Providing for further consideration of the bill (H.R. 3354) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2018, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 504 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, it is going to be a good day. It is going to be a good day.

I don't know if you came down to Washington as a young man. I remember sitting right up there on the second row of the gallery, and I came into the Chamber and I was so excited. It was my first visit to see the people's House.

The Reading Clerk was standing there at that podium and read and read. I had absolutely no idea what was going on, and here nobody hands you a pamphlet or anything to tell you what is happening on the floor of the House. I thought the activity was going to happen down here, and it was all going on up there at the podium.

That has been 40 years ago now. I now see that however long that conversation happens, it lays the groundwork for what is going to be an even greater conversation here on the floor of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I am fond of saying that if you come to this institution on the right day, you are going to see a festival of democracy take place right here. Today is going to be one of those days.

If you were on the House floor yesterday, you saw us take up the first of these divisions in this appropriations bill. Today, because of the work that my friend from New York and I did with the rest of the members of the Rules Committee right up there last night, we are bringing to the floor the remaining four divisions of H.R. 3354; 224 additional amendments. 224 additional amendments. Division A is the Interior section; division C is the Commerce, Justice, Science section; division D is the Financial Services section; division F is the Labor, HHS, and Education section.

When I was on the floor yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I talked about how proud I was of the work that we have all done here together. This annual appropriations process has been conducted in a more comprehensive fashion this year than in any other year in my memory.

When we get jammed, you end up with one of those long-term, yearlong continuing resolutions that shut out every Member's voice. In a good year, maybe, you end up with one of those giant leadership-negotiated White House and the leader of the House and the Senate omnibus appropriations bills that shut out all but two or three voices.

This year, the Appropriations Committee, beginning its work way back in April, has worked through every single appropriations bill one by one at the committee level, and we are seeing the culmination of that effort here on the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, it has been since 2010 that the House has finished its work before the September 30 fiscal year deadline. It was the 2009 calendar year. They were doing the work for the 2010 fiscal year. It is hard to get this done, and it doesn't happen because Democrats are successful or Republicans are

successful. It happens because the collaboration that we have together is successful, and we are seeing the result of that today.

If we pass the underlying rule, we will make in order those 224 amendments, we will begin that process of debating the last four divisions, and we will have the voices of this House heard.

We went until midnight last night, Mr. Speaker. We went until midnight the night before that. I suspect midnight is going to seem early to us where we are headed over the next couple of days. But at the end of that process, Republicans, Democrats, folks from all regions of the country, are going to be able to look each other in the eye and know that--in a way that makes folks back home proud--we worked through each and every appropriations bill and we got our work done on time.

That is why I ran for Congress, Mr. Speaker, to deliver results back home, and that is why I am proud to be standing with my friend from New York today delivering on those promises.

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

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

My friend is absolutely right, there is a lot of work to get done. That is why we both ran for Congress, to get that work done. I am incredibly optimistic that we will get that work done.

I wish from time to time we would celebrate our successes as fiercely as we observe our failures. My friend is absolutely right, there was a time in congressional history where appropriations bills came to the floor and any Member could offer any amendment they wanted at any time, and the process could go on for days or weeks or months.

To my friend's point, we can reminisce about those days and celebrate them, but we can't do it at the same time we observe the very limited deadlines that we have now trying to get work done.

It was back on August 24 that the Rules Committee created a deadline and said: We want to have every Member have their voice heard. We want to hear from every single Member on every single appropriations bill to understand what it is you would do differently to have the bills serve America better.

We created that deadline, Mr. Speaker, for exactly the reason my friend from New York suggested, and that is so folks would have the time to look at those amendments, to digest those amendments, to be thoughtful about those amendments.

Now, it turns out even in a body of 435 Members, you can have some repetitive ideas. It turns out a lot of us think a single amendment is a good idea. The Rules Committee looked at amendments and found multiple Members had exactly the same idea. In order to speed the process along, we let one of those Members offer the amendment; we asked the other Members not to.

That is not closing down the process. That is a good use of the American people's time, because we have so much that we must get done together.

Mr. Speaker, for folks who care about openness--and I am one of those Members--I just want to remind you that it is not just the 1,000-plus amendments we looked at in the Rules Committee. It is thousands upon thousands that were worked through the Appropriations Subcommittee process, and then the Appropriations full committee process.

The appropriations process is one of the best opportunities for any Member

in this Chamber to make their priorities known, act on those priorities, change the law of the land for the men and women they serve back home. Every single Member of this Chamber knows of that process, avails themselves of that process, and if we pass this rule, we will make several hundred more amendments in order and complete this process for the first time since 2009.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), one of our leaders from the great State of California.

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that admonition. As my friends all know, the truth is, the vote in the Senate was a bipartisan vote against the consideration of that bill.

We are going to find a bipartisan solution to this difficult problem and continuing to characterize this as a partisan issue does nothing but harm to our shared cause.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Alabama (Mrs. Roby), one of the great leaders of the big freshman class in 2010.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself with the comments of my friend from California. She is absolutely right. When Republicans took control of this Chamber, they committed themselves to having a more open process. I was a part of that freshman class that came in to give Republicans a majority, and we have made good on that process. I want to talk about that just for a little bit.

My friend from California serves on the Appropriations Committee, and I thank her for her service, Mr. Speaker. When you want to talk about an open process, that Appropriations Committee went through every single bill one subcommittee at a time, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, indeed, month after month. I am grateful to her for that service. The bill would not be as good as it is but for the men and women who serve on the Appropriations Committee.

But I mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, that one of the reasons I was proud to be carrying the rule today is that we haven't gotten the appropriations process completed on time since Democratic leadership was able to achieve that back in 2009. They couldn't do it in their last year in power, 2010. In fact, they didn't do the appropriations bills at all. They punted it off to the next Republican Congress. But in 2009 they did.

When I talk about that commitment to openness, let's remember, last time we had this shared success together and my friends on the other side of the aisle were leading, they allowed 17 amendments to the Financial Services bill. We are allowing twice that many today.

When my friends were leading this institution the last time we completed this process, they allowed 13 amendments to the Interior bill. We are allowing six times that many.

When my friends on the other side of the aisle were leading this institution, the last time we successfully completed this process, they allowed five amendments to the Labor-HHS. We are allowing 10 times that many.

When my friends on the other side of the aisle were leading this institution, the last time we successfully completed this process on time, they allowed zero amendments to the Commerce-Justice-Science bill. We allow 49--infinitely more.

My friends, can we always do better together? We can. I am grateful to my friends for the hard work they put in showing up day after day to do that better. But this bill is better, and if we pass this rule, we will move to the debate on this bill, and we will complete this process on time in the most open fashion that any of my colleagues have seen in decades.

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

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

We have a long and proud history in this House, but it is sometimes tough to remember exactly how that history goes, Mr. Speaker.

My friend from New York has her picture up on the wall in the Rules Committee room. If you haven't been up there, Mr. Speaker, you should go see it.

My friend from New York is the first woman to have ever led the United States House of Representatives Rules Committee. She led it ably and proudly for the 4 years that the Democrats were in the majority the last decade.

It is a hard job because, as the chairman of the Rules Committee or the chairwoman of the Rules Committee, you have to make decisions. When the bills come to you from the committees of jurisdiction--the authorizing committees--you often have to completely reorganize those bills. You have to meld those bills together. It is a powerful committee because it has a solemn responsibility.

Yes, in the area of Rules Committee jurisdiction and the melding of all of those pieces of legislation is what amendments get added and what amendments get taken away.

My friend from California (Ms. Lee), has an absolutely legitimate gripe, as does my friend from Virginia (Mr. Scott). Mr. Speaker, we all think our amendments are the greatest amendments to be known.

Mr. Scott led, to his credit, with saying: I am glad so many of my amendments were made in order, but I am appalled my one amendment was kept out.

We all want all of our amendments in. But to my friend from New York's comment that Democrats don't get a fair shake, I will remind you, Mr. Speaker, when my friend was leading the committee, the entire House of Representatives was offered 139 chances to change the appropriations bill in 2009, the last time we completed it.

With Paul Ryan leading the institution, with my friend from Texas, Pete Sessions, leading the Rules Committee, we made 214 Democratic amendments in order. We have made more minority amendments in order in this process than my friends on the other side made in order for the entire House.

Mr. Speaker, we have nothing to fear from openness. We have nothing to fear from a robust debate. I am so glad that we have had a chance to do that. But history should be reported accurately. The accuracy is: we can always do better. But we are doing better today than we were just a few short years ago.

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

Will the gentlewoman yield?

I will say to my friend that I have no better days than the days that you and I are working together. I absolutely look forward to that.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to my friend from New York that I do not have other speakers remaining, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I don't dispute the polling numbers my friend from New York cites. In fact, I am as saddened by those numbers, as she is. But I also feel culpable; not culpable because of the work we are doing today--I think we should be proud--I feel culpable because we all find ourselves in conversations with one another where, instead of building the institution up, we run the institution down.

What my friend from New York said about Ms. Lee's amendment being changed in the Rules Committee, she is absolutely right, the amendment was changed. But, Mr. Speaker, let's be clear: it wasn't changed in some backroom deal with smoke-filled air where no one knows what is happening and can't read the bill. It was noticed. There was an entire paragraph dedicated to saying: Hey, this is unusual. This doesn't happen that often. We want all the cards on the table so everybody knows. Just understand we made this change this time around.

Mr. Speaker, getting the work done in this institution is hard. It leads to conflicting goals. You heard folks from the other side of the aisle say: We are not spending nearly enough time on this bill. We need to make even more amendments in order. And you heard folks on other side of the aisle say: This whole bill is an exercise in futility. I don't know why we are wasting even one moment on it.

It is tough to satisfy both of those concerns simultaneously.

We have got this rule book called the United State Constitution. It doesn't ask a whole lot of the United States Congress. It does ask us to appropriate the money. Under the leadership of both parties, Mr. Speaker, this House has failed to get that done on time year after year.

This year, the bipartisan Appropriations Committee in subcommittee, in full committee, worked tirelessly, as I said, not for days, not for weeks, but for months. One bill at a time. In fact, one line at a time.

That product was brought together by the Rules Committee last month, August 16, Mr. Speaker. That amalgamation of bills was posted on the internet for all the world to see and read. Every Member of this Congress had a chance to bring their ideas about how to make it better.

The Rules Committee got together, looked at those ideas, made more of those ideas in order for debate than we have seen in decades for bills that get completed on time.

I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. Speaker, I am always compelled to yield to my friend from New York because I am so fond of her and because her leadership has meant so much to this institution.

My friend has served on the Rules Committee for even longer than I have, and so my friend understands how the Rules Committee works even better than I do.

I don't want to engage my friend in a colloquy, at least not in my closing statement. We should have this conversation on day 1. Please, my friend from New York, give us one more word.

Mr. Speaker, I welcome my friend's constructive counsel, but I know for a fact that her calendar looks just like mine does, and that means that we are going in in the early afternoon and we are not getting out till late at night.

Why? Because you and I are sitting just three Members apart listening to Member after Member make their case, and in the spirit of accuracy, don't let it be said that our Members coming and testifying doesn't make a difference because it does. You and I both believe that. We know it to be true, and it is important that it be true.

Those Members come and they testify, they make their case, and then we vote up or down on those amendments.

Mr. Speaker, can we do better? We can. And I will work with absolutely any colleague of any political stripe of any region to do better at any time, but let's do recognize that we made a commitment to ourselves to get this job done for the first time in a decade.

By coming to the floor right now, Mr. Speaker, quarter of 2 on a Thursday afternoon passing this rule, we are going to get this job done together for the first time in a long time.

Will we wake up tomorrow and try to do better? You know that we will. Should we take a moment to thank the folks who helped us get here? You know that we should.

Mr. Speaker, you are surrounded left and right by Members of the House team. The parliamentarians worked tirelessly to approve the amendments, to make sure they are all written and drafted properly. I want to thank the parliamentarian team for the work that they do.

Mr. Speaker, we kick CBO a lot in this place because we don't like their score one day, we like it the next. CBO has to go through these amendments, score these amendments. I am grateful to them for the work they did to make this possible.

Legislative counsel goes through, with each Member of Congress, making sure that every ``i'' is in the right place, every ``t'' is crossed. It is not a small task. It is a gargantuan task, and they do it on these big bills day in and day out. I am grateful for that.

You are starting to see some of the appropriators come down, Mr. Speaker. Long after my friend from New York and I have left this Chamber, the appropriations team is going to be here until the wee hours of the morning once again going through each and every line and each and every amendment.

I think about what my friend from Louisiana said about the school children who are turning on C-SPAN and watching this process. I don't know what they think goes into making this happen, but what I know goes into making this happen is a lot of hard work, staff work, Member work, a lot of big hearts, and a lot of big brains sitting down together hashing through these issues.

This rule is worth supporting. The underlying legislation is worth supporting, Mr. Speaker, and I ask all of my colleagues to do exactly that.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, what is happening with the appropriations bills is unprecedented. After passing four appropriations bills earlier this year, we are now considering the remaining eight appropriations bills this week in 2 days. That means that we are debating the funding for roughly two-thirds of discretionary Federal spending bills in just over 4 days.

Has any Member here really had the time to read all 1,035 pages of these eight bills? Better yet, has anyone had time to read nearly all the thousand amendments and determine what the impact of each one would be?

This is the appropriations process we are talking about; the process that used to take us days and weeks and was perfectly open so that all Members of the House were able to propose amendments on the floor. These are the bills that fund programs that impact the life of every American every single day.

But we are not giving them any serious consideration they deserve, and the minority has been virtually, literally, I would say, shut out of the process altogether.

When the majority took control of Congress and the White House, they promised regular order. They have not only broken that promise, they have shattered it and stomped on it. Speaker Ryan is the only speaker in the history of tracking statistics to never have had a truly open rule.

An open rule would allow any Member to offer an amendment that complies with the standing rules of the House and the Budget Act. Not a single one. A bad process, I believe, will lead to a bad product, and these bills are no exception. They are full of provisions that would do real harm to millions of Americans.

Inside these bills, the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, passed in the wake of the biggest recession since the Great Depression, would be tattered. The biggest banks still in control of the people who got us in trouble in the first place would be allowed to run roughshod over the economy again, paving the way for another Great Recession or worse.

Try as we could to find out what would be the substitute for Dodd- Frank to prevent them from doing that again, there is no answer they would be able to do it. Under Dodd-Frank, we have had a record-setting streak of more than 80 consecutive months of private sector job growth. Mr. Speaker, this growth didn't come despite this law; it came because of it.

There is also language here that would ramp up the majority's assault on women's health; provisions that would zero out funding for Title X, the Nation's only Federal program devoted to family planning. More than 4 million women depend on it for access to contraception.

The bills would also eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, which serves 2.5 million women and men every year. It is relied on not just for contraception, but for services like breast cancer screenings, wellness visits, and STI testing.

The bills would be truly destructive if they ever became law. They don't appear to have the necessary votes to pass the Senate, since there are not 60 Senators willing to vote for this legislation, and that would make one wonder why are we even going through this charade, because we have only 9 legislative days left in the month of September. During those 9 days, we need to raise the debt ceiling to pay the bills we have already incurred, to fund the government for the following year, to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program; the Perkins Loan Program, which many low-income students rely on for their college education; and, very importantly, the Federal Aviation Administration. All of those expire on September 30.

We also need to address the National Flood Insurance Program, which, on its current course, faces a shortfall of more than $25 billion. And that will expire at the end of this month. We all know the horror of going through Hurricane Harvey, and now Irma, and with two more, as I understand it, starting their aim at us in the Atlantic.

If we are going to do all of this, we have to get back to the orderly and thoughtful process. Congress can't wait for a disaster to always be at its doorstep before acting. We need to abandon legislation by chaos or emergency, which we often do for something that we could have done by scheduling.

Two-thirds of the discretionary spending bills considered in a single week is absurd and irresponsible, and I would doubt has ever taken place before in the House of Representatives. It is time we took control of the House and got back to regular order, which we talk about all the time, but hardly anybody remembers. We hope for a better day, and we hope for it soon.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Rosen).

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 3440, the Dream Act, this bipartisan, bicameral legislation. We have thousands of young people who are Americans in every way except on paper.

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, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Carbajal) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a distinguished member of the Appropriations Committee.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I am really very fond of my colleague over there, and I appreciate his wonderful sunshine attitude.

The fact is we have never seen anything like what we are going through now. Twice, in just the last few months, one amendment by Ms. Lee, to finally get an AUMF so that we could authorize the wars that seem to be going on forever in the name of the United States of America was voted on in committee, passed in committee, and should have been in the bill. Lo and behold, it disappeared. I don't think we ever did anything like that to my knowledge, and if we did, shame on us.

In this very bill today, there was, again, an amendment presented in committee for the DACA people to be able to get jobs while they are waiting with the Federal Government. I am paraphrasing that because I never saw it, but that is my understanding of what that did. Once again, it was presented at the committee, voted, passed, and should have been in this bill. But before it got to Rules, just like Ms. Lee's amendment, it just disappeared.

How can you run the Government of the United States by saying that the people do their will through us? We are not sitting here to represent ourselves and do what we want to do and take one from column A and one from column B. We follow rules. That is what we are supposed to do. We have to answer for that.

I want the people of the United States to know that what we are talking about here today is probably not going anywhere. As far as we know, it will not get past the Senate. Now, some miracle may happen. Who knows? Or maybe the whole thing will disappear--I don't know--with no explanation, by the way.

But we haven't really done anything here yet except what I would call a crazy amalgamation of what the rules of the House wouldn't even come close to allowing us to do. Any body, any Congress, any House of Representatives, any legislature anywhere can do what they have to do to get their budget ready if they throw it all in one mix and let one committee, the Appropriations Committee, do it. The other committees had no right to talk about it.

As I pointed out, again, the majority has really cut out the minority completely. Do you think we knew before it got to Rules that those two amendments that I talked about that were terribly important had disappeared? We didn't know that until it was given to us.

Many times what we get at Rules are emergency meetings, which means one thing: no committee action. We have decided we would like to do this one this week, so let's call it an emergency.

Enough. Enough already. This is the premier legislative body in the world. The hopes, the dreams, and the aspirations of all Americans lie in this House. We do or we do not do what is in the best interests of the people who sent us here. I promise you it is not in the best interests to cut out all of the population of the United States--about half, almost half. In fact, I believe numerically we got more votes than the other side--just cut us out of the process.

I have already talked about no open rules. If you can't have an open rule whereby you can talk about amendments, there is nothing else for you to do. We are out of it because Democrats get very few amendments. I don't think the Rules Committee people get hardly any at all, and then we beg for some of the best ones we would like to be made into order--never happens.

We are pretty discouraged. As a matter of fact, we were talking about maybe we should stage a coup, but I know that is illegal and would not work in the United States of America. So it was kind of a fleeting thought brought about by pure frustration.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Scott had a wonderful amendment. He is the ranking member on the Education and the Workforce Committee and is known throughout the United States for the

work that he does, as is Barbara Lee, who is probably more well known than almost any other Member of this House. To be treated that way, to have to go back to her district and say, ``Well, we tried to do these amendments''--enough already.

We can do it the right way. We used to. When I got here, it was entirely different. The bipartisanship was strong. We all liked each other. It was a pretty wonderful thing.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), whose amendments should have been allowed.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are really getting somewhere here. What my colleague failed to say is, as far as I know and I imagine as far as he knows, that no committee has ever sent a bill to the Rules Committee completely taking away amendments that had passed in that committee and were legitimately a part of that bill.

In just the last, let's say, 2 or 3 months, two amendments legitimately passed by Democratic members in the proper committee disappeared between that committee and the Rules Committee. If that is not a violation of rules, I don't know how in the world you would ever describe it.

Sure, we had a lot of open rules--I mentioned Paul Ryan has never had one--which gave everybody an opportunity to do an amendment, all 435 us, if we chose to, but we don't. When you talk about something coming to us from a committee, large bills sometimes don't come to us from committees, but oftentimes they are written somewhere--we are not sure where--but they come to us in an emergency procedure because they have to get to the floor that week.

I am not just talking about improving. I am talking about following the rules of procedure laid down by history, by circumstance, and by geniuses. I am talking about not appropriating those in ways that say: We just don't want that amendment on the list. Pretend it never happened. Throw it in the garbage and maybe nobody will remember it.

We remember. We think that some amendments are a few things that would really move the country forward, and we don't have a chance to get them put in place simply because we are the minority. That is absolutely wrong. It is undemocratic. It is hurtful to the institution and hurtful to America.

We can do better. You and I should pledge right now to work on that. I am game if you are.

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Reclaiming my time, I don't want to see that anymore. It is an embarrassment when I have to even get up to do my half of the rule and talk about what awful things have happened to us. There are more things that I need to talk about than that.

I think we should cut out the games and the cuteness and all the rest of it and do our job.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Richmond).

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

These bills don't have the support they need to pass the Senate. It takes 60 votes to even bring them to the floor. That means that this entire exercise this week has been an exercise in futility. All the while, the clock is ticking and Congress has so much to do, as I have elaborated several times this afternoon, over the next 9 legislative days.

If this process has been good for anything, it is revealing just how broken the legislative process has become under the majority's rule.

Legislation regularly comes to the House floor without any committee consideration. It just goes to rules. The majority even rammed through a healthcare repeal bill not long ago--I am sure everybody remembers that--that would impact one-sixth of our entire economy without first-- what we need to do again in regular order--getting a score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

They are very important. They tell us what cost and what impact it would have on the budget and on the country. So that means we had no idea of the impact of that bill on our markets or what it would cost when voting for it.

The minority is routinely shut out of the process, often unable to get so much as a vote on an amendment on the House floor. When Speaker Ryan assumed the gavel, he promised to return to regular order and an open process. We have been waiting a mighty long time. Every time we offered an amendment to the bill before us in the Rules Committee, we asked that the rule be open; again, giving all Members a chance to affect that bill. Unanimously, we are voted against and we lose all those votes 9-4. That means that both sides will not be able to affect that bill and it means that regular order is as far away as it ever was.

Here we are, less than a month away from the end of the fiscal year, and we haven't passed a budget resolution through the House. We were supposed to have a budget through the House, the Senate, and the conference--the conference is necessary to reconcile the House and Senate bills--by April 15.

We blew through the debt limit in March and still have not dealt with that. We have yet to have a single open rule in the Rules Committee under the Speaker's leadership. Believe me, I am sure that an awful lot of Members of this House have something to say about what is going on.

It is no wonder that, according to the latest figures from Gallup, 79 percent of the public disapproves of how Congress is doing its job. No wonder.

CBS News highlighted that it costs the taxpayers an estimated $24 million a week to operate the House of Representatives. They know that they are not getting their money's worth.

They needed 60 votes to repeal and replace healthcare, when there was no replacement in sight. I am not sure how to describe that as a legislative proposal, but what it sounds like to me is a hoax. We are going to fool you that we have really got a replacement here.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question, the rule, and the bill. I hope that my good colleague, Mr. Woodall, and I can help fix this place to do a little better.

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

Will the gentleman yield?

The Rules Committee did not get together. The majority of the Rules Committee got together. We had no action in that game whatsoever.

Mr. Speaker, just to speak on accuracy: don't say the Rules Committee got together and went over those. Say the Rules Committee majority got together and went over those. You know, that is all I ask.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment seeks to preserve our current Clean Water Act protections for our rivers, streams, and wetlands. Our Nation's river systems and wetlands provide values that no other ecosystem can. These include: natural water quality improvement, flood protection, shoreline erosion control, recreation, general aesthetic appreciation, and natural products for our use at no cost.

Yet section 430 of this bill seeks to undermine the critical balance between protecting these waters and the day-to-day operations of our Nation's farmers, ranchers, and foresters. Under current law, farmers, ranchers, and foresters can carry out their normal operations in any waterbody without securing a Clean Water Act permit.

So what this means is farmers can continue to plow their fields, including potential wet areas that have been farmed for decades, plant their seeds, harvest their crops, without ever having to obtain approval under the Clean Water Act.

Any normal farming, ranching, and forestry exemption is going to include minor limitations. For example, a farmer cannot use the current exemption to convert his farmland to a residential development without obtaining a permit. And a rancher can't use the exemption to plow under a wetland to expand his reach of grazing lands. And forestry operations cannot use this exemption to change the course of a local stream to improve drainage on their growing lands.

In short, the way the Clean Water Act currently operates is to allow normal ranching, farming, forestry operations to continue without a permit, unless the activities either change or convert the use of the waterbody to a new purpose, or impair the historic flow or reach of a stream or wetland.

So if the planned activity triggers any of these limitations, the current law requires the activity to obtain a permit. That is perfectly reasonable. But section 430 of this bill would, in essence, provide an absolute clean water exemption for impacts to any streams or wetlands that happen to be on agriculture, ranching, or forestry lands, regardless if they have any relation to these activities.

Mr. Chairman, this is a fundamental change to the Clean Water Act, and one where the impacts have never been explored. When the EPA was asked what the impact of this amendment would be, here was their response:

This amendment would be a significant departure from almost

40 years of implementation of the Clean Water Act by

eliminating the existing provision requiring that the

exemptions apply only to normal, as in established or

ongoing, farming practices.

This change could result in the loss or impairment of thousands of acres of valuable wetlands and other waters where land is converted to agriculture.

Mr. Chairman, we should not be using an appropriations bill to change Federal policy related to the protection of our Nation's rivers and streams. To the best of my knowledge, no hearings or investigations on the impacts of this provision have been held.

If this Congress is interested in overturning almost 40 years of Clean Water Act precedent, regular order would require hearings before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which has sole jurisdiction over the Clean Water Act, and approval by that committee before consideration on the floor.

This rider is bad policy for the protection of our environment, for the protection of human health, and bad policy for the protection of our public safety.

Mr. Chair, I urge support for my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the perspective of the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on this. I think our clear understanding is that the exemptions, as currently written, allow for all normal farming, ranching, forestry activities, and that the permit would only be required when there is a substantial difference from the activity as it has gone on before, and that this is the way the law has been interpreted and enforced for the last 40 years.

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would strike section 431.

Section 431 does two things. First, it withdraws the Clean Water Rule. Second, and more importantly, it breaks procedure and creates a loophole so that the removal of the Clean Water Rule does not have to abide by the Administrative Procedure Act.

In essence, we are creating a loophole to eliminate a rule, a rule requested by the Supreme Court and one that took several years to put together. This elimination without allowing tweaks, thoughtful removal, or comment is a radical and dangerous precedent.

In fact, 80 Members of Congress and I actually asked for an extension of the 30-day comment period to eliminate the Clean Water Rule to allow the American people to have a say. The Trump administration agreed with us and extended the comment period an additional 30 days. I don't get to say that too often.

So clearly, there is a desire for a comment period, as evidenced by our letter and the administration's decision to appropriately extend the comment period, but the language in this bill would eliminate that process completely.

I include in the Record the request for extension.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, June 29, 2017.

Re Request for Extension of Comment Period on EPA and Corps

Proposed Rule Defining Waters of the United States under

the Clean Water Act.

Administrator Scott Pruitt,

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),

Washington, DC.

Attention: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2017-0203

Dear Administrator Pruitt: We request a minimum 90 day

extension to the proposed 30-day comment period to rescind

the 2015 Clean Water Rule, 80 Fed. Reg. 37054 (Jun. 29,

2015).

The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps

of Engineers (Corps) finalized the Clean Water Rule to

clarify the scope of waters protected under the Clean Water

Act. The EPA and the Corps solicited comments on the Rule for

over 200 days. In accordance with Administrative Procedure

Act, the agencies first established a public comment period

for 90 days and extended the comment period twice in response

to extension requests. The final rule reflected over 1

million public comments on the proposal, the substantial

majority of which supported the Clean Water Rule.

The agencies also initiated an extensive public outreach

effort, including over 400 meetings across the nation with

various stakeholders, including but not limited to: states,

small businesses, farmers, academics, miners, energy

companies, counties, municipalities, environmental

organizations, and other federal agencies. The agencies

incorporated these comments into the final Clean Water Rule.

President Trump's Executive Order 13778 directs EPA and the

Corps to evaluate whether to revise or rescind the Clean

Water Rule, ``as appropriate and consistent with law.'' We

ask that as you examine the Clean Water Rule, like the prior

administration, you engage in a thoughtful and comprehensive

process bound in scientific fact.

Americans depend on clean water for their health and

livelihood. More than 117 million Americans rely upon

drinking water from public water systems that draw supply

from headwater, seasonal, or rain-dependent streams that were

vulnerable to pollution before the Clean Water Rule. As such,

the decision to roll back the Clean Water Rule cannot be made

in haste.

We are concerned that the EPA has provided limited time and

opportunity for stakeholder involvement and official public

comment. Any proposed rulemaking must include sufficient time

and participation to gather input from concerned and affected

parties, including those whose legal rights and

responsibilities will be affected by this effort. For

example, the 2015 Clean Water Rule provided legal certainty

that regulatory-defined water features, such as stormwater

control features, wastewater recycling structures, and

puddles, are not covered by the Clean Water Act. However,

that certainty would be eliminated if the 2015 Clean Water

Rule were rescinded.

Given the history of engagement on this issue and the fact

that parties may be subject to greater regulatory uncertainty

by this effort, a comment period of 30 days does not allow

for meaningful engagement from the public and stakeholders.

The Clean Water Rule is robust and ensures that water

sources are protected by taking into account the connected

systems of water, from wetlands and seasonal bodies of water

to large rivers and lakes. The requirements of the Rule were

meticulously developed and addressed longstanding

uncertainty, improving our national commitment to protect not

only America's water, but the American people. If the Clean

Water Rule is revised or rescinded, the process must be

comprehensive and deliberative.

We ask that you take into consideration the opinions of the

American public by extending the comment period, allowing for

respectful debate. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Donald S. Beyer Jr., Brenda L. Lawrence, Gerald E. Connoll,

Grace F. Napolitano, Matthew A. Cartwright, Barbara Lee,

Keith Ellison, Jared Polis, Paul D. Tonko, Niki Tsongas,

Jackie Speier, Carol Shea-Porter, Debbie Dingell, Gwen Moore,

Katherine Clark, Mike Quigley, Raul M. Grijalva, Earl

Blumenauer, Zoe Lofgren, Donald M. Payne, Jr., Anthony G.

Brown, James P. McGovern, David E. Price, Alan Lowenthal,

Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Daniel W. Lipinski, Cedric L.

Richmond, Louise M. Slaughter, Colleen Hanabusa, Bonnie

Watson Coleman, Carolyn B. Maloney, Jared Huffman, Jerry

McNerney, Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Naette Diaz

Barragan, Bill Foster, Jamie Raskin, Betty McCollum, John

Sabanes.

Jerrold Nalder, Suzanne Bonamici, Steve Cohen, Marcia L.

Fudge, Beto O'Rourke, Grace Meng, Mark Pocan, Anna G. Eshoo,

Ted W. Lieu, John Yarmuth, Alma Adams, Alcee L. Hastings,

Adam Smith, A. Donald McEachin, Tony Cardenas, Dwight Evans,

Brendan F. Boyle, James R. Langevin, Salud O. Carbajal,

Joseph P. Kennedy, III, Judy Chu, Eliot L. Engel, Jan

Schakowsky, Richard E. Neal, Pramila Jayapal, Lisa Blunt

Rochester, Yvette D. Clarke, Jose E.

Serrano, Daniel T. Kildee, Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Debbie

Wasserman Schultz, William R. Keating, Stephen F. Lynch,

Doris Matsui, Richard M. Nolan, Elizabeth H. Esty, Pete

Aguilar, Adam B. Schiff, Marcy Kaptur, J. Luis Correa, Scott

Peters.

So is this our new status quo, that once an industry decides it doesn't like how a regulation turns out, we eliminate that regulation without comment or consideration for the various stakeholders or its value.

We are eliminating the process here that we, Congress, put in place to ensure that those regulations were being considered, adjusted, or even removed, that they were done thoughtfully and while keeping stakeholders, like the American people, in mind.

It could be any rule, but the rule at stake this time is the Clean Water Rule. Over 100 Members of Congress joined me to reinforce the value of the Clean Water Rule, because without it, the streams that help supply public drinking water serving one in three Americans will be at risk.

Rolling back the Clean Water Rule cannot be made in haste and without stakeholder input. Clarity was needed in light of the Supreme Court rulings in 2001 and 2006 about uncertainty of the scope of the waters protected under the act.

The EPA and the Corps held a lengthy and inclusive public rulemaking process, 200 days of public comment, 400 meetings across the Nation, and the rule reflected over 1 million public comments on the proposal, the substantial majority of which supported the Clean Water Rule.

So we are overruling, essentially, 1 million comments and 400 meetings to do this without the appropriate administrative process.

So if it is withdrawn, I simply ask that the process be comprehensive and deliberative, and the bill does not allow for that.

With this rule at stake, this time it is the Clean Water Rule, but it could be any rule going forward.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record a letter from Members of Congress to Administrator Scott Pruitt opposing the proposed rule to rescind the Clean Water Rule.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, August 18, 2017.

Hon. Scott Pruitt,

Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington,

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).

Mr. Chairman, pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution 504 and as the designee of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen), I offer amendments en bloc. A list of the included amendments included in the en bloc is at the desk and has been agreed to by both sides.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the en bloc, and I urge its adoption.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Poliquin).

Mr. Chairman, I have no other speakers. I rise in support of the amendments en bloc, and I urge its adoption.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate the gentleman's support for robust funding of the Superfund program, particularly the cleanup program.

There is a need for Congress to make progress to address the backlog of 1,300 sites on the national priority list. The bill proposes to do so with a $47.6 million increase for cleanup work. However, the amendment proposes merely to increase EPA's enforcement budget by $12 million, with a stated objective of reducing BLM's oil and gas management program.

The committee wrote a balanced bill, and I support the wise use of Federal oil and gas resources. Therefore, I oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the gentleman's amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I ask Members to vote ``no'' on this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I would be happy to engage the gentleman from Colorado in a colloquy.

I thank the gentleman for his comments and for his amendment, and I fully agree with his concerns about the backlogs, but I have concerns with the proposed offset and appreciate the intention to withdraw it.

The committee has made a concerted effort in recent years to fix these problems and has increased the recovery account by almost $4 million over the last 2 years.

Under House Republican pressure over the past 7 years, the Fish and Wildlife Service has delisted more species than all other previous years combined, but, clearly, we still have a long way to go.

The Service has been directed and funded to complete all 5-year reviews within the period required by law, and the committee will continue to press the Service to see that they eliminate these backlogs.

I thank the gentleman again for raising this issue, and I pledge to work with him on this.

Mr. Chairman, pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution 504, as the designee of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen), I rise to offer amendments en bloc No. 2. The list of the amendments included in the en bloc is at the desk and has been agreed to by both sides.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer).

Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the en bloc and urge its adoption.

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

Mr. Chairman, as the designee of Chairman Frelinghuysen, I move to strike the last word.

The Acting Chair. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the gentlewoman's amendment. I certainly urge Members to support it.

This bill maintains the increases provided last year for deferred maintenance and increases the construction account by $10 million. This amendment will further our efforts to address the longstanding deferred maintenance needs.

I urge an ``aye'' vote on the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I understand the gentleman's overall goal is to continue funding for the AML pilot project, consistent with a fiscal year 2017 enacted level, and structure for the six Appalachian States.

Therefore, we can accept this package of amendments at this time, work toward maintaining funding for 6 States in a final fiscal year 2018 enacted bill. If we are able to achieve that goal, I hope we can count on the gentleman's support to pass both this House package and to enact the 2018 end-of-year spending bill.

Mr. Chairman, I encourage my colleagues to adopt this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Jody B. Hice) for the purpose of a colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris) for the purpose of a colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned at our full committee markup, I understood that my colleague, Dr. Harris, was offering his amendment to address local concerns from his residents with respect to the visibility of offshore turbines. With all of these offshore projects, many varying viewpoints need to be taken into account. I appreciate that we have been able to discuss many of these views and concerns here today.

It is my hope that we can work with the authorizing committees of jurisdiction, the administration, and all interested stakeholders to identify some better solutions as we move forward through the fiscal year 2018 process.

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I am certainly prepared to accept this amendment. I understand the importance of the program to the gentleman from Pennsylvania and other Members in the Appalachian region. I look forward to working with him and all of the interested Members.

Mr. Chairman, I encourage adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, given our allocation, which was $824 million below the fiscal year 2017 level, we had to find areas to trim. It is also important to note that the bill does not support the elimination of the program, as has been proposed in the President's budget. It was the committee's effort to find some middle ground.

While I can certainly appreciate the gentleman's interest to maintain fiscal year 2017 enacted level, the allocation of the committee doesn't support those levels. So, therefore, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the gentleman's amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I certainly appreciate my friend's support for the research conducted at the EPA, and particularly the Research Triangle Park. I am a supporter of the world class research that occurs at RTP with respect to the computational toxicology program. That research has helped to identify alternative high throughput testing methodologies that have reduced the number of animals used in laboratories.

Given the current allocation, however, which is $824 million below the

fiscal year 2017 level, we had to find areas to trim. We certainly don't have a funding level that can support the fiscal year 2017 enacted levels, but we tried to do the best we could to find common ground.

I certainly look forward to working with the gentleman in the future, if we happily come to some kind of budget agreement, where we can reallocate funds to something as important as this. But, again, because of our allocation, I must oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the gentleman's amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Lance) for the purpose of entering into a colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter).

While the amendment itself is drafted in order as a general increase to EPA geographic programs, the gentleman proposes to fund a program that was not requested in the budget and is not authorized.

Further, he proposes to reduce grants from DERA, the DERA program, which is a key program for improving air quality in areas like mine that are in a nonattainment area with existing standards.

For those reasons, I oppose the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I am sorry. I didn't hear the gentleman, and I happily accept his offer to withdraw the amendment. I will happily work with him to see if we can't work some time in the future to find room for this program that the gentleman is obviously supportive of.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Heck).

Mr. Chairman, I have no opposition to this en bloc amendment moving forward, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have no other speakers present at this time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, as the designee of Ranking Member Lowey, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. O'Halleran).

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett).

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

Amendments En Bloc No. 2 Offered by Mr. Calvert of California

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this en bloc amendment.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Kilmer).

Mr. Chairman, I am opposed to all these amendments included in the en bloc. Many of them use offsets from accounts in the Environmental Protection Agency of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and they are already severely underfunded.

I am particularly troubled by one amendment to this group that threatens our Nation's most visited wilderness area. Let me tell you why I oppose the Emmer amendment.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, located in northern Minnesota, is one of the last truly wild places in America. These 1.1 million acres of unspoiled woodlands and more than 1,000 pristine lakes are beloved by adventurers, canoers, and sportsmen from all across our country. This national treasure lies in the vast Rainy River Watershed and flows north into Voyageurs National Park and onward towards Canada.

Recently, there has been a push to conduct sulfide-ore copper mining less than 3 miles from the Boundary Waters Wilderness. This mining threatens to irreplaceably damage the waters, the wildlife, and the landscape. Sulfur ore mining is the most toxic industry in America, polluting waterways with acid drainage that contains arsenic, mercury, and lead.

In 2014, the Mount Polley sulfide-ore mine in British Columbia failed, dumping billions of liters of toxic sludge and leaving permanent environmental damage in its wake.

To protect the boundary waters from this type of destruction, the Forest Service acted last December and launched a thorough environmental analysis with public engagement to assess what type of mining, if any, is appropriate on Federal lands and this watershed for the next 20 years. The Trump and the Obama administrations have both agreed we need a thorough, scientific-based assessment of the best management of this sensitive ecosystem and conservation of our boundary waters.

The Emmer amendment upends this careful process. It pushes aside the Forest Service's ongoing study. It mandates that dangerous copper and sulfide mining will be allowed in the watershed, regardless of the conclusions of this environmental study, and it intentionally ignores a public process that hundreds of thousands of Americans weighed in on with comments on both sides of the issue. In my opinion, this amendment sets a horrible precedent, wastes taxpayer dollars already invested in this study, and threatens a national treasure, and it should never become law.

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

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I must oppose this amendment that takes more money away from an already starved Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's main operating account is already cut by $240 million.

The EPA plays a critical role in keeping Americans safe both during natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey and on a day-to-day basis. I know this because the EPA, right now, is cleaning up a toxic waste site that has been recently discovered in my congressional district.

Unfortunately, the very air we breathe and the water we drink is endangered by the funding and policy decisions that are made in this bill, and their consequences will be negatively felt in communities across this Nation.

Now, this amendment would increase funding for the National Park Service, something I do support. I have just been to Glacier National Park, where I saw their backlog, and I agree wholeheartedly that we should be investing in our parks, but it cannot be done at the expense of our public health.

Republicans have chosen to put forward an omnibus bill that leaves nearly $5 billion of nondiscretionary funds on the table. So rather than gutting the EPA farther, we should be using all the resources available to us and working on a bipartisan budget agreement.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose an amendment that takes more money away from the EPA.

As I mentioned before, this bill already severely cuts the EPA's main operating account by $240 million. The air we breathe and the water we drink are endangered by the policy decisions that are being made in this bill. The consequences will be felt in communities across the Nation. I understand, for many, cutting the EPA is an easy target, but I want my colleagues to understand what this amendment would actually be cutting, if adopted.

This account funds programs that are important to both sides of the aisle, including permitting for construction projects across the country, toxic risk prevention, parts of the successful Brownfields Program, and pesticide licensing.

So I understand that the money would direct more funding to States in Appalachia. Appalachia is suffering. They are suffering from the raging environmental harm caused by coal mining. But, unfortunately, I cannot support any deeper cuts to the EPA.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, once again, I appreciate the challenges that the gentleman is suffering in his State and throughout Appalachia, but I cannot support any more deeper cuts to the EPA, so I must oppose the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose this amendment that takes more money, again, away from an already starved EPA.

This is a duplicate from the last amendment offered by the gentleman from Virginia earlier. It cuts another $32 million from the EPA's operating accounts.

Our country right now is dealing with two catastrophes caused by hurricanes. The destruction is going to be felt for years. The EPA right now is one of the primary Federal agencies responsible for protecting human health, monitoring air and water, and managing recovery and cleanup, so it would be simply reckless to adopt another amendment that would further cripple the EPA.

These two amendments would cut the EPA by $108 million.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, once again, I understand clearly what the gentleman from Pennsylvania is trying to accomplish.

I wish we could accomplish that goal. But with already a $240 million cut to the EPA and all of the challenges on the EPA--we just recently agreed on this floor by a voice vote to cut the EPA another $75 million. This would be another $33 million.

So I hope that we can reach a place in the funding that the chairman and I have where we can address the serious concerns that you bring to the floor where you had success with programs. But, at the same time, I would be cutting opportunities for cleanup, especially with all of the disasters looming--forest fires, disasters, and cleanup I just had recently in my district that came out of the blue. The EPA wouldn't have money to respond.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, as the designee of Ranking Member Lowey, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. Chairman, I want to also commend the chairman and working with the whole committee to make sure that the arts and humanities receive the funding that they did.

Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

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

Amendment No. 27 Offered by Mr. Langevin