Swan Lake Hydroelectric Project Boundary Correction Act

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the further consideration of the Senate amendment to H.R. 1892.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 727, I call up the bill (H.R. 1892) to amend title 4, United States Code, to provide for the flying of the flag at half-staff in the event of the death of a first responder in the line of duty, with the Senate amendment thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, for the fifth time since last fall, I rise today to present another continuing resolution, the House amendment to Senate amendment to H.R. 1892, to fund the operations of the Federal Government through March 23, fund the Department of Defense for the rest of fiscal year 2018, and extend critical healthcare programs, including funding for community health centers.

Our current continuing resolution expires on Thursday, and without this legislation, large segments of the Federal Government will shut down again. Of course, all of us are keenly aware that more time is needed for our leaders in the House, the Senate, and the White House to negotiate overall funding levels for the 2018 fiscal year. This bill should allow that to happen.

Mr. Speaker, this continuing resolution also makes a very limited number of technical changes in funding levels for only the most essential needs, including:

To prevent delays in preparation for the 2020 Census;

To ensure that the judicial branch is able to pay jurors;

To provide $225 million in emergency funding for the Small Business Administration to provide emergency loans to those whose lives and livelihoods were destroyed by last year's historic natural disasters.

This legislation also includes the full fiscal year 2018 Department of Defense Appropriations bill, totaling $659 billion for our Armed Forces.

And I don't have to remind my colleagues that this bill has already passed this House three times on a bipartisan basis--most recently, last week.

Mr. Speaker, we ask a great deal of our men and women in uniform, and we have an obligation to provide them and their families the resources they need to be safe, to complete their missions successfully at home and abroad. Governing from CR to CR just creates more unpredictability, more instability, and has real-life consequences for both our troops and civilians who support them.

Mr. Speaker, the challenges we face around the world cannot be met under this Federal CR stop-and-go process. While we delay doing the Nation's business, our military and economic competitors are consolidating their gains.

Finally, I would add, this legislation includes necessary funding extensions for bipartisan health priorities like community health centers and other public health programs. It also funds important Medicare extenders and includes commonsense reforms and improvements in the program.

But let no one doubt our position on continuing resolutions. They are bad fiscal policy. They do not allow programs to grow, to be reduced or eliminated, if that is needed. They maintain outdated policies and stop new, critically important programs from ever starting, including programs that enhance national security and protect our Armed Forces from our enemies.

Continuing resolutions are fiscally wasteful and prevent the executive branch and Congress from planning and preparing, and this is true for the private sector as well.

Most importantly, they undermine congressional oversight that is constitutionally mandated for our appropriations.

While I am pleased that we are here to include the Defense Appropriations

bill in this continuing resolution, we must still pass all 12 appropriations bills for the 2018 fiscal year, as well as our third emergency disaster supplemental.

As soon as congressional and White House leaders reach a bipartisan agreement, which could and should happen at any moment, our committee will get to work immediately to finish negotiations on all 12 year-long funding bills.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations' Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith), chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House Ways and Means Committee.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Nebraska.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), who is the vice chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), who is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter), who is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Tennessee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am in receipt of the Statement of Administration Policy, which indicates that the administration supports this continuing resolution and that the President's advisers would recommend his signature on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the Statement of Administration Policy dated February 6, 2018.

Statement of Administration Policy

House Amendment to H.R. 1892--Further Extension of Continuing

Appropriations Act, 2018--Rep. Frelinghuysen, R-NJ

The Administration supports the House Amendment to the

Senate Amendment to H.R. 1892, the Further Extension of

Continuing Appropriations Act, 2018. This bill funds most

Government programs at current levels through March 23, 2018,

while incorporating the text of the House-passed fiscal year

(FY) 2018 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, which

provides the resources the military needs to keep the Nation

safe. As the Administration has noted previously, the House-

passed Department of DefenseAppropriations Act is consistent

with the President's pledge to undo the looming defense

spending reductions that are harmful to America's national

security and military readiness.

The House-passed Department of Defense Appropriations Act

incorporated in the bill includes a total of $659 billion for

the Department of Defense (DOD), including $584 billion in

base spending and $75 billion for Overseas Contingency

Operations. These amounts are consistent with a total funding

level for DOD similar to that authorized by the National

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, which was

signed into law by the President. It includes $1.2 billion

requested by the Administration to support increased troop

levels in Afghanistan, special operations forces

capabilities, and other urgent needs.

The United States military's greatest asset is the men and

women who volunteer to serve. This bill keeps faith with

service members by providing a 2.4 percent military pay

raise. It increases end strength across the military services

for active duty, reserve, and National Guard personnel, and

includes funding for training and maintenance to ensure that

United States troops are properly equipped and ready to

fight.

In addition to supporting the defense bill, the

Administration supports language in the House Amendment to

H.R. 1892 that provides for an extension of a variety of

healthcare provisions, including Community Health Centers.

The Administration is also appreciative that the bill

includes language requested by the Administration to ensure

continuity of operations for the 2020 Decennial Census

Program and the Small Business Administration's Disaster

Loans Program.

The Administration supports continuing discussions over a

two-year budget agreement that ensures funding for national

defense and other priorities. As those discussions continue,

however, it is dangerous to

hold defense funding for the current fiscal year hostage to

arbitrary demands for lower-priority domestic programs.

If the Further Extension of Continuing Appropriations Act,

2018, were presented to the President in its current form,

his advisors would recommend that he sign the bill into law.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues in the House to support this continuing resolution to keep the government open for business until March 23 and to support our men and women in the armed services who do the work of freedom each and every day.

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 gentlewoman for yielding to me, and I commend her for her extraordinary leadership on the Appropriations Committee, where important decisions are made about how to allocate the resources of our country to invest in the aspirations of the American people, to respect the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, and to honor the vows of our Founders for a country that is making the future better for every generation to come.

The distinguished chairman of the committee, Mr. Frelinghuysen, opened his remarks by saying he came to the floor to introduce the fifth continuing resolution. And the gentleman who followed him talked about this being the fifth continuing resolution.

The more is not the merrier. It is like golf: the lower the score, the better. To have five continuing resolutions is a statement of incompetence and ineptitude.

The Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House; yet they are pressing forward on their fifth stopgap, short-term spending bill, demonstrating their failure to govern.

Since President Reagan was mentioned, I will mention our very first President, our patriarch, George Washington. President Washington, when he was leaving office, cautioned against political parties who were at war with their own government.

Does that sound familiar to you?

Here we are again, 2 days from another shutdown, careening toward another manufactured Republican crisis, demonstrating the Republican failure to govern.

We don't want to go to that place. As Members of Congress, we take a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and to protect the American people.

Democrats support a strong national defense. We, too, want our men and women in uniform to have the resources they need to keep them safe and to keep the American people safe as they accomplish their mission.

But we will not allow Republicans to use this continuing resolution, the fifth time they had to come to the floor because they could not govern, to hollow out our Nation's commitment to the health, education, and economic security of America's working families.

We all know that our military might is part of our Nation's strength, but the health, education, security, and well-being of the American people is also a source of that strength.

Instead of working constructively with Democrats to meet the needs of the American people, Republicans are trying to starve the domestic budget. I just want to remind our colleagues: One-third, 34 percent-- one-third--of the nondefense domestic budget goes to national security. When you starve the domestic budget, you are not making us stronger. One-third of the domestic budget is about security; Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, the State Department, and antiterrorism activities of the Justice Department.

But Republicans refuse to give our patriots funded on the domestic side of the budget the resources they need to do their job, just the chaos and uncertainty of yet another stopgap extension.

As Defense Secretary Mattis said, stopgap CRs ``just create unpredictability. It makes us rigid. We cannot deal with new and revealing threats. We know our enemies are not standing still, so it is about as unwise as it can be.'' And here are, as unwise as can be for the fifth time.

And while their continuing resolution seeks to ransack every other commitment to the health of the American people, Republicans hide behind a fig leaf of a 2-year extension of community health centers.

We all support community health centers. It was a very important part of the Affordable Care Act. A very important part. Our colleague, assistant leader Mr. Clyburn from South Carolina, was one of the great champions of all time of Congress on expanding funding for programs for care and for bricks and mortar for our community health centers. This is a very important piece for us. We should be extending it in a fuller bill to 5 years, except it is used here to hide from the fact of so much other domestic investment that we are not making.

Republicans are eliminating the Home Visiting initiative that is vital for maternal and child care, and cutting off workforce training for low-income Americans seeking good-paying jobs in healthcare.

The sole purpose of this Republican bill is to destroy our leverage to achieve parity in the caps, to eliminate any need for bipartisan compromise, to eliminate any need to invest in working families.

Why?

Because if they get their defense number, then they don't have to negotiate about the domestic number. And as I said, we support our men and women in uniform having what they need to be safe and to keep us safe. But the strength of our country is measured in other ways as well.

They don't believe that and they can't pass that, so they have to put the defense bill there. But we cannot support that because, again, it comes at the expense instead of as a source of strength to our country.

Democrats simply want action on the critical overdue and bipartisan priorities of the American people so beautifully spelled out by our ranking member, Congresswoman Lowey.

Again, we need funding for the opioid epidemic. The President talked about that. Show us the money. The opioid epidemic claims the lives of 115 Americans every day, and it is getting worse every year in every district in the country. Bipartisan support is there to fight the opioid epidemic. Let's do it.

We need more funding for veterans, to meet our responsibility and ensure that no veteran is denied the care they deserve upon returning from the battlefield.

We need emergency disaster funding for all communities ravaged by hurricanes and wildfires.

We need to save millions of hardworking Americans' endangered pensions.

We need to pass the bipartisan Dream Act immediately. This is a moral priority for us. This is about the character of our Nation, who we are as a country. A nation, over time, constantly invigorated by people coming to our country to seek the American Dream; a dream that is predicated on every generation working to make the future better for the next; a dream that takes determination, optimism, hope, and courage. And when these newcomers come to America with that determination, that courage, that optimism, that hope, they associate themselves with the values of our Founders to make the future better for the next generation. These newcomers to America make America more American.

So we asked to bring the Hurd-Aguilar bill to the floor. It is bipartisan. It has bipartisan support on the floor. It would pass. Have the courage to bring a bill that protects the DREAMers to the floor of the House.

These priorities that I mentioned are all bipartisan. They would pass if brought to the floor for an up-or-down vote. The GOP squandered all their time, energy, votes, and enthusiasm on tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest, with 83 percent of the tax bill going to the top 1 percent. And now Republicans need to get serious and get to work on a budget that funds both the military and the domestic investments that keep our Nation strong.

I just want to make one point about that tax bill again. Did you see that the Speaker of the House sang the glory of the tax bill because a woman was getting $1.50 a week more in her paycheck? Did you see that? Do you believe that that is a good thing when the top 1 percent were probably getting $1,500 a week compared to her $1.50 a week in their paycheck?

Thank God, after millions of people objected, the Speaker withdrew that tweet. But I don't think he withdrew that sentiment, because it is the same sentiment that haunts all of these negotiations about investing in the American people.

Republicans must stop governing from manufactured crisis to crisis, and work with Democrats to pass many urgent, long-overdue priorities of the American people. As our distinguished ranking member, Mrs. Lowey, said earlier in her remarks, ``We must abandon these short-term bills.'' She spelled out very clearly why. I associate myself with her remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and his great staff who have worked diligently all year, month after month after month. Five months ago next week, they approved all 12 appropriations bills, one after another, regular order, through the House of Representatives. But there they sit over in the Senate and the Democrats block them.

What brings us here today is really important work. What brings us here today is that we are taking care of significant public healthcare issues. We are fully funding for the next 2 years community health centers.

I have heard from my colleagues about the things that aren't in this bill that they wish were, so that is why they are going to vote ``no,'' or some other thing that is not even before us and that is why they are going to vote ``no.''

But let's talk about what is actually before us.

What is before us is taking care of our men and women in uniform and their needs, especially when they are in harm's way, and fund really, really important public health programs that used to always be bipartisan.

Let's talk about those. Valley Family Health Care Outreach Center in Ontario and Winding Waters Clinic in Wallowa County. I have visited both of these recently. They are on the front lines of healthcare prevention. They are on the front lines of saving lives and helping children and adults. Or La Clinica down in the Medford-Ashland area.

In fact, in my district, we have 12 federally qualified health centers and 63 delivery sites that give care for 240,000 Oregonians. Twenty-four million nationwide are served by this.

On November 3, this House had the opportunity to fully fund those community health centers for 2 years and take care of children's health insurance and a lot of these other programs. It was a separate bill brought to the House floor, and a handful of Democrats broke with their party and voted with us. But, unfortunately, when it got to the Senate, they couldn't be freed up to support it. So we had to come back in the last continuing resolution and fully fund the Children's Health Insurance Program. I am not sure many Democrats voted for that here, unfortunately.

But here we are today, same process, same situation to fund community health centers. So we are going to do that. Your choice when you vote is ``yes'' or ``no,'' you want the community health centers funded or not, you want to shut the government down or not, you want to take care of our military or not.

Then there is the disproportionate share hospitals.

What are those?

Those are the hospitals in our districts and States that take care disproportionately of more poorer people than other hospitals. Under the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, however you want to describe it, there was prescribed in law automatic cuts to these hospitals that take care of the poorest of the poor in our communities. Those cuts totaled $2 billion.

In this legislation, as in the legislation we brought from the Energy and Commerce Committee on November 3, we turn off those cuts. We say: Don't do that to our DSH hospitals.

If you are at Saint Alphonsus in Ontario, Oregon, that is the most affected hospital, I am told, and they will lose money and have to decide how they cope with that. We solve that here for 2 years at $6.8 million in my State.

Then we extend the special diabetes programs. For heaven's sake, we should be able to come together in this Chamber and in this Congress to take care of people with diabetes. My grandfather lost both legs due to diabetes. They were amputated. I have other relatives and good friends whose kids have dealt with diabetes and still do to this day.

For our Native Americans and others, we have two separate programs. We fully fund them and tie them together. That is done in this legislation. Fifty thousand people in my district have diabetes. My hunch is all of our districts are not dissimilar from that. We take care of those people in this legislation.

Then we take care of therapy caps. Since 1997, when this law was put in place, people who needed physical therapy--my colleague from Tennessee talked about it--stroke victims, seniors who need therapy, rather than the physical therapist or the speech therapist saying, ``Here is the program you need to get well, get on your feet, recover from whatever it is that afflicts you,'' the government put an arbitrary cap, and that was it. You were done whether you were done or not.

Everybody is different in terms of recovery. We repeal the therapy caps in here.

By the way, we have heard about all these things that now won't get funded because a part of this funding comes out of the Public Prevention Fund. Mr. Speaker, $2.85 billion is not insignificant, it is true, but we are applying that money to help prevention and community health centers, as we did before for the Children's Health Insurance Program.

We are providing it for diabetes health. We are removing the physical therapy caps so that people can get well. That seems to me to be pretty good use of the Prevention Fund.

By the way, during the same period we are spending $2.85 billion out of that, there will still remain $12 billion left, and the talented folks at the Appropriations Committee will decide how that money is spent on vaccines and all these other issues, all these things we care about. There is still $12 billion left. So we are using discretionary funds that were set aside for that very purpose here.

Then we heard about some Medicaid cuts. Let me tell you what those are. We said: If you are a big lottery winner, maybe now that you have won a big prize, you shouldn't be on government-funded Medicaid because, by the way, you won a bazillion dollars.

So we are taking lottery winners and saying you have got to treat that big windfall when you calculate whether that person is poor or not anymore. So that is in here.

Then, on third-party liability, we said that if insurers actually are responsible for the cost, insurers should pay the cost rather than the taxpayer. So we make a little reform here that puts the insurers first to pay rather than the taxpayer.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for the marvelous work he has done.

Mr. Speaker, the first observation I would make is: When I was raised by my parents, I was taught not to whine and not to blame others for problems that arose, but, rather, to work hard to solve them.

I think it is long past time for people in this body to blame people in another body for the collective inability of the Congress of the United States to make a decision about something so important as the budget of the United States of America.

It is a leadership issue for the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership of the House to come to an agreement to overturn the caps of the Budget Control Act. It is time for the Democratic and Republican leadership of the Senate to do the same and for those two bodies to come to an agreement collectively to meet our constitutional responsibilities.

A few days ago, I was on this floor and said that we were confronted with a number problem. That is, what is our total spending for this fiscal year? We are in the 129th day of it for the Department of Defense. What is the total budget number for all of our domestic spending so that we can have a strong and vibrant economy and people?

We still have a number problem. For the sake of the country, for the sake of

this institution, for the sake of our committee and the good work that Chairman Frelinghuysen, Mrs. Lowey, and the members of our committee have done repeatedly, please let us have some leadership.

Lewis Carroll wrote ``Through the Looking Glass,'' and there was an interchange in that story:

`` `Well, in our country,' said Alice, still panting a little, `you'd generally get to somewhere else--if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.' ''

`` `A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. `Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.' ''

In September, we did the first CR to December 8 because it was going to be different then, but we are in the same place. Then we did a CR for December 22 because it was going to be different then, but we are in the same place. Then we did a CR for January 19 because it was going to be different and a new year, but we are in the same place.

Today, we have February 8 because it was going to be different on February 8, and now it is going to be the fifth time we have done a continuing resolution to March 23 because it is going to be different next month. That is fine.

We did our Defense Appropriations bill. We did it in July; then we did it in September; then we did it in December; then we did it in February--four times between CRs, repeatedly doing the same Defense Appropriations bill. We have done it nine times. If we go through this sequence one more time, Mr. Speaker, I am not going to be able to keep track of my numbers anymore.

This is a numbers problem, and I would conclude by noting that I, for one, did not vote for the Budget Control Act, and I would note that an independently elected Congress set it aside for 2 years because they knew a mistake had been made. Then a subsequently elected Congress did away with the Budget Control Act because they had a 2-year deal because they knew they had made a mistake.

There are negotiations--apparently taking place as we meet here today--to set it aside for another 2 years because they know we made a mistake within our legislation, because Chairman Frelinghuysen, Mrs. Lowey, my chairwoman, Ms. Granger, and I, everybody has been honest. We are going to set aside sequestration because we need to spend additional moneys on defense.

How many times does Congress have to hit its head with a hammer to not fix this problem permanently? Three different independently elected Congresses have overturned a really rotten bill, and we are still in the same place. It is time to stop for the sake of this country.

Give the chairman, give the ranking member, give the committees in both Houses numbers so we can complete our bills. The last time I looked, every department of this country has completed their work on fiscal year 2019, are going to present us with their budgets next week, and they don't know what we are doing this year.

Mr. Speaker, this is unbecoming of a great nation.

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

Since President Trump's draconian FY 2018 budget was released last year, Democrats have warned Republicans that a bipartisan budget agreement was needed to adequately invest in American families and communities. Without a budget agreement, programs as diverse as Head Start, job training, and terrorism prevention grants are in danger of inadequate funding, at best.

Instead of engaging with Democrats to reach a budget agreement, the majority is seeking to advance a full year of funding for only the Department of Defense, busting budget caps, while punting every other Federal service and investment to an uncertain future.

Mr. Speaker, the most powerful country in the world now being completely run by a Republican government can't keep the lights on more than weeks at a time. How did we get here?

Democrats will not go along with any plan that neglects critical national security and domestic needs. If this bill were to become law, the majority would have no workable plan to make the investments that are necessary for priorities, including biomedical research, infrastructure projects, Pell Grants, homeland security, assistance for local communities, veterans health, opioid funding, job training, the FBI, and other Federal law enforcement and more.

This is not a serious bill. We know that it will be quickly rejected by the Senate. It is the furthest possible cry from regular order that the majority so frequently discusses yet rarely follows. It is nothing more than a political ploy that will place us on the brink of another shutdown.

It is well past time to increase budget caps and enact responsible spending bills. The majority displays a lack of urgency regarding reaching a budget agreement and enacting appropriations law, choosing instead to advance partisan measures that fail to lift unmanageable budget caps for both defense and nondefense.

Republicans must abandon these partisan short-term bills and work with Democrats to fund the entirety of government for the remainder of the fiscal year to serve the American people.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the ranking member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Connecticut an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), who is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from California an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), who is the ranking member of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), who is the ranking member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), the ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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

This is the latest example of Republicans being completely incapable of governing. We must finish our work.

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