the taxpayers back home and say we need to overfund our nuclear arsenal to destroy the world seven times instead of five, or five times instead of three.

One would think that ending life on the planet once would be more than enough, and it is hard to argue from taxpayers that they should, in fact, pay for this planet's destruction multiple times.

We also continue to use force in our ongoing operations in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. I join my colleagues from the other side of the aisle in calling for an updated Authorization for Use of Military Force. To date, Congress has taken zero meaningful actions toward achieving that, yet we hear on this floor regularly from my friend from Alabama and others that Republicans and Democrats need to do that, especially before we put another soldier in harm's way.

That is the role of this body, and it is time to stop avoiding the task of writing an Authorization for Use of Military Force. Have that debate and make it happen.

These are the types of questions we should be debating, but instead we are continuing to avoid those and plunging our Nation deeper into debt without a real budget plan.

Instead of focusing on real questions about how to improve our defense, the general debate on this bill will largely focus on budget tricks. This debate on this budget should happen on the floor, in the Budget Committee, in a budget passed by this body.

One of the amendments I offered with my colleague, Ms. Lee, that we will be debating, would cut 1 percent of the money authorized in that bill. That would help. It would be a starting point. It would still be a spending level above the budget caps, but at least 1 percent in the record, reckless deficits from this Republican spending bill.

At some point we have to make decisions about tradeoffs, about the directions of our budgets, our entitlements, our discretionary, our revenues, our defense, and our nondefense. We can't resign ourselves to plunging future generations into further debt.

My amendment with Ms. Lee is a small, first step taking a stand against unsustainable budget levels that make our Nation less secure rather than more secure. It is the wrong way to do things. It is the wrong time to have this debate. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule so we can go back to the starting board and discuss the items that my Republican colleagues agree are important in terms of the use of the Authorization for Use of Military Force, ending the budget gimmicks, and figuring out how to balance the budget, rather than plunge our Nation deeper into debt.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 431 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 431 provides for full consideration, including making six amendments in order to H.R. 23, the Gaining Responsibility on Water Act, and allows us to begin consideration of H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018.

H.R. 23 is legislation necessary to deal with the severe water supply crisis facing California and other Western States. The region has experienced the worst drought in over 1,000 years, and many Western communities have been very negatively impacted.

This commonsense legislation fixes the broken regulatory system that is only exacerbating the impact of the drought conditions. The current regulatory system is overly complex and inconsistent. Making matters worse, various court decisions have only further complicated efforts to resolve these issues.

For example, this bill will help bring California's water infrastructure into the 21st century. The current water storage and delivery system is designed to serve approximately 22 million people, but the State currently has 37 million residents.

The bill is not only important to people in California. In fact, around half of our Nation's fruits and vegetables come from California. Every American could be hit in the pocketbook at the grocery store or checkout line if the California drought is allowed to continue.

Through this legislation, we can help expand water infrastructure and allow for greater water conveyance while ensuring environmental and water rights protections. Passing H.R. 23 will directly help address the drought crisis and benefit families, farms, the environment, and the American economy.

The rule also allows us to begin consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act. The bill provides for general debate and makes in order 88 amendments, including 41 minority amendments and 20 bipartisan amendments. Another rule is expected tomorrow to provide for consideration of additional amendments.

This open process actually started in the Armed Services Committee on which I serve. At the committee level, 275 amendments were offered, and 231 amendments were adopted during our committee markup last month.

I have said this many times on this floor, but it is worth saying again: there is no greater responsibility of the Federal Government than to provide for the safety and security of the American people. This year's NDAA does just that by reforming, repairing, and rebuilding the United States military.

The bill addresses the realities of the dangerous threat environment facing our Nation and ensures our troops and their families have the necessary resources and benefits.

Over the last decade, we have cut our military at an alarming rate. As the threats rack up, we have planes that can't fly, ships that can't sail, and soldiers who can't deploy. We must reverse this readiness crisis.

Thankfully, there is bipartisan support for boosting our Nation's military. In fact, this bill passed out of the Armed Services Committee by a vote of 60-1, continuing a strong bipartisan tradition of passing NDAAs.

I want to briefly highlight just a few of the positive provisions of this legislation.

The bill increases total military spending by 10 percent to rebuild the military from the current readiness crisis. This includes increasing the size of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Army Guard and Reserve, Naval and Air Reserve, and Air Guard.

Given the serious threat posed by North Korea, the bill boosts missile defense programs, including adding an additional $2.5 billion above the President's budget request.

The bill also authorizes the construction of 13 new Navy ships, including three more littoral combat ships, as we work to grow toward a 355-ship fleet. It funds a 2.4 percent pay raise for our troops and extends special pay and bonuses for servicemembers.

Importantly, the bill continues to advance Chairman Thornberry's priority of reforming and strengthening the military's acquisition process to make it more effective and efficient.

Given the evolving threats related to cyber, the bill improves the oversight of cyber operations.

The bill also helps set policy for the U.S. military relating to Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Russia, Africa, and the Asian Pacific region.

All told, this bill achieves important priorities of reforming, repairing, and rebuilding our military.

Each and every day, more than 2 million men and women put on the uniform of the United States and serve our country. As we have seen by two recent tragedies, the Marine plane crash in Mississippi and the USS Fitzgerald collision off the coast of Japan, these individuals put their lives on the line in order to protect the freedoms we all hold dear. They deserve the resources necessary to fulfill their mission and the benefits worthy of those who sacrifice so much.

So I am hopeful we can continue to move forward in a bipartisan manner to pass this NDAA, to support our troops, and to fulfill our constitutional obligation to provide for the common defense.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 431 and the underlying bills, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman referred to what this would do to the budget. I would point out to the gentleman, and I think I did this in committee yesterday, that if this is passed, it will only be 16.8 percent of total Federal outlays, which means the single most important thing that we do here in government only gets less than 20 percent of the money that we are going to spend. So I don't think it is asking too much of ourselves, as the people responsible for providing for the defense of America, that we spend 16.8 percent of all the Federal money we are going to spend next year on making the American people safe and secure.

He spoke about tradeoffs. Let me tell you one tradeoff I don't think any of us should be willing to make, and that is trading off the safety and security of the American people for trying to keep some other overspending in some other part of the budget going.

We need to focus today, and in this bill, on what it takes to authorize the defense and the safety and security of the American people, and I believe this bill does that, as did all but one of my colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee.

So I believe that we have struck the appropriate balance here that does all that. Yes, we have got some budget things we need to take care of. That is for later. For today, we are going to focus on defending the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin

Scott), my colleague on the Armed Services Committee.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Arizona.

This was not done in the middle of the night in secrecy. This was done in full committee with cameras watching us, and done early in the evening with full debate, so I disagree with him about that.

Let's talk about the wall for a second.

I support President Trump and what he is trying to do with the wall. I hope we get to a point where we can deal with that.

This is a defense authorization bill. This is not a wall authorization bill. The wall is already authorized. We don't need an authorization bill for the wall. It is already there. The next step for us to take for the wall is an appropriations bill, and this is not an appropriations bill.

So what the Rules Committee has done is made it clear that we are not going to deal with the wall one way or the other in the National Defense Authorization Act. That is not the proper place for it. That is not the proper place to be spending money for it. There is another part of our budget, another law for us to deal with there.

So I hope that we all will understand that what we have done is made it clear there is nothing in this bill--nothing--about a wall, nor should there be anything in this bill about a wall, because that is for another committee, another bill, another time, and another place.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Cheney), our newest member of the Armed Services Committee and the Rules Committee.

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

I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments and concerns about protecting all of our privacy on the internet. I think we all should be about that. But instead of having a misguided and unauthorized regulatory action that left vast gaps in this system, we should have a comprehensive bill to deal with it. That bill is not before the House today.

What is before the House today in this rule are two bills: one that deals with the drought in the West, which is very important; and the second is provide for the safety and security of the American people. So that is what we are here today about.

I appreciate her concerns about that. I join with her, and I hope that we have a bill on this floor that comprehensively deals with the issues that she brought up, but now is not the time, these are not the bills, and this is not the rule to deal with it.

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

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

I strongly agree with my colleague from Vermont's remarks regarding the Budget Control Act. It was passed for a good intention, but it has worked out quite differently from what people thought it was going to accomplish.

It is time for us to take responsibility, as the gentleman from Vermont said, and to do what we are supposed to do to make the priority decisions about what is important for America and what is not. Providing for the safety and security of the people of America, that is important. And if we have to make cuts in other parts of our budget to make sure we are doing that, first and foremost, I am happy to do it.

The gentleman is absolutely right about micromanagement. We have been micromanaging the people that we charge with defending America with how they are going to carry out combat responsibilities, particularly in the Middle East. President Trump, I think, quite rightly, has delegated many of those decisions down to Secretary Mattis so that our combatant commanders can make the decisions they have got to make as and when they need to make them.

I understand what he is saying about the State Department budget, something that we all should be concerned about. The appropriate time to talk about that is when the appropriations bill for the State Department is here, not when we are talking about the National Defense Authorization Act.

Finally, with regard to Afghanistan, which if I may make a little bit broader and talk about the Middle East in general, it is time for a new AUMF. The AUMFs that were passed in this Congress over 15 years ago were for a different time, with different circumstances altogether. And I do sense

a bipartisan urging for us to do that, but this is not the right time for us to do it on this particular piece of legislation.

I hope that at a future time the Foreign Affairs Committee, that has appropriate jurisdiction over that issue, will come forward with an AUMF that we can all discuss because we are now not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, we are in Syria, we are in Yemen, we are in Libya, we are in Somalia, where we have had some past history that is not so good.

We all--everybody, not just from the Armed Services Committee--need to understand these threats to our country and what we are going to do about them, have a strategy with a clear endgame, which we need and we haven't had for the last several years.

Then we should authorize it because only Congress has the power to declare war. We should authorize it. And by authorizing it, we not only take responsibility, but we communicate to our friends and our foes alike, and to those servicemen and -women who put themselves at risk out there that we are behind it. We, as the Representatives of the American people, are behind it. So I hope that we can do that, but it won't be in this particular bill.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's remarks, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

If I may make sure that we are all clear about where we are on the START; the START runs through 2021. That is 4 years from now. What the bill says is that if we find that Russia is in violation of the INF Treaty--and there is some indication that that is true--that we wouldn't extend it beyond 2021. But that is 4 years from now.

So what does that mean?

This is a shot across the bow to Russia. We are telling Russia: If you continue to violate the INF Treaty, we are not going to extend with you on START.

This is telling them: We are not going to let you get away with this.

And I would think, at this point, after all that we have heard, we would want to stand up to Russia, and this is a very vital way to do that.

Secondly, about the GTMO issue that he brought up, there are two amendments made in order by this rule for us to discuss GTMO, and I believe we are going to have that debate tonight. Now, I don't agree with the amendments, but we made them in order so we can have that debate on this floor.

So we are going to debate GTMO. My prediction is that we are going to defeat both of those amendments, but the people on the other side of the aisle have been given a great opportunity to make their argument that we shouldn't do that.

Nukes. Why are we trying to modernize our nuclear force?

Because our adversaries are modernizing theirs, and if we don't, we are not doing the proper thing to protect the people of the United States.

And then the gentleman talks about the budget bills. Now, there is a budget bill coming. Now, the budget bill is for the next fiscal year, October 1, 2017. That is several weeks from now. We have got time to pass a budget for next fiscal year.

But the way we have everything set up here, we try to move these defense bills about this time of year so that we can do what we have got to do to make sure we have communicated to the military what they are going to have to do their jobs.

If I may walk briefly around the world to remind us about where we are. Kim Jong-un has continued to test missiles throughout last year and this year, and he is getting better. And what he seeks is not just to strike South Korea or Japan, he wants to strike America. That is why you have an ICBM if you are in North Korea.

We need to step up to the plate and do more in missile defense and more in other things to make sure we are doing everything we can to protect America from an attack from North Korea.

China wants to take control of the South China Sea and the East China Sea. What does that mean to us for America?

Forty percent of the trade in the world moves through those two oceans. The greatest population center in the world is right there. It is where we want to do more business, where people there want to do more business with us; and not having a robust military presence there means we cede that part of the world to China.

I guess we could pull back to where we were on December 6, 1941, when we didn't have a presence in Guam and Japan and South Korea and Singapore. Or we could take the understanding from what happened that terrible day on December 7, 1941, that we have to be thinking now for the challenge to us then and, by making those preparations and making sure we have the defense in place, we keep December 7, 1941, from happening again.

Then we have our good friends in Russia, as they push not only into Eastern Europe, but now into the Middle East. It used to be we thought that Russia was kind of off the table; you know, the Soviet Union collapsed; didn't have to worry about Russia anymore.

Russia is back. They are back in many different military ways, in their navy, in their missiles, and what they are doing with their armed forces, including the little green men in Ukraine. We need to take that threat seriously, as we haven't had to take it for years.

And then there is the Middle East. We know what is happening today in Mosul and in Raqqa. Perhaps ISIS is being pushed out of those places, but it is not disappearing. It is not going away as a threat, any more than al-Qaida has gone away as a threat. We still have terrorist groups like them and others who seek to do harm to the American people, whether it is over there or over here, and we have to provide for the defense against that.

Then there is Iran; Iran that, because of an ill-considered agreement reached with them by the Obama administration, now is on a path to get an ICBM of its own, which it doesn't need to strike Israel. It needs an ICBM to strike us.

Then they get as close as they want to under that agreement that we reached with them. Right up to the edge of violation, where they perfect their nuclear technology, they decide in a short period of time to violate it, put a nuclear weapon on one of those ICBMs and threaten us directly.

That and a host of other threats are what we are talking about in this bill. We have never faced such a complex set of threats since the end of World War II. It is not my word. It is the word of countless experts who have come before our committee.

We have to do this. The American people expect us to do this. Like many other people in this body, I do tele-townhalls. At my last two tele-townhalls, I have asked this open-ended question: What is the most important issue to you?

We give them a broad range of issues to pick from: healthcare, tax reform, you name it. The number one issue in those two tele-townhalls, by far, for the people in my district was national security. They see what is happening in North Korea. They see what is happening in the Middle East. They know what Russia is up to. They are worried about China, and they want to know what we are doing.

This bill that this rule provides for does what we need to do to protect the American people. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate everything that I have heard today from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle because I know people on both sides of the aisle care a great deal about these issues.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 431 and the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 299 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 299 provides for the consideration of H.R. 1180, the Working Families Flexibility Act. This resolution provides for a closed rule since no amendments were submitted to the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, the workforce of the 21st century is a lot different from the workforce of the thirties and forties when many of our Nation's labor laws were first written. As such, many of these laws are outdated and out of touch with the realities facing today's workers.

For example, in nearly half of two-parent households, both Mom and Dad work full time. That is up from roughly 30 percent in 1970. Meanwhile, millennials now represent the majority of the workforce.

Given the changes in the workforce, there are new challenges related to the work-family balance. From children's field trips, to taking care of an elderly family member, to a single parent juggling different tasks while their spouse is on a military deployment, the demands are greater than ever. That is where the Working Families Flexibility Act comes in.

This commonsense bill would improve the quality of life for many hardworking men and women by removing outdated Federal restrictions imposed solely on the private sector.

Already, workers in the public sector at the Federal, State, and local level have the ability to take comp time in lieu of overtime pay if they prefer. This bill would give that same option to workers in the private sector.

Here is how it would work. An employee and their employer would come together and mutually agree to enter an arrangement where the employee would receive time and a half in time off or comp time instead of time- and-a-half overtime pay. In other words, employees would have the choice between paid time off and cash wages for working overtime.

As I mentioned, this provision is already available for workers in the public sector. That is because, in 1985, Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to give public sector employees greater flexibility. In fact, in a report filed by the House Education and the Workforce Committee more than 30 years ago, our Democratic colleagues wrote that this change in law recognized the ``mutual benefits'' of comp time for State and local governments and outlined the ``freedom and flexibility'' comp time would offer public sector workers.

Shouldn't workers in the private sector be entitled to the same freedom and flexibility given to government workers?

Now, I know some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will say this bill is somehow bad for workers. That could not be further from the truth. Let me clear up some of the false information put out by union bosses and special interest groups.

First, this proposal is completely voluntary. Both an employee and an employer would have to agree to a comp time agreement, and their agreement would have to be put in writing.

Second, no employer can coerce or intimidate their employees into taking comp time. An employee who feels they have been mistreated can file a charge with the Department of Labor, at no cost, or they can bring their own legal action. Employers who take advantage of their employees would face the same penalties as they would for other wage violations.

Now, as a labor and employment attorney, I have been a part of these kind of legal matters in the past, and I can honestly say that no sensible employer would take advantage of an employee and risk double damages, exorbitant attorney fees, and a legal battle with the Federal Government.

Third, employees have control over when to use their comp time, as long as reasonable notice is given and the request doesn't unduly disrupt the workplace. This is the same standard used in the public sector, and it is the same standard used under the Family and Medical Leave Act. I imagine it is also

the same standard used in each of our congressional offices.

Fourth, this bill includes a 5-year sunset that would require Congress to come back and reaffirm this law after reviewing the impact of comp time. This would give us the ability to change the law based on the real-world impact.

Fifth, the bill would set the maximum comp time accrual amount at 160 hours, which is less than what is allowed in the public sector. This provision was actually included after Democrats expressed concerns that workers would accrue too much comp time.

Sixth, an employee has the right to cash out their comp time at any time and for any reason. This is a decision that the employee alone can make. Additionally, at the end of the year, employees would receive a cash payment for any unused hours.

Finally, this is not a far-fetched or radical idea. In fact, President Bill Clinton had his own comp time proposal during his Presidency.

So this bill is great for workers and actually gives them greater choice and flexibility in the workplace. In fact, our committee, the Committee on Education and the Workforce, heard a real-life example of how comp time would make life easier for families during a recent hearing on the bill. We heard about a clerical worker for a mental health company who recently found out she was pregnant and was putting in a lot of overtime during a transition to a new computer system. This mom-to-be simply wanted to waive the overtime pay and, instead, be credited the time for maternity leave.

As her human resources professional testified: ``I had to explain to her that we were unable to do so because it was against the law. It was difficult conveying this message to this single mom-to-be who felt she should be allowed the option to choose for herself whether to take the overtime pay or paid leave when her child was born.''

That is why this bill is necessary, for people like this working mom. That is how this bill will make a real difference.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I know comp time won't work for every worker or family, so if an employee wants to continue receiving time-and-a-half overtime pay, then they can continue to do so and this bill will have no impact on them. But this bill would create a new option for employees to better meet the needs of the 21st century workforce. Workers today want and need the type of freedom and flexibility that this bill provides. This bill would allow a working mom or dad to put in a little extra time at work in order to have that time off to attend a child's baseball game, dance recital, or field trip. This is all about freedom, flexibility, fairness, and choice.

Certainly, more work and changes will be needed as we adapt to the workforce of the 21st century, and I look forward to learning more about proposals from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. But the simple fact that there are other proposals out there should not stop us from passing this commonsense bill to give working families the flexibility they need and deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 299 and the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman referred to an old playbook being used here. He is right. It is an old playbook. It is a playbook that was used by House Democrats in 1985, by President Bill Clinton during the 1990s. This is not a partisan playbook. This is actually--or used to be, actually--a bipartisan idea to give workers flexibility in the use of their time. That doesn't sound radical to me. It is not radical at all.

What has changed is Democrats used to be for this, and now, for whatever reason, they are not. They would rather lock workers into these restrictive arrangements where you have working mothers, like the one I used in my initial remarks, who can't get their flexible time off that they want because we do not allow them to do that under the Federal Labor Standards Act.

Comp time is just not technically optional, as my friend said, under this

law. It is optional by law. It is a voluntary thing by law. There is no question about that. Employers cannot coerce or intimidate an employee to do that under this law. It is strictly prohibited, and there are serious legal repercussions for an employer who attempts to do that.

There are no differences in the protections for someone under this bill and the protections that public employees have when they seek to have this sort of flextime under the laws that pertain to them. It is the same protection. So it doesn't matter whether you are in the private sector or the public sector; under this bill, you are going to be protected.

Let me tell you something, as someone who has practiced in this area. It is not an idle threat to an employer to face a regulatory proceeding from the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor or to face a private lawsuit. Those are a big deal. If you lose, you have to not only pay double damages, you have got to pay the employees' attorneys fees, which can be significant. No sensible employer is going to go out there and intimidate and coerce and think they can get away with it. They can't.

Wages, under our bankruptcy laws, are the first priority of what is paid out during the winding up of a bankruptcy proceeding. Before any other creditor is paid, wages get paid. In my experience, I don't remember wages ever not being paid in a bankruptcy. That is always assumed. They get taken care of quickly. Most employers do the right thing.

My friend talked about employers needing to do the right thing. Most employers do the right thing. Just like I know my colleague, when he had a business in the private sector, did the right thing by his employees. Most employers do. Yet too often in this body, we act as if the assumption is that employers are going to do the wrong thing, and then we come down with this heavy-handed overregulation, punitive approach that restricts the freedom of both employers and--let's get back to it--the workers themselves to work these things out.

This is a commonsense solution to a real problem in the new workplace of the 21st century, where most moms and dads are working and where we have this new millennial generation that wants flexibility. They expect it. When you go to them and tell them: Oh, you can't have it because it is a Federal law, they don't understand.

I have got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I don't understand. Yes, I understand that this law was put together in the 1930s. Maybe it made sense for the workplace in the thirties, but it doesn't make sense for the workplace of the 21st century.

I am disappointed in my colleagues who used to be in favor of these sorts of flexible arrangements and no longer favor it, but I get that. I hope that the rest of us will use our common sense and use what we all know is really happening in the workplace today and support this very important bill.

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

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

My colleague from North Carolina and I worked together on many things, and I have great respect for her, but I think her argument ignores a very important fact about this bill, and that is that you can't be coerced into doing this. You have to do it voluntarily.

If you would rather get your time and a half in pay, that is your decision. You are going to get it. The law requires that. There is nothing that forces anybody to get that.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I think my friends on the other side of the aisle don't understand how this works. An employee comes to their supervisor or the person who runs the HR office in the company and says: I would like to get some comp time in return for the overtime I am getting ready to work because I have got a specific reason to want to use it. The employer says: Okay, when do you want to get the overtime and when do you want to take the comp time? They work that out.

The employer has the responsibility for having the system and the paperwork for showing that they have complied with the law. From an employer's point of view, that is an extra burden. It is really not in the interest of an employer to do this. An employer would really prefer to say: Look, I don't want to have to do this, because if I make a mistake, I am going to get in trouble with either a private lawsuit or the Department of Labor. So it is really better for the employer not to have this option because it is not going to be an option in which they can make a mistake.

This is for that employee to get the comp time so they can have some flexibility in their schedule. That is who it is for. If they don't want to use it, they don't have to use it. They can still be paid the time and a half that they are paid today. No one can coerce them. The law says you can't do that, and there are real penalties for it.

To the contrary, when we are hearing that somehow this is something for the employers, no, it is not. This is for the workers--the new workers of the 21st century, who sometimes I think we have forgotten about when we have these debates in this body.

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

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

I would say to my colleague and to the House, I did indeed have 11 townhalls 2 weeks ago after the bill he references passed. It didn't come up one time because the American people understand what that was all about, that there were two different Federal agencies battling over something, and it didn't even solve the problem. The agency that put that regulation out didn't have the authority to do it, and it didn't solve the problem. The American people are sick and tired of agencies that don't have the authority to go out there and they do something, and it doesn't solve the problem.

If we want to get to the issue that my friend wants to get to, which I think is important, we ought to get to, let's work together in a bipartisan fashion and come up with a bipartisan, comprehensive bill that addresses that. I would really like to be a part of that.

But that is not what we are here today about. We are here today about this bill to provide flexibility to working people in the 21st century, particularly millennials.

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

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

I thank Congresswoman Roby for being the sponsor of this bill and bringing it forward. As a young woman herself, she understands what's going on in the workplace with people her age and how they try to juggle all the demands of their time. She has come up with a very commonsense approach to how we can deal with this in a way that makes sense for everybody.

We just heard a lot about the labor movement and big bosses. I got transported back in my mind. You would have thought we were in the 1930s and 1940s. I don't know if my colleague from Colorado has been paying attention, but union membership is at its lowest level since the 1940s right now because, even after 8 years of the most pro-union administration in decades, union membership continues to fall, and it continues to fall because workers in America aren't buying what they are selling because a lot of what they are selling is exactly what we hear is the opposition to this bill, which is: Let's limit people; let's restrict people; let's come up with all these things to tell them what they can't do instead of telling them what they can.

What the American people want, what I heard in my townhall meetings, they want the government off their back so that they can make their own choices and live their lives the way they want to live them. This is really true with the millennial generation.

I have four children who are adults right now. They are millennials. They really want to have flexibility in their lives, and this bill, Congresswoman Roby's bill, gets a little way toward that. I don't see why we would be against trying to give not just young workers, but all workers, that flexibility.

I have heard the arguments, and I have heard them several times now. I have just got to tell you, they make no sense to me. Perhaps they are something that made sense 50, 60, 70 years ago, but they don't make any sense in 2017. It is a different time. It is a different day. Let's give the workers of America some freedom and flexibility because that is what they really want.

Mr. Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 299 and the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 241 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, in 2010, then-President Obama said: ``If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it.''

Unfortunately, at least 4.7 million Americans now know that was simply not true. ObamaCare was a takeover of the American healthcare system. The law's mandates have been burdensome, destroying 300,000 small-business jobs and forcing an estimated 10,000 small businesses to close. Premiums are skyrocketing, and choices are dwindling.

House Resolution 241 provides for the consideration of H.R. 1304, the Self-Insurance Protection Act, an important part of the Republican effort to repair the damage ObamaCare has done to insurance markets. More than 150 million Americans--62 percent of workers--receive their health insurance from their employer. In fact, almost all firms with at least 200 or more employees offer health benefits, and just over half of smaller firms with 3 to 199 employees offer health insurance.

Overwhelmingly, Americans and their employers like this system of employer-sponsored health care; and for many years, employer health plans have been successfully regulated by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA.

Typically, small and large employers offer healthcare coverage to employees either in self-funded arrangements or purchase fully insured plans from an insurer.

Under self-insurance plans, employers cover the costs of their employees' medical expenses. Employers can either process claims in- house or work with a third-party administrator to oversee and implement the plans.

ERISA regulates both fully insured and self-insured plans, but only self-insured plans are exempt from the patchwork of mandates imposed under State insurance law. Furthermore, employer-sponsored self-insured plans are not subject to the same requirements under ObamaCare, as are fully insured plans.

Thus, self-insurance plans are desirable and successful because they are free from many government restrictions and regulations and allow employers to tailor their plans to meet the unique needs of their employees and to innovate.

For example, these plans do not require employees to purchase government-mandated coverage options that their employees do not want or need. This helps lower costs for working families while ensuring access to high-quality health care.

In hearings before the Education and the Workforce Committee, on which I sit, we heard testimony that today self-insurance is often the only way employers can afford coverage, thanks to the burdens of ObamaCare.

Mr. Speaker, in Alabama, we like to say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Prior to ObamaCare, there were problems in our Nation's healthcare system, but the successful model of employer self-insurance wasn't one of them. Today, self-insurance remains perhaps the best way for employers to provide health care to their workers.

Unfortunately, the prior administration seemed intent on disrupting this successful healthcare model. Rather than leave self-insurance plans alone, they repeatedly explored ways to impose new regulations that would negatively impact self-insurance. Specifically, the Obama administration wanted to disrupt the model by regulating stop-loss insurance and treating it as if it were health insurance.

Employers who self-insure often purchase stop-loss insurance to cover large medical claims and to protect against the financial risks such claims can pose. Despite decades of Federal regulation on employer health plans under ERISA, stop-loss insurance has never been regulated by the Federal Government. That is because stop-loss insurance is actually a financial risk management tool designed to protect employers from catastrophic claim expenses. Remarkably, in a regulatory grab, the Obama administration tried to reclassify it as ``group health insurance.''

Mr. Speaker, if the last 7 years have taught us anything, it is that more Federal control over health insurance does not make health care more affordable for the American people. Stop-loss insurance is not health insurance, and it should not be regulated like it is.

The Self-Insurance Protection Act simply updates the law to make clear that Federal bureaucrats cannot redefine stop-loss insurance as group health insurance. This is about reaffirming longstanding policies and ensuring workers continue to have access to a health insurance model that is proven to lower costs and provide flexibility to consumers.

This bill will provide workers and employers alike with the regulatory certainty that they have desperately wanted and needed. They shouldn't have to worry about unelected Federal bureaucrats stepping in and destroying their healthcare system.

To put it simply, this bill is necessary in order to prevent future bureaucratic overreach that would destroy the self-insurance model that has been so successful for so many working families.

I also think this bill is an area where we should have some bipartisan cooperation. It passed out of the Education and the Workforce Committee earlier this year on a voice vote, and I hope it earns bipartisan support here in the full House.

As we continue our efforts to increase choices, lower costs, and provide better healthcare options for working families, let us not forget to shore up and protect the health insurance programs that are actually working and getting the job done.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 241 and the underlying bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Florida said that the Moon is not the Sun. Well, stop-loss insurance is not health insurance, but the Obama administration tried to make it so. Because they tried to make it so, we need to put into statutory law what I think we all agree on both sides of the aisle not only is the law but should be the law so that there is no question about it in the future. It is unfortunate we have to do that, but, because of some of the actions of the prior administration, it is necessary.

He talked about the strong foundation of the ACA, ObamaCare. That foundation is crumbling beneath the program. We now have more insurers jumping out of exchanges. My home State of Alabama is down to one carrier on the exchange. Soon enough, we may find that, in Alabama, like some other States, there are no carriers. This isn't a foundation. It is a foundation made of sand--and the sand is leaking out. Something has to be done.

Today's bill is a step--not the only step--in that direction. I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle agree with what we are doing here in substance, and I wish we would just come together and get this bill done so that we can assure that the self-insured smaller employers and larger employers have the protection that they need for the working families that participate in their programs.

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

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

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Florida for his remarks. I completely agree with him. Both parties should be working together to make sure that we provide what we can reasonably for the health care of the people of America, and we should be collaborating, not just in this House across the aisle but in the Senate as well. I think it is a good place to start right here with this bill because we really don't have a substantive disagreement about this bill.

Both sides understand that stop-loss insurance is not health insurance. It is just the Obama administration tried to turn it into that. This bill would stop that and bring the certainty we need back to these self-insured plans that mainly small employers have and make sure that we have in place for working families across America a system that is working for them and maintain that.

I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join with us, will collaborate with us, and that our colleagues in the other House, in the Senate, will do as well and pass this legislation because it truly is bipartisan in substance and, I hope today, in the vote.

Mr. Speaker, I again urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 241 and the underlying bill.

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