H.Res. 91

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

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

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

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

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

One of the top issues in education when I arrived has always been the desire to replace No Child Left Behind, an outdated and inflexible law that, in many ways, set schools up for failure, with a new and better way of making sure that every student has the opportunity to succeed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A great example of the potential of Planning 2.0 can be

found in eastern and central Idaho, where the BLM is

preparing to engage in a land use planning process for public

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

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

operating under the spirit of Planning 2.0, a number of

sporting groups, conservation organizations, and Salmon

Valley stewardship have reached out to a wide-ranging

constituency of ranchers, loggers, motorized users,

sportsmen, and other groups. The benefit of this early

conversation can be very valuable to sportsmen. Take the

Donkey Hills at the headwaters of the Pahsimeroi River as an

example. There has been near unanimous agreement that the

critical elk calving area in the Donkey Hills needs

thoughtful consideration as a critical wildlife area.

From Missoula County, Montana:

Western Montana, where the Missoula BLM field offices

engaged in a land-use planning revision process for public

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

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

steps in Planning 2.0 to further engage the public in land

management decisions.

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

Lewis & Clark County,

Board of County Commissioners,

Helena, Montana.

Re the Bureau of Land Management's Proposed Resource

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

25, 2016).

Neil Kornze,

Director, Bureau of Land Management,

Washington, DC.

Dear Director Kornze: The Lewis and Clark County Board of

County Commissioners offer this letter of support for

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

Proposed Resource Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg.

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

effort to improve opportunities for public involvement

earlier in the planning processes, including the chance to

review preliminary resource management alternatives and

preliminary rationales for those alternatives.

We value our relationship with our federal partners, and

our constituents are impacted

greatly by actions taken by your agency. Increasing access to

the planning process and targeting your efforts towards

greater public involvement enhances the relationship between

the people and their government, and we support your

initiative.

Additionally, we note that the Proposed Rules also expand

opportunities for states and local governments to have

meaningful involvement in the development of BLM's land use

decisions. The Proposed Rules continue to provide for

coordination with state and local representatives in order to

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

are consistent with state and local land use plans, as

provided in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of

1976.

Sincerely.

Michael Murray,

Chairman

Susan Good Geise,

Vice Chair

Andy Hunthausen,

Member

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

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

County of Park,

Board of County Commissioners,

May 12, 2016.

Re the Bureau of Land Management's Proposed Resource

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

25, 2016).

Neil Kornze,

Director, Bureau of Land Management,

Washington, DC.

Dear Director Kornze: The undersigned representatives of

local government are writing to share their support for

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

Proposed Resource Management Planning Rules, 81 Fed. Reg.

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

support the provisions of the Proposed Rules that provide

additional opportunities for public involvement earlier in

the planning process, including the chance to review

preliminary resource management alternatives and preliminary

rationales for those alternatives.

Each of undersigned representatives come from local

jurisdictions whose land bases include substantial amounts of

public lands managed by BLM. The management of these public

lands is vitally important to the citizens we represent Our

citizens and local economies depend on these lands for

sustainable multiple uses, from outdoor recreation to

livestock grazing to mineral exploration and development.

The current BLM planning methodology lacks adequate

opportunities for public involvement, particularly early in

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

a range of alternatives that fails to address the concerns of

all stakeholders. The proposed changes would provide the

public with

an opportunity to raise concerns and review potential

management alternatives before these alternatives become

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

early public involvement will hopefully help resolve

conflicts and produce RMPs that better reflect the needs of

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

have a stake in their future.

In addition, we note that the Proposed Rules also expand

opportunities for states and local governments to have

meaningful involvement in the development of BLM's land use

decisions. The Proposed Rules continue to provide for

coordination with state and local representatives in order to

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

are consistent with state and local land use plans, as

provided in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of

1976.

Sincerely,

Mike Brazell,

Chairman, County of Park.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Madam Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to anchor this CBC Special Order. For the next 60 minutes, we have a chance to speak directly to the American people on issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, the constituents we represent, and all Americans.

Tonight, we will highlight the President's action to undermine our national security, including, but not limited to, abruptly firing FBI Director Comey in order to ease pressure on the Russian investigation just 1 day before sharing classified information with a Russian official.

Madam Speaker, many in this country believe Congress continues to have trouble accomplishing the basic requirements of its job. Up until a few weeks ago, we were still scrambling yet again to complete spending legislation to prevent a government shutdown.

If the only measure of national security success during the President's first 100 days were avoiding catastrophe, okay, President Trump has succeeded: no attacks on the U.S., no new wars, no nuclear Armageddon.

These are good things, and in the moment we can breathe a sigh of relief. However, these outcomes, arguably, owe more to the national security machine built by the President's predecessors than any decision of the 45th President.

President Trump's first major budget proposal will be released tomorrow. It is reported to include massive cuts to Medicaid and will call for drastically and unprecedented changes to antipoverty programs.

As for Medicaid, the State Federal programs that provide healthcare to low-income Americans, Trump's draconian budget plan would follow through on a bill passed by House Republicans to cut more than $800 billion over 10 years.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this would cut off Medicaid benefits for 10 million people over the next decade. That is unacceptable.

The dysfunctional relationship between Congress and the Trump administration has helped to bog down and complicate the fiscal 2017 budget process and has stymied the work of this Congress when it comes to passing legislation that will help our constituents.

A recent survey found that 48 percent of Americans now prefer increased government spending in areas like healthcare, veterans care, education, and infrastructure--things that the people of my district, the Virgin Islands, desperately need, with a 15 percent unemployment rate and 33 percent of our children living in poverty.

It is time for Congress to get back to work for the people that have put us here.

I want to highlight three pieces of legislation that I have introduced that will help my constituents in the Virgin Islands in various ways.

With a special counsel now having been appointed to look into the distractions the White House has created, it is time that Congress focus on our job and proceed to hold hearings on these bills followed by a vote on the House floor, and, hopefully, these commonsense bills will be signed into law by the President.

Healthcare: President Trump and the Republican Congress are planning to cut more than $800 billion out of Medicaid funding over 10 years while converting the program to a cap block grant to the States and territories and eliminating ACA's Medicaid expansion. These provisions are in the American Health Care Act, the House GOP's ObamaCare repeal bill.

As a Member representing the Virgin Islands, I believe we need to get back to doing the work of the people, and that is working to pass laws that better the lives of our constituents.

I introduced improving the treatment of the U.S. territories under the Federal healthcare program, which would eliminate existing inequities the territories face under Medicaid and Medicare. There are numerous bills that my other colleagues have introduced to assist their constituents and all Americans in areas of healthcare. We need to bring those bills to the floor and vote them up or vote them down.

Veterans: There are few places in the United States with higher per capita rates of military service than the United States Virgin Islands. As a Member, I am committed to ensuring Virgin Islands veterans have full and equal access to health, housing, education, and employment benefits they have rightfully earned. Our constituents have deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq more than 30,000 times since September 11, and about 120,000 military veterans live in the territories, yet none are allowed to cast a ballot to choose their Commander in Chief.

We need to remember that nearly 4 million Americans call Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa home, a combined population greater than 22 States. We represent those Americans in the U.S. House who cannot vote for their interests on the House floor. Our constituents are denied representation in the U.S. Senate and are barred from the general election for President and Vice President. When the Presidential vote was tabulated in 2016, it was as if 4 million Americans we represent do not exist. There is a time, however, when our people are counted--when the country goes to war.

I have introduced H. Res. 91, which proposes an amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding Presidential elections, voting rights for residents of all United States territories and commonwealths.

Education: We have to fix the education system. We have to give our young people better choices. We need to allow our children to be able to be educated in a place that is hospitable to learning. That does not occur right now in many places in the United States. The President's budget cut would remove support to schools for infrastructure, for afterschool programs, and for summer reading programs.

We cannot continue with this if we want to have national security. National security is the security of our young people to be educated and to grow safely. That is not happening in the Virgin Islands or anyplace in the United States at this time.

I recently introduced the United States Virgin Islands College Access Act of 2017, which will allow college students who are residents of the Virgin Islands to receive more reasonable tuition rates at participating 4-year institutions of higher education.

It is time for Congress to stop doing business as usual. With budget decisions impacting everything from national security to infrastructure investment, Congress needs to focus on doing its job and doing it with more than the next few months or current fiscal year in mind. Moving forward, we as Members of Congress need to make sure that we deal with our legislative and budgetary responsibilities with more thoughtfulness and foresight.

Congressman Dwight Evans represents the wonderful city of Philadelphia and the people of Pennsylvania. He is a legislator of many years. Although he comes here as a freshman,

none of us consider him as a freshman having served in the legislature in Pennsylvania for more than 20 years. I would ask him to speak on the topic that the Congressional Black Caucus' Special Order hour has introduced: What Do We Have to Lose: National Security.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Evans).

Madam Speaker, I thank the Congressman so much for his comments.

I think it was very interesting that the gentleman was saying that the American people and people that he spoke with over the weekend want the truth. I think that is what we all here in Congress want. We want the facts. We want to hear specifically what has happened so that the people of the United States can make a decision about what happens next.

I am not here to ask for impeachment or ask for any rash decision, but I am asking that the American people be able to see a transparent Congress and a transparent process that allows them to then speak to us as Members of Congress as to what they would like.

Several months ago, almost 2 months now, several colleagues of mine and I wrote a letter to the Department of Justice, to the Acting Attorney General, requesting that he institute a special counsel, a special prosecutor, in this matter. We are grateful that that has happened. But a special counsel cannot replace an independent, outside commission and vigorous congressional investigation.

The appointment of a special counsel speaks to the urgency of investigating the Trump connection to Russia's interference in our election and the gravity of the President's abuse of power in trying to shut down the FBI Director; but the American people need to understand that, while a special counsel could bring charges against those individuals who were, in fact, if the facts prove to be so, in collusion with the Russians, it cannot do anything to the President except bring a report to this Congress for this Congress to act on.

This Congress needs to remember that we are a separate branch of government than the White House. This Congress seems to be acting as if it is part of the White House, an extension of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, when, in fact, this Congress stands alone.

We have a separate set of rules, a separate power, and a separate responsibility than the President of the United States. As such, Madam Speaker, it is important that we demonstrate to the American people that we are acting that way. A special counsel within the Trump- controlled Justice Department cannot replace a truly independent, outside commission, because it is the commission which would then be able to make a decision about our President.

I say it is our President because we all respect the Office of the President, and we want the world to know that we respect and hold in reverence the individual who holds that and hold him accountable for that position that he holds. An independent, outside commission, as special counsel, Director Muller's actions will still be subject to review and approval by the President Trump-appointed leadership of the Justice Department.

Congress must act to create an independent, outside commission that is completely free of the Trump administration's meddling. A special counsel cannot be used as a pretext for Republicans to shut down investigations by Congress or hide the facts of the President's wrongdoing from the American people.

Now, I have heard the Justice Department and others talk about this being a criminal investigation, that the special counsel is using it as a special criminal investigation. As a lawyer, as someone who has been a prosecutor, I understand that the burden of proof for criminal charges are much different than this Congress would hold for a President if it were to ask for impeachment.

So this Congress must not abdicate its responsibility because the work needs to be done. Jobs need to be created and infrastructure needs to be put in place so that commerce can be done in this country. Healthcare needs to be put in place for Americans. We cannot lose more Americans' healthcare. We need to gain more Americans having healthcare. We need to settle the issues of immigration.

Madam Speaker, never mind criminal justice reform. It seems that this Congress has completely forgotten that, in the last Congress, we agreed, both Republicans and Democrats, to reform criminal justice. We are seeing our young people die not from the Justice Department and not just from what is happening on the streets, and never mind what is happening in our criminal

justice system. I understand that a bill is going to be coming on the floor asking for minimum mandatory sentencing for a slew of charges which will again increase the school-to-prison, cradle-to-death pipeline of prisons in this country.

So these are the things that we as Congress need to be concerned with. The national security issues that our President has are things that we need to continue to look at.

There is an old Washington cliche: personnel is policy. The same reflects the wisdom that any President's agenda depends on his political appointees to refine and implement that vision. Trump's White House has failed first and most spectacularly in this requirement. That failure may not even be the President's failure at this time but the people he has put in place by both building a dysfunctional White House and National Security Council and by failing to staff his national security agencies with the appointees necessary to oversee and direct foreign policy.

For now, the failures of Trump's political favorites with his new establishment professionals likely mean incoherence on the national security front for some time, with the White House lurching from one crisis to the next, its actions and words disconnected from any broader doctrine.

Bad personnel decisions have also dogged the Trump administration during its first 100 days. Michael Flynn and K.T. McFarland hardly did well in leading the NSC during their brief sojourns there. Low-level hires have also continued poor performance.

The most obvious foreign policy failures are that there is no policy, no doctrine, no strategy that knits together Trump's desired ends with the government's ways and means. That should be of concern to my Republican colleagues who want this Republican President to succeed. If you want him to succeed, you need to help him. The help needs to come in terms of the personnel that he has put in place, in terms of the transparency, and as they said, cleaning the swamp, getting rid of the swamp, so that there can be those professionals and those above reproach in the White House carrying out the mission of this President.

At the agency level, the Trump's White House political appointments machine has been incredibly dysfunctional, reportedly because of fights between the White House factions over personnel picks.

This has starved the Pentagon, State Department, Justice Department, and other agencies of under secretaries, assistant secretaries, deputy assistant secretaries, special assistants who actually are carrying out the President's agenda.

In the absence of an entire team, the uniformed military leadership and career civil servants of these agencies have carried on, but with significant friction given the personal disdain for these people during the campaign and afterwards.

The personnel failures have worsened the second category of the failures, those of process. If there was personnel, we also have process failures going on right now.

The NSC was codified in 1947, along with the modern Defense Department, CIA, and Joint Chiefs of Staff to correct perceived process failures during World War II. The big idea behind the National Security Act was to create a process that could withstand poor personnel by ensuring the institution of the presidency was well served by its national security agencies and could, therefore, make better informed decisions.

Despite its aspirations to run the White House like a fine-tuned machine, the administration has uniformly failed to implement processes to serve its agenda. Indeed, at times--an example being the 63-hour rush to strike Syria with cruise missiles or its announcement of a tax plan before the details were ironed out--the White House seems at war with the very idea of process, as if budgets, planning, and coordination were toxic features of the Washington swamp, to be rejected at all costs.

The biggest process failures have been those that affected the entire government. Trump's failure to develop detailed budgets, let alone to agree with Congress on the funding levels and priorities, nearly led the country to the brink of a government shutdown. All indications point to the impasse being settled, but the outcome will likely be a continuing resolution once again that punts all the major budget decisions and keeps agencies in limbo on major programs, including, if we are talking about national security, major weapons systems, acquisitions, spending on important training and exercises, and outlays for servicemembers and military families. This is something that is going to cause all Americans to suffer, spectacularly in some cases.

One of the President's biggest campaign promises, the pledge to build a wall on America's border with Mexico, has stalled for lack of funding, and proposals will likely remain stuck in the government contracts process for months, if not years.

His immigration orders have been held unconstitutional because of errors that his Justice Department or Department of Homeland Security lawyers would have caught and corrected had they been there or had a chance.

In some cases, the process failures have had deadlier consequences. President Trump ordered a risky special operations raid on Yemen over a dinner meeting with his senior staff with scant process or coordination. The raid went badly, as military operations sometimes do. Instead of taking responsibility, the White House blamed the military, both for the substantive failure on the ground and the faulty decision process that put the SEALS there. Disconnects between the White House, Department of Defense, and the U.S. Pacific Command resulted in a confusing saga regarding the movements of a U.S. aircraft carrier, resulting in the dilution of any deterrent value that President Trump's words might hold in Moscow or Beijing.

The personnel and process failures contribute to policy failures across the national security chessboard. The most obvious Trump foreign policy failure is that there is no policy, no doctrine at this time. We deserve better in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in China, in North Korea, but most importantly, here on the home front. We as Americans deserve a coherent, comprehensive process oriented as well as personnel driven with career intelligence individuals at the helm and within the ranks of each one of these agencies because we have a lot to lose.

We have our young people to lose if we go into wars that have not been thought out and have not been process driven. Our young people deserve better. Our world deserves better because the world is looking to America to still be the ones--although we seem to be abdicating our responsibility, whether it be in war or in the other forms of diplomacy that we engage in--to keep this a safe place. Famines that are going on in Sudan, in Yemen, and in other places, it is the American might, the might of our aid and our support to them, that keeps democracy alive, not just on the ground and in fact, but in the hearts and minds of those who yearn for it in other places.

That is the national security that this America needs to be engaged in, and it is that kind of national security that this Congress needs to be concerned with. We need to get back. We have a week of bills that are dysfunctional in themselves that do not serve the best interests of the American people. This Congress needs to stop scuttling legislation, scuttling bills that their colleagues are trying to put forward. Vote them up or vote them down. Let the American people know where you stand on every issue. We need to stop the voice votes that are going on in committees that allow Members to hide behind what their positions are with their constituents. I know it is not easy, but that is why we are all adults here. We want to put on our big girl pants and be the kind of people who can stand for what we believe.

So let's bring those bills forward. Let's support the infrastructure jobs activity, as well as national security and support for the world abroad. That is what we have to lose if we do not hold this President, this White House, and all of his agencies and his Cabinet accountable for the work that they are doing.

Madam Speaker, it appears that I do not have additional Members who would like to speak in this Special Order hour.

Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is time to face the facts. Congressional Republicans do not value our Nation's public lands the way everyday Americans do. I know this because they opened the 115th Congress by adopting a rules package that makes it easier to sell our national parks and national forests to the highest bidder without pesky budget rules getting in the way. That was just a start.

Last week, they voted to gut clean water and clean air protections in coal country, suspended a rule requiring oil companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments, and pulled a plug on a waste prevention regulation that would have saved money and improved air quality.

Today, their assault on the environment and our public land continues with this misguided effort to scrap the Bureau of Land Management's effort to update its planning rule. This resolution targets what is commonly known as Planning 2.0, an initiative to make public land management more transparent and efficient by enhancing opportunities for public input and utilizing actual science.

The American public does not support erasing this new planning rule, and they certainly don't support the broad antipublic land agenda being pushed by the Republicans.

Our constituents are sick of seeing corporate interests, especially big polluters, come first. They do not want their national parks and cherished natural places turned over to industrial polluters. We have seen this in the massive response to the Dakota Access pipeline, heartbreak over what happened in Flint, Michigan, and the millions of people who marched worldwide on the first full day of this new administration.

Just last week, we saw how much Americans truly value their public land. After a prominent Republican introduced a bill to sell off more than 3 million acres of taxpayer-owned land, thousands of people picked up the phone and called their Representatives to express their outrage. Because of that passion and deep concern, the sponsor of that bill has vowed to withdraw it from consideration for the first time in five Congresses.

This is an important story because it speaks to our constituents' true priorities. They sent us here to be responsible stewards of their special places. They sent us here to protect their national parks and public lands. They sent us here to make government work for them.

This resolution fails on all those tests.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas), a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer), a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres), also a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. McEachin), who is a new member of the Natural Resources Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, using the Congressional Review Act to nullify a Federal regulation is indeed a radical move. It has only been done once before this year, but now it has become a regular part of the Republican playbook.

BLM's Planning 2.0 is not some midnight regulation that was rushed through at the last minute. BLM went through a transparent rulemaking process and responded to thousands of comments. We had two hearings last year about Planning 2.0 in the Natural Resources Committee. BLM was only invited by the majority to one of the hearings, but the agency listened and made significant changes before publishing their final rule. This rule took 2.5 years to develop. It is not anywhere near a midnight rule.

It has been over 30 years since BLM updated the regulatory framework governing its planning process. That

means we are relying on Reagan-era rules that were put in place before the widespread availability of cellphones and digital mapping techniques to oversee everything from energy permitting to cultural resource management on over 250 million acres.

Everyone engaged in the management of our public lands wants to see this process improved. Planning 2.0 is that opportunity. However, if this resolution becomes law, BLM will never be allowed to evaluate and modernize this process, and we return to management planning from the 1980s. That is not a good outcome for anybody. The resolution is irresponsible and needs to be rejected.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, when you don't look at the whole field, you make mistakes. Without using their vision, quarterbacks throw passes into double coverage and Presidents trigger angry protests of their ill- conceived policies. Seeing the whole field is what BLM 2.0 is all about.

Instead of managing lands by looking at isolated units and only soliciting the input of local governments, this new framework takes a landscape view of BLM's multiple use mission. This update is absolutely necessary if we expect BLM to address the problems we all acknowledge the agency has. Climate change, wildfire, drought, and invasive species are just some of the problems that need landscape-level solutions. On the flip side, coordinating planning for outdoor recreation and renewable energy development across multiple BLM units will help increase the growth of these industries.

Rejecting landscape-level planning is like rejecting air traffic control; you can do it, but the results won't be pretty. By repealing this rule and locking a broken system in place in perpetuity, Republicans hope to fulfill their own prophecy that BLM does a poor job managing public lands. If enough people believe them, they think, then maybe they will achieve their goal of giving away America's public lands. The problem, though, is that not enough people believe them. Those who do are shrinking every day, and the ones who don't are making their voices heard.

People who care about sound management of BLM lands know that the Planning 2.0 rule is an important step forward. They know it isn't an abuse of executive authority or a government land grab, and they are tired of hearing from discredited voices who say it is. These views are backward looking and ignore the fact that these lands belong to a kid from Chicago just as much as they do to an oilman from Wyoming.

Landscape-scale planning allows BLM, with the input of all stakeholders, to manage across the lands. Under Planning 2.0, BLM State offices and the scientists and the land management professionals they employ are finally allowed to build a consistent land management policy that doesn't stop at the State line.

Planning 2.0 helps our land managers see the whole field and looks to the future. The majority wants to send us back to the past. We shouldn't allow that to happen.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time remains?

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

Mr. Speaker, using the CRA to repeal this rule would freeze Federal land managers and the places they manage in 1983. That is the year the previous rule was written, and that is the rule we would be stuck with if this resolution passes.

Voting for this resolution means voting for outdated science; it means voting for a return to managing individual parcels with blinders on to the larger landscape; and it means continuing to ignore our changing climate.

Overturning BLM 2.0 means you are okay with ignoring the overwhelming scientific and public support for the planning updates implemented in the rule.

Don't get me wrong, Mr. Speaker. There were plenty of great things from the early 1980s: movies like ``Return of the Jedi'' and those early cell phones that were the size of bricks. And don't forget the fashions of the 1980s. I am sure people thought they looked great in parachute pants, but eventually we all updated our wardrobes.

We might have had early cell phones back in the 1980s, but we didn't have modern computing, current technologies for mapping, or even GPS. There is no doubt that it is time to update our land use planning to take advantage of these technologies and respond to new challenges and to current times.

So why are congressional Republicans so interested in blasting us back to the past? Why are they so eager to throw away 2\1/2\ years of public input into a modern, transparent, science-driven planning process?

They allege some local counties aren't happy, but we have got letters from counties saying that they support the rule, and thousands of pages of comments from the agency demonstrating that they responded to any concerns. This can't be the real motivation, Mr. Speaker.

No, the true purpose of this resolution is to tie the hands of Federal land managers so they can't manage special places in ways that might hinder pollution or cut down on private profiteering. Apparently, congressional Republicans have decided to give Representative Zinke a parting gift as he leaves to be Secretary of the Interior. That gift is a pair of handcuffs.

If you have updated your wardrobe or your cell phone since 1983, or if you enjoy the luxury of Google Maps or GPS, I urge you to oppose this resolution because it fails to update our ability to protect our precious public lands.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the BLM 2.0 rule represents the turning back of a clock of ignoring science, ignoring the need for public participation.

Although Republicans claim they want to take power away from government and give it to the people, why do they oppose every attempt to actually do that?

They don't want the people to use citizen suits to hold polluters accountable. They don't want the people to use the NEPA process to ensure government actions aren't harming their communities. Today, they don't want the people to have increased participation in managing our public lands.

The reason, of course, is that Republicans don't want all people to have a seat at the table. They only want certain people to be there.

In this case, the old BLM planning process gave local governments in the West--many of which are cozy with mining, drilling, and grazing interests--a privileged position in influencing land management planning. Given that these public lands belong to all Americans and not just those who happen to live close to them, that approach was wrong.

BLM's Planning 2.0 rule changes that, leveling the playing field and allowing more stakeholders and interested parties to get involved earlier.

Under BLM's new rule, tribes, local governments, and stakeholders across the spectrum who care about these places where they work, recreate, hunt, fish, and live are all now encouraged to provide input at the outset instead of waiting until the bitter end. This will save time and money, reduce litigation, and generally make government work better.

So why would Republicans oppose it?

Hunters, anglers, and others who value the outdoors are asking the same question and are lining up in opposition to this misguided resolution and other bills that would reduce their access to public land.

The people have grown wise to the Republican crusade to give away ownership of and authority over their lands to States, localities, and private interests. They have grown very weary of that. They understand that this resolution is part of that crusade.

So Republicans have a choice. They can continue doing favors for the dirty development interests of the past or they can embrace policies like BLM 2.0 and use it to give a boost to the ongoing jobs boom in sectors like solar, wind, and outdoor recreation. For the sake of Western economies and landscapes, I hope they choose the latter.

Planning 2.0 finally recognizes the value of the public's voice in the planning process. Let's not silence them.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters in opposition to this resolution. These letters come from a broad array of stakeholders, including sportsmen, county commissioners, county supervisors, and conservationists, highlighting the breadth and depth of support for Planning 2.0.

February 6, 2017.

Dear Representative: As organizations committed to

preserving our nation's historic and cultural resources, we

urge you to OPPOSE the Congressional Review Act resolution

(H.J. Res. 44) to nullify the Bureau of Land Management's

final planning rule, commonly referred to as BLM Planning

2.0.

The Congressional Review Act is the wrong tool to address

resource management planning. While no regulation is perfect,

using the Congressional Review Act to overturn the Planning

2.0 rule would have far-reaching implications for cultural

resources and management of our public lands. This resolution

of disapproval would prohibit the BLM from developing any

``substantially similar'' regulation in the future. The

result would be to replace the new regulation with BLM's

prior planning rule, which is more than 30 years old and does

not incorporate current technology and streamlining practices

to maximize efficient and effective decision-making. Locking

in inefficient and outdated regulations does not serve any

users of our public lands.

The BLM's Planning 2.0 rule is designed to bring much

needed efficiency, predictability, and transparency to BLM's

management of multiple uses on public lands. The rule is

carefully crafted to collect state and local government,

tribal, and public input early in the planning process. In

addition to making BLM's planning more efficient, improving

available information allows project developers to consider

potential impacts to environmental, cultural, and historic

resources at the outset rather than being surprised by

stakeholder concerns and information identified late in the

process. The rule also improves the planning process by

reducing the need for costly and time-consuming supplements

that can delay decision-making and inhibit private sector

investment.

The BLM's Planning 2.0 rule updates procedures for

developing individual resource management plans that guide

actions and decisions on the nearly 250 million surface acres

and more than 700 million acres of subsurface mineral

resources that the agency manages. These lands contain the

largest, most diverse, and scientifically most important body

of cultural resources of any federal land management agency,

including well over a million historic, archaeological, and

other cultural sites. Our organizations remain committed to

promoting a responsible land management planning process that

enhances public involvement, improves transparency, and

promotes sound, efficient decision-making based on full

information, including better data on cultural resources on

our public lands.

If the resolution passes, it will make management of our

public lands less efficient and less effective. Again, we

urge you to OPPOSE the Congressional Review Act resolution to

overturn the BLM Planning 2.0 rule.

Sincerely,

National Trust for Historic Preservation; American

Anthropological Association; American Cultural Resources

Association; Archaeology Southwest; Arizona Preservation

Foundation; Cienega Watershed Partnership; City of Kingman,

AZ; Coalition for American Heritage; Colorado Plateau

Archaeological Alliance; Conservation Lands Foundation;

Friends of Cedar Mesa.

Friends of Organ Mountains Desert Peaks; Friends of the

Agua Fria National Monument; Friends of the Cliffs; Modern

Phoenix; Montana Preservation Alliance; National Association

of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers; Nevada Preservation

Foundation; Site Steward Foundation; Society for American

Archaeology; Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.

Congressional Republicans have a scorched Earth policy when it comes to anything originated under President Obama. It is the same approach with the Affordable Care Act. They want to completely destroy it, regardless of any merits.

The majority is not spending all this time and effort simply to repeal this planning rule. This is one of the steps in their massive campaign to convince Americans that Barack Obama wasn't a good President. They simply can't stand to allow the accomplishments of the previous administration to stand, so they reflexively strike out to destroy anything President Obama supported.

This is not legislating. It is certainly not public service, and it isn't even smart. To paraphrase a former Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn: anybody can kick down a barn; it takes a carpenter to build one.

This isn't how our government is supposed to work. It is especially counterproductive when it comes to something like Planning 2.0, which is specifically designed to make a Federal agency more efficient and more transparent.

The BLM rule is about bringing our land use plans into the 21st century. It is about local input. It is about using the best available science. The majority wants to return to 1983 so that polluters and developers are the only ones with a seat at the table.

We should support BLM 2.0, reject this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to do so.

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

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

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

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

General Leave

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I yield myself the balance of my time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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