A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to "Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services".

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 431 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scott), my colleague on the Armed Services Committee.

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

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

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

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

Let's talk about the wall for a second.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what does that mean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. President, I rise to celebrate the anniversary of one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history, the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.

I rise in strong opposition to the American Health Care Act, a callous and carelessly written bill that would roll back progress and strip health insurance from millions of Americans.

I rise on behalf of people like Chrystal from my home State of California. You see, I know Chrystal. She works in my dentist's office. In early 2011, just after I was elected attorney general of California, I went in for a checkup. It had been a while since I had seen her. Chrystal asked me how I had been, and I asked her how she had been, and then she shared with me great news. She was pregnant.

As a dental hygienist, she was working for a few different dentists and wasn't on the payroll of any of them as a full-time employee. This was before the ACA was in place, so Chrystal was on private insurance with only basic coverage, just enough to cover her annual exams.

When Chrystal found out she was pregnant, she went to her insurance company to apply for prenatal coverage. She was denied. When I asked her why, she told me that they said she had a preexisting condition. So you can imagine I asked her: Are you OK? What is wrong? What is the preexisting condition?

She told me she was pregnant.

When she applied to another healthcare company for insurance, again, she was denied. Why? Preexisting condition. What was it? She was pregnant.

So this young woman was forced to go into her sixth month of pregnancy before she received a sonogram. Instead, thankfully, there was a free clinic in San Francisco, so she could get her prenatal care.

Thank God she had a strong and beautiful baby boy. His name is Jackson. They are both doing well today.

Thank God that situation is no longer the reality for millions of Americans.

I share Chrystal's story to remind us what America's healthcare system looked like only a few years ago.

We should not forget that before the ACA, 48 million Americans lacked health insurance. That is more people than the entire country of Canada.

Before the ACA, when these people got sick, they had three choices: Go without treatment, go to the emergency room, or go broke.

Before the ACA, 129 million people--almost one out of every two Americans--could be denied insurance coverage because of preexisting conditions. And the minute you got sick, your insurer could dig up some flimsy reason to drop your coverage. You could be denied coverage for chemotherapy or insulin if you had cancer or diabetes. You could be denied prenatal coverage if you were pregnant, like Chrystal. You could even be denied health coverage if you were a victim of domestic violence.

Before the ACA, healthcare costs were crushing low-income and middle- class Americans. Premiums--which, of course, are those monthly bills that we all pay for our insurance--were going up and up. Sky-high medical bills were the No. 1 reason Americans went broke, causing them to sell their homes, their cars, and even pawn their jewelry to pay off their debts.

One of the worst things about facing the healthcare system without coverage before the ACA was that it left you feeling utterly alone. Most Americans know what I am talking about: that knot in your stomach when you know there is something wrong with your health or the health of your child or your parent, but you are not sure what it is, whether it can be fixed or whether your insurance will cover it, and the frustration, the anger as you try to make sense of the fine print and codes on the medical bill that has so many zeros.

How many of us have walked into an emergency room with a loved one and felt time just stop? Maybe it was with your child who was running a fever or having trouble breathing. Maybe your partner is being rushed in with a possible heart attack. All you will know is that something is wrong. All you know is that you are overwhelmed and scared, and you know that you should not also have to fight on the phone with an insurance company or wonder if a doctor will even see you at all. That is how millions and millions of Americans experienced our healthcare system.

It was not right or fair. So the ACA set out to make things better, and 7 years ago today, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. It finally extended good, affordable health insurance to Americans like Chrystal all across the Nation. Vice President Biden was absolutely right when, at the time, he said that it was a ``big''--and then I will not quote the next word; let's call it blanking--``deal.''

It is a shame that people have been playing politics with this law and with America's health. The former Speaker of the House said that the ACA would be ``Armageddon.'' A Republican Presidential candidate who now sits in the Cabinet called the ACA--and these are his actual words--``the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.''

Earlier this month, the President of the United States tweeted that the ACA is ``a complete and total disaster.'' Well, I say: Tell that to the people of California because when a State wants to make the ACA work, it works--whether that is California or Kentucky, and real people living real lives know it.

For example, I recently heard from Myra from Sherman Oaks, CA, who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. She wrote:

Before ObamaCare, my husband and I lived under constant

stress due to our lack of good health insurance.

But, because of the ACA, Myra told me:

We had a Silver Blue Shield plan that covered . . . well

over a million dollars in bills to date. I am happy to report

I am now well, but without insurance, I was facing a death

sentence. Without the ACA, we would certainly have had to

sell our home to pay my bills and try to figure out how to

make ends meet.

She wrote that it covered well over a million dollars. That is what the ACA does.

Here is how Cindy of from Oakley, CA, has experienced real life. She wrote:

My daughter was diagnosed with an eating disorder at 13

years old and I can directly thank the excellent care

received at Kaiser Northern California for her good health

today at age 17. Without the ACA and the mental health parity

it helps provide . . . I would not have had treatment options

available to me.

Again, coverage for mental health treatment--that is what the ACA does.

Honoree, a single mom from Samoa, CA, living with a spinal cord injury that has kept her from working for 3\1/2\ years, wrote to me and said:

I wanted to let you know that I love ObamaCare! My

healthcare has steadily improved since the ACA was enacted. .

. . I can't tell you how AMAZING it felt to get my teeth

cleaned and cared for after waiting more than a decade.

I walked around for weeks saying, ``thanks, ObamaCare!''

whenever I sensed how good my teeth felt.

I would be saddened to see the ACA get scrapped. It's made

a huge difference in our lives. Actually, I'd be more than

saddened, I'd be very scared.

Again, this is testimony about the ACA, in this case about dental coverage and improved healthcare. That is what the ACA does.

I will state that I believe there is a huge disconnect between the over-the-top criticism of the ACA and the law's actual impact. There is a disconnect between the politics and how people are actually living and thriving under the ACA. In fact, in a recent poll, one in three Americans didn't even realize that the ACA and ObamaCare were actually the same thing, and they are. So, everybody, let's be clear about this. The Affordable Care Act is ObamaCare, and ObamaCare is the Affordable Care Act.

We all know, of course, that there are ways to improve the ACA, but ending it is not the answer. The truth is that the ACA has largely done what it was supposed to do--expand, protect, and reduce--expand coverage, protect consumers, and reduce the pace of rising healthcare costs. Thanks to the ACA and Medicaid expansion, 20 million

more Americans have health insurance. That is the population of the entire State of New York. Thanks to the ACA, premiums are going up at the slowest rate in half a century. Thanks to the ACA, doctors are innovating and providing better preventive care, from keeping people out of the hospital to delivering healthier babies. Thanks to the ACA, insurers cannot set lifetime limits on your care, meaning your insurance company won't tell you in the middle of a cancer treatment that they have paid all they ever will. Thanks to the ACA, millions of underserved Americans in rural towns and in cities and everywhere in between have access to care for the first time. Thanks to the ACA, young people can stay on their parents' insurance until they are 26. Thanks to the ACA, 55 million women have insurance that works-- mammograms, checkups, and birth control with no copays. When you pick up your prescription at the pharmacy and see that the bill is zero dollars, well, that is the ACA. And thanks to the ACA, you can't be discriminated against if you have a preexisting condition, including that preexisting condition called being a woman.

Of course, navigating the healthcare system is still daunting, but things are better. There are now some rules of the road to keep insurance companies from taking advantage of you during some of life's most vulnerable moments. Because of the ACA, because of ObamaCare, you can sleep a little easier at night and know that your care will be there when you need it.

Let's fast-forward to today. Today, we mark the seventh anniversary of this historic life-changing law. But all that it covers and protects could also be ripped away, and that is because of the American Health Care Act, the Republican healthcare plan on the House side. That is what it will do--rip it all away.

They have done their best to mislead folks about their plan. They have criticized objective news reports, and they even questioned the Congressional Budget Office--which, as we know, is, by the way, a nonpartisan, independent office which crunched the numbers and found that this new plan would cause millions of Americans to lose insurance coverage.

Before we leap on to this new bill, let's all ask some key questions. Let's all take a good look at what this plan really would and would not do.

First, will this bill provide insurance for everybody, as President Trump promised? Well, the answer is no. In fact, the independent Congressional Budget Office says that under the GOP plan, 24 million Americans will lose their health insurance by the end of the decade. That is equal to the population of 15 States combined.

Who are these people? These are middle-class families, our Nation's teachers, veterans, truckdrivers, nurses, and farmers. These families include those who struggle with opioid addiction, have a child that needs support for autism, or have an aging parent who needs a nursing home. This bill threatens them all.

Let's ask: Will the plan help the folks who need care most? The answer is no. The House Republican plan's flat tax credits are based only on age, with no consideration of income level. So what that means is that a 40-year-old cashier making $10,000 gets the exact same amount as the 40-year-old banker making $74,000 a year. It doesn't matter whether you live in downtown Manhattan or the Cleveland suburbs or rural Alaska.

Let's ask: Will monthly costs go down for low-income and middle-class families who are stretched horribly thin right now? The answer is no. According to that same independent analysis, the Republican plan will immediately increase American families' premiums by 15 to 20 percent, with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs after that. In the next decade, a person in their fifties could see their insurance costs go up 850 percent. Their insurance costs can go up 850 percent.

Let's ask: What about our seniors--will their monthly costs go down? Sadly, the answer is no. The Republican plan lets insurers charge seniors five times as much as other Americans, meaning that high cholesterol your doctor diagnosed could cost you $3,200 more a month.

Let's ask: Will all women still have access to affordable family planning? The answer is no. This new bill will give Americans choice in healthcare, but the women of America will not have choice. The bill denies women tax credits if they get a plan that covers abortions. It prohibits Planned Parenthood from providing care for millions on Medicaid. Some 2.5 million patients choose Planned Parenthood every year, including roughly 1 million in California. They should be able to see the provider they choose and trust.

Let's ask: Will this new plan protect Medicaid, as President Trump promised? Well, the answer is no. Medicaid covers many people whose jobs don't offer healthcare, and it also pays for half of all the births in this Nation. It supports people with disabilities and children with special needs. Most people don't realize that Medicaid is the primary payer for treatment of opioid addiction and substance abuse. But this new plan being offered by House Republicans would roll back Medicaid coverage and cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid benefits over the next decade.

Let's ask: Does the plan put American families ahead of insurance companies? The answer, tragically, is no. Under this plan, if you lose your job and it takes more than 2 months to find another, you will be charged a 30-percent penalty on top of the monthly costs you are already paying. That money goes right into the insurance company's pockets.

So, by now, you are probably wondering: Who exactly does this bill help? Well, here is your answer. It gives millionaires a $50,000 average tax cut every year. It gives the top 0.1 percent in this country a $195,000 tax cut every year. It gives insurance companies a $145 billion tax break over the next decade. The President and the Speaker want you to believe that this plan is good for American families, but under their bill, the only thing that gets healthier are the insurance companies' bottom line.

As far as California is concerned, this bill would devastate our families. Here are the facts, and, frankly, here is the fight. Over 5 million Californians have received insurance through the Affordable Care Act. I say they are worth fighting for.

Since the ACA went into effect, California's uninsured population has been cut almost in half, from 17 percent to about 7 percent. I say they are worth fighting for.

Medi-Cal went from covering 8.5 million Americans to 13.5 million today. One in two children are covered under Medicaid. I say they are worth fighting for.

The community clinics and health centers that so many Californians rely on would be cut back or closed. I say they are worth fighting for.

A UC Berkeley study estimates that repealing the ACA would cost California up to 200,000 jobs, everyone from home healthcare aides and janitors to workers in retail, restaurants, and accounting. I say they are worth fighting for.

I rise today to emphasize that it is really important that we understand the everyday consequences of this bill. We are talking about real people. If you are a farmer in the Central Valley on Medicaid, you can lose that coverage. If you are a Los Angeles senior with diabetes, you may no longer be able to afford coverage on the individual market. If you are a family in Shasta County with a child dealing with a prescription drug addiction, substance abuse treatment likely will not be covered. If you are a couple in Humboldt County with an ailing parent, your request for home health services could be denied. These are the kinds of Californians and the kinds of Americans who this plan would hurt.

When these folks wake up at 3 a.m. worrying about an ache or pain or their next chemo appointment, when they wake up with that concern and that thought at 3 a.m., I promise you, they are not thinking about that through the lens of being a Republican or a Democrat. They think about themselves as fathers, mothers, parents, daughters and sons, and grandparents. They worry about their health needs and how their health needs will affect not only themselves but their loved ones. These concerns are not about politics. These are universal concerns, and we have all been there.

It is because all of us share these concerns and because all of us would be badly harmed by this new plan that

this bill is opposed by the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the American Nurses Association, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, and the AARP. They are the most respected medical and patient advocacy groups in this country, and they know what is at stake.

Ultimately, I believe this bill is not just about medicine or math; I believe this is about morals. The plan that the House is voting on today is a values statement, and it is not a good one. As our former President said about the ACA, this is more than just about healthcare; it is about the character of our country, and it is about whether or not we look out for one another.

I think we need to take a good, hard look in the mirror and ask: Who are we as a country? Are we a country that cuts the deficit by cutting care for our most vulnerable?

Let's look in the mirror and ask: Are we a country that gives tax breaks to insurers while giving higher medical bills to patients?

Are we a country that tells seniors and cancer patients and women ``You are on your own''?

Are we a country that sees healthcare as a privilege for a few or a right for all?

I believe that is what we have to decide.

The ACA is not perfect. It can be strengthened, and I am willing to work with anyone who will work in good faith to do that, but it is time to stop playing politics with public health.

Our government has three main functions: public safety, public education, and public health. We shouldn't be turning these responsibilities into partisan issues. Instead, we should be figuring out how to improve the lives of all Americans, whether we are Democrats, Republicans, or Independents.

People are counting on us, people like one of my constituents in Kern County--a woman who is suffering from lung disease, who said:

We are not asking for much . . . decent healthcare. . . .

Don't take it away. . . . Make it better.

I say to my colleagues: Do not take away American people's healthcare. Let's make it better.

I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 230 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 may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 230 provides for a rule to consider a Congressional Review Act resolution which will undo a duplicative regulation put into place by the previous administration in the final hours of that Presidency.

The rule brings before the House this resolution so that Congress may remove through the proper legislative process rules promulgated by bureaucrats who remain unaccountable to the American people. This process allows those who are accountable--the elected Representatives in Congress--to fight for our constituents' rights and liberties.

House Resolution 230 provides for a closed rule for the Congressional Review Act resolution, S.J. Res. 34, the standard procedure for such resolutions, since the sole purpose of the resolution is to remove a regulation from the Federal Register.

The rule allows for 1 hour of debate, equally divided between the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Further, the minority is afforded the customary motion to commit.

The Federal Communications Commission issued its Open Internet Order, reclassifying broadband providers as common carriers, which brought them under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission. The Federal Trade Commission is the primary regulator of companies' privacy and data security practices; however, the Federal Trade Commission's regulatory authority under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act does not extend to common carriers. Therefore, the reclassification of broadband internet service providers as common carriers created a legal enforcement gap.

The Federal Communications Commission determined that the privacy provisions of the Communications Act would now apply to broadband internet service providers and that new and expanded privacy rules were necessary. Therefore, the Federal Communications Commission promulgated new privacy rules for common carriers on October 27, 2016. These rules were adopted a mere 10 days before the 2016 Presidential election. They were adopted on a party-line vote and over serious objections by the minority Commission members and the internet service providers. The Federal Communications Commission's rules are a departure from the privacy protections that have been applied by the Federal Trade Commission for years.

The Federal Trade Commission employs an opt-out model that requires companies to provide consumers notice of the data that is collected and how it will be used. Consumers are then given the option to opt out of this data collection if they so choose. Instead of implementing well- established collection practices that are accepted industrywide, the Federal Communications Commission chose to promulgate an opt-in model for its new internet service providers. This model prohibits broadband internet service providers from using, disclosing, or providing access to customer proprietary information without the customer's affirmative opt-in consent. Such data includes browsing history, application usage, and location data, among other types of information.

While this may sound like a good thing to opt in to, in reality, it unfairly skews the market in favor of providers that already have access to consumer information. For example, search engines, social media sites, and internet content providers like Netflix, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, these providers, known as edge providers, are free to collect consumer data that broadband internet service providers, under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission, are not. The ability to provide consumer data drives the digital advertising market.

The Federal Communications Commission's privacy rules arbitrarily treat internet service providers differently from the rest of the internet, amounting to government intervention in the free market. The Federal Communications Commission stated that the rules would provide more transparency, the rules would provide more choice, the rules would provide more protection; however, these expanded provisions may also result in more frequent breach notifications, leading to a weaker focus on security by consumers who do suffer from notification fatigue.

While the Federal Communications Commission's privacy rules were meant to protect consumers, they actually can inhibit security and market competition while creating confusion by subjecting parts of the internet ecosystem to different rules and different jurisdictions. To correct this policy, on March 23, 2017, the Senate passed S.J. Res. 34, a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval to nullify the privacy rulemaking promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission.

Prior to the reclassification of broadband internet service providers as common carriers under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission regulated companies' privacy practices while preserving the Federal Communications Commission's authority to enforce privacy obligations of broadband service providers on a case-by-case basis.

This Congressional Review Act will restore the status quo that existed prior to the Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet Order and bring the privacy practices of all parts of the internet back into balance. Not only will this level the playing field for an increasingly anticompetitive market, but it will ensure parity in the protection of consumer data.

The new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, has called to halt the Federal Communications Commission's privacy rules. He stated: ``All actors in the online space should be subject to the same rules. . . . The Federal Government shouldn't favor one set of companies over another.'' This is precisely the type of limited government that we should be striving for after years of overreaching by the previous administration and its regulations. The Congressional Review Act protects consumers, and it restores the free market competitiveness that actually allows our economy to thrive.

The Congressional Review Act is an important tool in maintaining accountability at the Federal level. Its necessity has never been more apparent than over the past 2 months, where this Congress has needed to step in and remove burdensome, unbalanced regulations put in place by the prior administration and their team just as they were walking out the door.

House Republicans today will stand up for the rights of our constituents against the out-of-control Federal bureaucracy. I urge my colleagues to support today's rule and the underlying Congressional Review Act resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, to bring us back to the business at hand, which is the rule allowing the vote on the Congressional Review Act later today, I want to quote now from the web page of the Federal Trade Commission, under the title of Protecting Consumer Privacy. Reading from their website:

The Federal Trade Commission has been the chief Federal

agency on privacy policy and enforcement since the 1970s when

it began enforcing one of the first Federal privacy laws--the

Fair Credit Reporting Act. Since then, rapid changes in

technology have raised new privacy challenges, but the

Federal Trade Commission's overall approach has been

consistent. The agency uses law enforcement, policy

initiatives, and consumer and business education to protect

consumers' personal information and ensure that they have the

confidence to take advantage of the many benefits of an ever-

changing marketplace.

This is from the ftc.gov website.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the web page of the Federal Trade Commission.

Federal Trade Commission

Protecting Consumer Privacy

The FTC has been the chief federal agency on privacy policy

and enforcement since the 1970s, when it began enforcing one

of the first federal privacy laws--the Fair Credit Reporting

Act. Since then, rapid changes in technology have raised new

privacy challenges, but the FTC's overall approach has been

consistent: The agency uses law enforcement, policy

initiatives, and consumer and business education to protect

consumers' personal information and ensure that they have the

confidence to take advantage of the many benefits of the

ever-changing marketplace.

FTC's Privacy Report: Balancing Privacy and Innovation;

The Do Not Track Option: Giving Consumers a Choice;

Making Sure Companies Keep Their Privacy Promises to

Consumers;

Protecting Consumers' Financial Privacy;

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA): What

Parents Should Know.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the men and women of the Federal Trade Commission for all the work they have done over the years in protecting our privacy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, just to put some things in context, I wanted to share some information from a blog called redstate.com, posted by Seton Motley, on March 27, 2017, talking about the difference between the size and scope of edge providers versus the ISPs, the internet service providers. The parent company of one of the largest edge providers is valued at over $500 billion. He points out in his blog post, by way of comparison, the nation of Singapore's gross domestic product, the entire output for every man, woman, and child in a very productive country is $508 billion. Basically, the same. So the edge provider stands on equal financial footing of the world's 40th richest country.

By way of contrast, the Nation's largest internet service provider has a net worth of $148 billion. So the edge provider is more than three and a half times larger than the Nation's largest ISP.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

I think we can begin to see the scope of the problem and why unbalancing this playing field is inherently a bad idea.

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

Mr. Speaker, I apparently do not have any additional speakers.

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

I include in the Record an op-ed from The Wall Street Journal from March 1, 2017, by Jeff Flake, a member of the other body. The title of the op-ed is ``Settling a Bureaucratic Turf War in Online Privacy Rules.''

[From The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 1, 2017]

Settling a Bureaucratic Turf War in Online Privacy Rules

(By Jeff Flake)

When you shop online from your tablet or browse the

internet on your smartphones, you expect your personal data

to be secure. Technology companies invest billions of dollars

on data security to protect consumer privacy.

Privacy is also a cornerstone of consumer protection, with

federal enforcement agencies striking an appropriate balance

between innovation and security in their regulations. But

just as a flawed line of code can render a new firewall

program useless, the new privacy rules that were rushed

through in the waning days of the Obama administration risk

crashing our longstanding privacy-protection regime.

For two decades, the Federal Trade Commission has been

America's sole online privacy regulator. Under the FTC's

watch, our internet and data economy has been the envy of the

world. The agency's evidence-based approach calibrates

privacy and data-security requirements to the sensitivity of

information collected, used or shared online, and applies

protections in a consistent and evenhanded way across

business sectors. Consumer behavior demonstrates the success

of the FTC's regulatory approach: Each day people spend more

time engaging in online activities.

But in 2015, in a bid to expand its own power, the Federal

Communications Commission short-circuited the effectiveness

of the FTC's approach by reclassifying internet service

providers as common carriers, subject to Title II of the

Communications Act.

In taking that unprecedented action, the FCC unilaterally

stripped the FTC of its traditional jurisdiction over ISPs.

The FTC can no longer police the privacy practices of

providers, leaving us with a two-track system under which the

FCC applies its own set of rules for ISPs while the FTC

monitors the rest of the internet ecosystem.

Even after the 2015 power grab, the FCC could have simply

adopted as its own the FTC's successful sensitivity-based

model of privacy regulation. Instead--after last year's

election--the FCC finalized privacy regulations that deviate

extensively from the FTC framework in several key respects.

The FCC rules subject all web browsing and app usage data

to the same restrictive requirements as sensitive personal

information. That means that information generated from

looking up the latest Cardinals score or checking the weather

in Scottsdale is treated the same as personal health and

financial data.

The new rules also restrict an ISP's ability to inform

customers about innovative and cost-saving product offerings.

So much for consumer choice.

The FCC's overreach is a dangerous deviation from

successful regulation and common-sense industry practices.

But don't just take my word for it. The FTC concluded that

the FCC's decision to treat ISPs differently from the rest of

the internet ecosystem was ``not optimal--agency-speak for

``a really bad idea.''

Outside of the FTC's well-founded concerns, the new rules

are also a departure from bipartisan agreement on the need

for consistent online privacy rules. President Obama noted in

2012 that ``companies should present choices about data

sharing, collection, use, and disclosure that are appropriate

for the scale, scope, and sensitivity of personal data in

question at the time of collection.'' In other words, privacy

rules should be based on the data itself.

But that's not how the FCC sees it. The commission's rules

suffocate industry and harm consumers by creating two

completely different sets of requirements for different parts

of the internet.

To protect consumers from these harmful new regulations, I

will soon introduce a resolution under the Congressional

Review Act to repeal the FCC's flawed privacy rules. While

the resolution would eliminate those rules, it would not

change the current statutory classification of broadband

service or bring ISPs back under FTC jurisdiction. Instead,

the resolution would scrap the FCC's newly imposed privacy

rules in the hope that it would follow the FTC's successful

sensitivity-based framework.

This CRA resolution does nothing to change the privacy

protections consumers currently enjoy. I hope Congress and

the FCC will continue working together to address issues of

concern down the road. However, it is imperative for rule-

making entities to stay in their jurisdictional lanes. We

need to reject these harmful midnight privacy regulations

that serve only to empower bureaucrats and hurt consumers.

I want to read from a couple of the lines from this op- ed. The Senator states here: ``Privacy is also a cornerstone of consumer protection, with Federal enforcement agencies striking an appropriate balance between innovation and security in their regulations. But just as a flawed line of code can render a new firewall program useless, the new privacy rules that were rushed through in the waning days of the Obama administration risk crashing our longstanding privacy-protection regime.''

Continuing to quote here: ``For two decades, the Federal Trade Commission has been America's sole online privacy regulator. Under the FTC's watch, our internet and data economy has been the envy of the world. The agency's evidence-based approach calibrates privacy and data-security requirements to the sensitivity of information collected, used or shared online, and applies protections in a consistent and evenhanded way across business sectors. Consumer behavior demonstrates the success of the FTC's regulatory approach: Each day people spend more time engaging in online activities.''

Now, continuing to quote here: ``The FCC's overreach is a dangerous deviation from successful regulation and commonsense industry practices. But don't take my word for it. The FTC concluded that the FCC's decision to treat ISPs differently from the rest of the internet ecosystem was `not optimal'--agencyspeak for `a really bad idea.' ''

One final quote from Senator Flake's op-ed: ``This CRA resolution does nothing to change the privacy protections consumers currently enjoy. I hope Congress and the FCC will continue working together to address issues of concern down the road. However, it is imperative for rulemaking entities to stay in their jurisdictional lanes. We need to reject these harmful midnight privacy regulations that serve only to empower bureaucrats and hurt consumers.''

Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for the consideration of a critical Congressional Review Act resolution to repeal a duplicative Federal regulation dropped on the doorstep of the American people in the last hours of the previous administration. The rule the House will be voting on today to repeal would create uncertainty and chaos surrounding the protection of people's privacy online.

I want to thank Mrs. Blackburn of Tennessee, the chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communication and Technology, for her work on this critical issue.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and vote ``yes'' on the underlying resolution.

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

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

Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation? Are we in morning business?

Mr. President, I have been privileged to serve in this body for more than 42 years, and I thank my native State of Vermont for that.

When I joined the Senate, our country was still crawling out of an intractable war--a war which came to an end with a vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee in April of 1975. Since then, I have seen our country slide into new wars. I have seen scandals that have consumed this town and our Nation. I have seen horrific terrorist attacks that have shaken our country to its core, from Oklahoma City to 9/11, and others. All of these events, in different ways, have tested our country. But I have never seen a threat to our democratic institutions like I see today.

There is still much we do not know about Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election, but what we do know is deeply disturbing. Last night, reports indicated that there is evidence that certain Trump officials coordinated the release of hacked documents with Russian officials. And on Monday the FBI Director confirmed that the FBI has been investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia since July of last year.

Already, the Intelligence Community has made public its conclusion that Russian President Putin waged a multifaceted influence campaign to delegitimize Secretary Clinton and help Donald Trump win the Presidency. Worse, he intended to undermine public faith in our democratic process. What is even worse is that this interference did not end on November 8, election day. It is ongoing. That--whether you are a Republican or a Democrat--should concern every American.

According to the Intelligence Community, President Putin will continue using cyber-attacks and propaganda campaigns to undermine our future elections. This is nothing less than an attack on our democracy. It should outrage all Americans, no matter what their political affiliation, and we need to know all the facts.

Frankly, my experience here tells me we need a thorough, independent investigation. We need to send a clear message to President Putin that America, our country--the country that the Presiding Officer and I revere--will not tolerate future efforts to manipulate our most sacred democratic process, our elections.

All of us here know that President Trump is not going to lead such an investigation. He is not going to deliver this message. The President, unfortunately, spent much of the 2016 campaign supportive of President Putin. Then-Candidate Trump refused to call on Russia to stop meddling in our election, saying: ``I'm not going to tell Putin what to do.'' He even encouraged Russian hacking on live television, pleading: ``Russia, if you're listening, I hope you'll be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.'' It is unprecedented. No candidate, in my memory, of either party has ever called on another country to interfere in our elections that way.

This was occurring as the President was claiming to have had no role in weakening the Republican Party's official position on Russia's incursion into Ukraine. Of course, we have now learned that this was false, and his campaign played a central role in softening his party's stance on Russia.

I do not know why the President is so enthralled with President Vladimir Putin, a man who has shown such disregard for personal rights, even as he has made himself one of the wealthiest people in the world. It may be simply because Russia is heavily invested in the Trump brand. Years before the President denied having any financial relationships with the Russians, his son admitted that Russians own a disproportionate share of Trump assets, saying: ``We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.'' Now, just how invested Moscow is in Trump is not known. The President broke with precedent of both Republicans and Democrats and did not release his tax returns. But I imagine there would be quite a sigh of relief if the only secret in the President's full tax returns were that he did not pay his share of taxes and paid far less than the average American.

The President, though, is not the only one in his administration incapable of telling the truth when it comes to Russia. His Attorney General provided testimony that was not true before the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to questions from me and Senator Franken about Russian contacts, and we know his first National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, resigned after lying to Vice President Pence about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador.

President Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, also resigned after questions were raised about his extensive activities in Russia and Ukraine. Of course, now it has been reported that Mr. Manafort earned $10 million per year for secret work on behalf of Putin.

Another former adviser, Roger Stone, had early warning of the release of hacked documents. He has admitted to having conversations with ``Guccifer 2.0,'' the Russian-connected hacker responsible for the cyber-attack on the Democratic National Committee.

They say that where there is smoke there is fire. There is so much smoke here that it is getting hard to breathe. The President unfortunately continues to make matters worse. This week alone, he continued his untruth about President Obama personally ordering a wiretap of Trump Tower, something everybody knows is not true. I think members of his own administration's inner circle are embarrassed every time he persists in this.

On Monday, the President ramped up his own influence campaign to undermine the integrity of this investigation, tweeting ``fake news'' as the Director of the FBI prepared to testify under oath in the House of Representatives.

Now, I have no reason to doubt the integrity of the FBI's investigation thus far, but I have every reason to believe it is eventually going to be at risk. That is why we need somebody independent--independent of the Congress, independent of the administration. We need an independent special prosecutor to lead this investigation and to ultimately decide whether there is sufficient evidence to prosecute. A special prosecutor would not report to the Attorney General, who himself is a witness to this investigation. And a special prosecutor, unlike the Attorney General or even the FBI Director, cannot be fired by the President.

I have thought long and hard about this. I went on my experience here with administrations beginning with President Gerald Ford straight through to today. It takes a lot of thought to call for a special prosecutor, but this is one where we need it, where the American people have to have somebody they can trust outside Republicans, Democrats, and the Congress, and certainly outside the administration.

Our Nation is at a precipice. We can either confront what happened in our election and get to the bottom of it with an independent investigation and make sure it never happens again. Or we can just pretend this is another Washington scandal and allow it to be filtered through a familiar partisan lens. That would be a terrible mistake. In all my years here, I have never seen a time when another country--one that has shown its animosity toward us--has tried to interfere in our elections. If Russia can get away with interfering with our elections, what else can they interfere with in our democratic Nation? They do not share the ideals we do. They do not allow free elections. They do not allow freedom of expression. They do not allow their people to speak out. Why would anyone think that they would have America's interests at heart?

Today we have a counterintelligence investigation into the campaign of a sitting President. There is evidence that this campaign colluded with a foreign adversary to impact our Presidential election. This is not normal. We must not treat it as such. I would feel this way no matter who had won the election--no matter if they were Democrat or Republican, because it goes beyond one party.

President Putin's goal last year was to undermine our democratic institutions--to corrode American's trust and faith in government, something that has sustained us through two World Wars, through a Civil War, through all the other problems this Nation has faced. That trust should sustain us long after every one of us in this body are gone.

This is a responsibility that we as Senators have to our great Nation: not to think of ourselves for the moment, but to think where this Nation is 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and 100 years from now. We must do that. We owe that to the American people. Republicans and Democrats alike, we owe it

to the American people. We take an oath to uphold our Constitution.

We come here, all of us--and I have great respect for every Senator here in both parties--we come here hoping to do the best for our Nation. Our Nation is in peril. All of us would stand together if we had an adversary attack us. All of us would stand together if somebody declared war on us. We have done that in the past. We did that after Pearl Harbor. We did that other times in our Nation's history. Well, because this is done quietly behind the scenes, it is a great attack on us.

As I said, President Putin's goal last year was to undermine our democratic institutions--to corrode Americans' trust and faith in our government, no matter who is President. If we do not get to the bottom of Russian interference, he will no doubt be successful. And if anybody doubts it, if he is successful, he will try it again.

That is why we should stand united and call for a truly independent investigation. The American people deserve nothing less. We can sit here and talk about this bill and that bill, but it is so rare that we have something overriding. This is overriding. Let's have an independent investigation. This Senator is willing to accept that whichever way it goes.

I see our distinguished majority leader on the floor.

I will yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally.

Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I just want to commend my colleague from Massachusetts for an excellent presentation. He has really outlined A to Z with respect to what this issue is all about. I commend him, and I also commend the ranking member of the committee, Senator Nelson, our colleague from Florida, for his excellent job.

Before he leaves the floor, picking up on the remarks of our colleague from Massachusetts, I am particularly struck by the fact that I have always thought that it is a classic conservative principle to empower the individual--to empower the individual to make fundamental choices about what would be important to them and their family and their wallets and all of the activities that are central to the life of a working class family.

What we have been touching on--very eloquently by my colleague from Massachusetts--is we are going to be voting in a little bit to strip rights from individuals, to retreat from that classic conservative principle of empowering individuals and families to make decisions.

I think, for all of the reasons that my colleague from Massachusetts has talked about and that Senator Nelson has been talking about, this idea of stripping from individuals the right to make these fundamental decisions and allowing the gatekeepers of the internet to collect, share, and profit from personal information of consumers without their consent is an extraordinary mistake for our country at this time.

I serve on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. I think, for many people, these issues have, in effect, converged with respect to privacy policy as it relates to the private marketplace, which is what this ill-advised proposal that we are going to vote on today is all about.

We are constantly offered up ideas that suggest that you really are faced with what amounts to a flawed set of choices. In the intelligence area, we are consistently told: Well, you just have to give up a little bit of liberty to have security. And the reality is that liberty and security are not mutually exclusive. Smart policies give us both. They give us security and liberty. Unfortunately, around here, we are coming up with policies, like weakening strong encryption, that are reducing both--reducing security and reducing liberty. I think what we are dealing with here on this ill-advised resolution in the Senate, with respect to the FCC rule, is yet another set of false choices--that you can either have internet access or privacy. They are not mutually exclusive. Just as we can have security and liberty, we can have internet access and privacy for all of the reasons that my friend from Massachusetts has been outlining.

Now, the FCC acted on the responsibility given to them by the Congress to protect browsing history--arguably the most intimate, personal information imaginable. Browsing history makes what the Senate did in the past with metadata look like small potatoes. Browsing history is really a picture into your personal life. I have appreciated the support of my colleagues for making sure that in the intelligence field, without court oversight, you couldn't get access to people's browsing history.

The Congress, in effect, told the Federal Communications Commission to protect browsing history, favorite applications, and even locations of American broadband users, and the FCC acted on it. Before that time, there were no rules in place outlining how an internet service provider--those are the ISPs that we always hear Senators talking about--may use, share, or even sell their customers' private information. So, just as the FCC has done for wireline phone customers, the FCC said it was going to keep up with the evolution of telecommunications networks by ensuring privacy protections would apply to broadband internet use. This struck a lot of us as just common sense. Again, building on the conservative principle of empowering the individual, the judgment was that by creating what are called ``opt- in'' consent agreements, where the consumer makes an affirmative decision about what they want--it is not what government wants, it is not what big companies want, it is what the consumer wants. The judgment was that by creating this opt-in consent agreement, the consumer would get a clear understanding of what the broadband provider knows about them from, for example, their computer or from their smartphone.

The big internet service providers are in a unique position to see where information flows over the networks and can see more of Americans' data than probably anybody else in what we might call the internet ecosystem. The websites we visit, what we look for, what time we are online--all of this, even our location--would be considered highly personal and highly sensitive information.

The responsibility of the internet service provider is to protect consumer privacy. It is compounded by the fact that the majority of broadband consumers have only one option for fast internet service to their home. There is only one company offering them service. So it seems to me what we are talking about--what Senator Markey has outlined--really looks like bad news for folks in rural areas where they are only going to have one provider, and, frankly, I think in a lot of metropolitan areas, particularly where there are modest-income individuals.

Without these protections in place, most consumers are left with the choice of giving up their browsing history for an internet service provider to sell to the highest bidder or to have no internet at all. So think about what that means for, say, an older person.

By the way, under what is being considered in the other body on healthcare, people between 50 and 64 aren't going to have a lot of extra money laying around. Those are people who are going to get clobbered--clobbered--by the healthcare bill that is being considered in the House today.

What is being considered in the House today--talking about the wallets of people between 50 and 64--would allow the insurance companies to charge people who are pre-Medicare five times as much as younger people. So they are already going to be paying thousands of dollars more out-of-pocket. Now, given what may happen in this body, we would have consumers left with the choice of giving up their browsing history for an internet service provider to sell to the highest bidder or have no internet at all. So we are socking it to them in terms of their healthcare premiums, and then we are socking it to them in terms of essential communications as well.

I just think this is unacceptable and certainly contrary to the whole notion of classic conservatism, empowering the individual. And it is certainly taking away these rights from folks in rural America--most of my towns in Oregon have populations of under 10,000 people. This proposal that is being discussed here is going to strip consumers of basic rights that are practically a requirement for economic success in the 21st century.

I am going to close by picking up on another point that I think Senator Markey said very well, and I believe I heard Senator Nelson, our ranking member, touch on as well. It looks to me like a subject that should not be in controversy: basic transparency and accountability for the individual, and individual empowerment. It shouldn't be controversial. It shouldn't be a contentious matter. My colleague and I served in the other body for a number of years, and we built coalitions of people all across the political spectrum around the principles we are advocating today. Providing transparency and empowering the individual shouldn't be a contentious issue.

Under these regulations, internet service providers can still collect and use their subscribers' information. The rules simply ensure that internet service providers receive consent--receive permission from an empowered consumer--that it is OK to reuse or sell their information, and the companies would provide the consumers an explanation of how their data is collected and where it is shared. These rules are about transparency, plain and simple. Customers, especially those, as I have indicated, who are captive to one internet service provider, deserve to know how their internet service provider is using their data.

The broadband privacy rules are not some kind of attack on monetizing consumer data, but simply a recognition of the importance of consumer consent.

I will close by saying that more and more in this area, the American people are getting presented false choices. They are being told, as I see on the Intelligence Committee, that you have to give up some of your liberty to have your security. Those are false choices. They are not mutually exclusive. Everyone in America, everyone paying attention to this debate ought to know that they have a right to both. Don't ever, ever let a politician tell you that you have to give up some of your liberty to have your security. You have a right to vote, and it is our job, colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to come up with policies that do both.

Today, we ought to make sure that people aren't presented with another false choice--that to have Internet access you have to give up your privacy rights. You can have both, and the Federal Communications Commission has sought to come up with a sensible policy to do that.

So I join my colleagues, particularly my friend from Massachusetts, who knows so much about this field, and our terrific ranking minority member, Senator Nelson, in urging colleagues to oppose a harmful resolution that, in my view, turns class conservatism on its head and strips consumers of their rights in a truly ill-advised manner.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a bill that I have introduced. I have introduced it in prior Congresses. But I think it is particularly important in this Congress. It is the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act of 2017. I am proud to have many of my colleagues as cosponsors of this legislation, including Senators Baldwin, Blumenthal, Booker, Brown, Cantwell, Coons, Duckworth, Durbin, Feinstein, Franken, Gillibrand, Harris, Heinrich, Hirono, Kaine, Markey, Menendez, Merkley, Murphy, Murray, Sanders, Stabenow, Udall, Van Hollen, Wyden, and Warren.

In the House of Representatives, the bill's principal sponsor is Congressman Conyers. It is needed now more than ever before. I say that for many reasons, one of which is that we have seen a large increase in hate crimes in our community. Yesterday I was on the phone with a father from Harford County, MD, whose son was the victim of a hate episode related to that person's religion and ethnic background.

We have seen in our community a large increase in hate crimes against the Jewish community. There have been a lot of bomb threats that have been called into Jewish schools and to the Jewish Community Centers. We have seen physical attacks and the desecration of cemeteries. So the minority community feels threatened.

That has been escalating as a result of the actions of our President and his Executive orders. The Executive orders--he has issued two now that are dealing with the immigrant community--do raise the temperature in our community and the concern in our community that people are being threatened because of their religion, threatened because of their ethnic background, threatened because of their status as part of an immigrant community.

All of that has added to the concerns in America today. The legislation that I have introduced would make it illegal for discriminatory policing--for police to use as an indicator for their actions a person's race, religion, or ethnic background.

Discriminatory policing is against our values. Quite frankly, it is not what we stand for as a nation. We don't target people because of their religion. I will always remember that shortly after the Trayvon episode, I met with community activists in Baltimore. Many told me examples of how they were with their parents when the police stopped them randomly, for no reason at all, but solely because of the person's race and how communities felt threatened as a result of it.

It is not what we stand for as a nation. It turns communities against police, rather than working with the police. It is a waste of resources. It does not work. It can be deadly as we have seen in too many communities in our Nation. In my own city of Baltimore, we had the episode concerning Freddie Gray, who died in police custody.

I went to Sandtown, where Freddie Gray came from, shortly after that episode and met with the community, and I heard comparable stories about how good community activists felt like they were betraying their community if they worked with the local police, because they said the system was just stacked against their community and their race.

So let me, if I might, quote from the Department of Justice report on the Freddie Gray case. Our congressional delegation asked for a pattern or practice investigation. In part of that investigation, they came out with this finding:

There is overwhelming statistical evidence of racial

disparities in Baltimore Police Department's (BPD's) stops,

searches, and arrests. . . . BPD officers subject African-

Americans to a disproportionate number of pedestrian and

vehicles stops on Baltimore streets and search African-

Americans disproportionately during these stops. . . . The

policing practices that cause the racial disparities in BPD's

stops, searches, and arrests, along with evidence suggesting

intentional discrimination against African-Americans,

undermine the community trust that is central to effective

policing. . . . Indeed, we heard from many community members

who were reluctant to engage with the officers because of

their belief that the Department treats African-Americans

unfairly. . . . These concerns were acknowledged by BPD

leadership and officers, who explained that lack of trust--

particularly in many of Baltimore's African-American

communities--inhibit officers' efforts to build relationships

that are a key component of effective policing. . . .

I say that because racial profiling--discriminatory profiling--is ineffective and is counterproductive. It actually makes communities less safe. I have the honor of being the Special Representative for Anti-Semitism, Racism and Intolerance in the OSCE, or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Parliamentary Assembly.

In that capacity, I have identified four major areas of concern within the 57 countries that represent the OSCE, including the United States. Those priorities are discriminatory actions against the Muslim community, the rise of anti-Semitism, the concerns of discrimination against the immigrant community, and also the concerns on discriminatory policing.

Discriminatory policing is very much engaged in our concerns about the rise of anti-Semitism, racism, and intolerance. Now, I want to make it clear: The overwhelming majority of people in law enforcement are good people. They are professionals. They are trying to do their job. They are against racial profiling. But we need to protect the professionalism within the police departments and establish a national policy against racial profiling.

My legislation is supported by over 1,150 organizations. Let me just, if I might, mention a couple of those, by quoting their leaders. Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, who supports this legislation said:

Discriminatory profiling is wrong, fosters distrust between

law enforcement and the communities they serve and puts

public safety at risk. Racial profiling infringes on civil

liberties and squanders resources that should be used instead

to catch criminal perpetrators. We urge his colleagues to

join Senator Cardin and stand for effective law enforcement

by supporting [this legislation].

Jennifer Bellamy, the ACLU legislative counsel, who also supports this legislation, said:

For centuries, discriminatory profiling practices have

harmed communities of color. It is not enough to be `against'

racism and racial profiling, we need national leaders to end

discriminatory practices. We know that profiling of any kind

is ineffective and diverts law enforcement's time, money, and

energy away from actual threats. The time is now to end

racial profiling once and for all.

Then, lastly, Hilary Shelton, the director of the NAACP Washington Bureau and the senior vice president for policy and advocacy said:

This important legislation takes concrete steps to put an

end to the insidious practice of profiling individuals by

federal, state and local levels based on physical attributes

or an individual's religion. It is difficult for our faith in

the American criminal justice system not to be challenged

when we cannot walk down the street, drive down an

interstate, go through an airport, or even enter into our own

homes without being stopped merely because of the color of

our skin, who we are perceived to be, or what we choose to

wear.

I could mention many of the other groups and many other quotes. This legislation is pretty straightforward. It establishes a national uniform standard against discriminatory profiling at all levels of law enforcement--State, local Federal.

For example, it tells us that we can't use as descriptors a person's race. We can do so when we are using it to describe a particular crime, but not as a predictor of future crimes. Let me close by quoting from Ron Davis, the former police chief of East Palo Alto, CA, where he said:

[T]here exists no national, standardized definition for

racial profiling that prohibits all uses of race, national

origin, and religion, except when describing a person.

Consequently, many state and local policies define racial

profiling as using race as the ``sole'' basis for a stop or

any police action. This definition is misleading in that it

suggests using race as a factor for anything other than a

description is justified, which it is not. Simply put,

race is a descriptor not a predictor. To use race along

with other salient descriptors when describing someone who

just committed a crime is appropriate.

That is what this legislation does. It establishes a national definition. It prohibits it in any form of policing in our country. It provides for training. It provides Federal grants for best practices. It requires the Attorney General

to issue reports. It is legislation that is needed in our country.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder adopted it at the national level, and he said:

In this Nation, security and liberty are--at their best--

partners, not enemies, in ensuring safety and opportunity for

all. . . . In this Nation, the document that sets forth the

supreme law of the land--the Constitution--is meant to

empower, not exclude. . . . Racial profiling is wrong. It can

leave a lasting scar on communities and individuals. And it

is, quite simply, bad policing--whatever city, whatever

state.

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees ``equal protection of the laws'' to all Americans. Racial and discriminatory profiling is abhorrent to those principles, and it should be ended once and for all.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today, we are truly in a historic fight, a fight to protect one of the most treasured and revered American values--our right to privacy. Make no mistake, our privacy has never been more in danger, and the American public knows it.

The American public knows its privacy is in danger when a smart TV can listen to its most intimate living room conversations--your conversations with your children, with your parents, with your spouse.

The American public knows its privacy is in danger when it seems that every day there is a hack on the databases of one of our country's largest companies--Yahoo!, Target, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase.

The American public knows its privacy is in danger when the Russian surveillance machine--firing on all cylinders--hacks the U.S. election, threatening to undermine our sacred democratic system.

The American public knows its privacy is in danger when both Chambers of Congress hold countless hearings, launch investigations, and receive briefings on the rapidly growing cybersecurity threat to our Nation and the impact both on our national security and to the public.

The American public wants us to do more to protect its privacy. The American public wants us to do more to protect its sensitive information. Yet what do the Republicans in Congress want to do today on the Senate floor? They want to make it easier for Americans' sensitive information to be used, shared, and sold without their permission.

Today, the Republicans are seeking a vote on a Congressional Review Act resolution that would allow Comcast, Verizon, Charter, AT&T, and other broadband companies to take control away from consumers and relentlessly collect and sell their sensitive information without the consent of that family.

That is sensitive information about your health, about your finances, even about your children. They want to track your location and draw a map of where you shop, where you work, where you eat, where your children go to school, and then sell that information to data brokers or anyone else who wants to make a profit off of you.

They want to document how many times you search online for heart disease, breast cancer, opioid addiction treatments, or AIDS treatment, and then sell that information to your insurance company. They want to know what games your teenagers play or shows they watch so they can then target ads to your family--and all of this done without your consent.

What the Republicans are bringing to the floor today is going to basically change the definition of ``ISP''--internet service provider-- to ``information sold for profit.'' It will stand for ``invading subscriber privacy.''

President Trump, himself, is outraged about fake violations of his own privacy, but we should all be alarmed by this very real violation of privacy that will occur today if the Senate decides to roll back these important consumer protections.

Here on the Senate floor, the Republicans are fighting to make it easier for your broadband provider to use and sell that same type of information--remarkably detailed and sensitive dossiers of information about you, your kids, your parents, your grandparents--320 million Americans.

The Republicans are trying to rescind the Federal Communications Commission's broadband privacy rules, which simply require your cable, wireless, or telephone company provider to obtain consumer consent before using or sharing subscribers' personal information; promote transparency by disclosing what they collect about internet and wireless users; and adopt data security protections and notify consumers if a breach occurs.

That is it. That is what this whole debate is all about--whether consumers, not the broadband providers, have control over their sensitive information.

The big broadband companies and their Republican allies say we need a light touch regulatory framework to protect Americans' broadband privacy--a light touch approach, like with the Federal Trade Commission, which does not prescribe actual privacy rules. The Federal Trade Commission only enforces the privacy policies companies create for themselves, and then they bring an enforcement action if a company violates its own very low standards, but if Comcast's or AT&T's or Verizon's policy is that you have no privacy, there is nothing for anyone to enforce. It would be impossible for the internet service provider to violate its own nonexistent or very low privacy protections.

Let's be clear here. When the broadband behemoths say ``light touch,'' they mean ``hands off.'' They mean hands off their ability to monetize captive consumers' sensitive information.

Let's be clear. When the big broadband barons and their Republican allies are firing their opening salvo in the war on net neutrality, they want broadband privacy protections to be the first victim.

When Republicans say we need to harmonize regulations, they really mean self-regulation. Self-regulation is the ultimate dream of the Republicans, who are beholden to those special interests. They really want to allow broadband companies to write their own privacy rules.

Is this really what the American public wants--a harmonized, light- touch approach to protecting their sensitive information from their broadband providers? Does the American public really want us to allow our broadband companies to ignore reasonable data security practices, making consumers' sensitive information more vulnerable to breaches and unauthorized access?

This resolution does just that. The internet service providers even oppose

following reasonable data security practices.

We should know better. The American public wants us to strengthen our privacy protections, not weaken them. The American people do not want their sensitive information collected, used, and sold by any third party, whether that be your broadband provider or a hacker.

At its core, this debate is about our values--our values as a people, our values as a society. While technology has certainly changed, our core values have not changed as a country. For generations, we have valued the right to choose whom we let into our homes, whom we communicate with, whom we share our most sensitive secrets with, but now the Republicans and the broadband industry are telling us that we must forgo those rights just because our homes are connected to the internet and our phones are connected to the internet.

With many Americans across the country having only a couple of broadband providers, at most, to choose from, they will not have the option of changing service providers if their privacy protections are not transparent or robust. And throughout it all, while the internet service providers monetize your personal information, the monthly bill will continue to show up for the service that is siphoning off your sensitive information.

My colleagues, we know the attack on the free and open internet is coming. Net neutrality is on the chopping block, and this is the first step in ensuring that the few and the powerful control the internet. We must stop this today, so I urge my colleagues to join with me.

The fundamental principle here is that every person should have the knowledge that information is being gathered about their families when they use the internet; second, that they have notice from the company that that information is going to be resold to a third party, to someone else, not to the broadband company; and third, that you have the right to say no, that you do not want that information about your family member to be resold.

When we were all younger and the salesman came to the front door and knocked, your mother told you to tell the salesman that they could not come into the house because the privacy of your family did not warrant allowing a stranger into your home. The broadband companies now say: Well, we are in your home, and we are wired in every room, and we now have the right to take all of the information of your family and sell it. What sites do your children go on? What sites do you go on to look for help for the disease that someone in your family might have?

Now the broadband companies say they are coming right through the front door. They are going into every room in your house. The American people have the right to say what they have always said: No, you cannot take those secrets of our family. You cannot take how we use that information.

So this vote that we are about to take in the next couple of hours on the Senate floor goes right to the heart of who we are.

We now hear more about the Russians, and we hear more about companies whose information has been hacked. Then the Republicans are crying their crocodile tears about the compromise of privacy of people in our country, and then they come to the floor and take all of the information online in the family and allow it to be sold as a product. That is just fundamentally wrong. It goes contrary to the values of our country.

I urge very strongly a ``no'' vote from the Members of the Senate. Just remember: This is the privacy vote of all time on the Senate floor--of all time--because there has never been anything like the internet going into our homes. No one should be allowed to take all of that information and just sell it without getting their permission.

Mr. President, I urge a ``no'' vote on this resolution.

I yield the floor.

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

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

General Leave

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I yield myself the balance of my time.

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

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

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

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

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