Winnebago Land Transfer Act of 2019

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 445 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), 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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, I will be asking unanimous consent to make a technical correction to the rule. The page containing the text of an uncontroversial amendment, No. 64, to division B was inadvertently omitted from our 645-page report.

Modification Offered by Mr. McGovern

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment I have placed at the desk be considered as though printed as amendment No. 123 in part B of House Report 116-119, if offered by Representative Lee from Nevada or her designee, and that the amendment be debatable for 10 minutes equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent.

The Speaker pro tempore. The Clerk will report the amendment.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his kindness.

Madam Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 445. It provides for consideration of H.R. 3055 under a structured rule that makes 290 amendments in order. It also provides for 1 hour of general debate controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Madam Speaker, this appropriations process represents a clean break from the way the Republicans ran this place. They furthered an agenda that was like Robin Hood in reverse, giving to the rich by stealing from the poor.

This Democratic majority has a radical idea that the people's House should, instead, work for the people, not the wealthy and the well- connected, but all Americans. You can see these values in the underlying appropriations measure.

We support SNAP, our Nation's premier anti-hunger program, by providing both stable funding and investments in the SNAP reserve fund. This will give a helping hand to many of the 40 million Americans who are struggling to put food on the table in America today.

That includes a lot of working families. It includes veterans. It includes seniors. It includes those who are disabled. Because the truth is, there is no plan B for many people who have fallen on hard times. Food pantries are important, but many are already stretched too thin and can't meet the demand.

We need to invest in SNAP. This program is a lifeline as families work to get back on their feet.

For the life of me, Madam Speaker, I don't understand why investing in SNAP has been a controversial subject for many of my colleagues on the other side, why some have demonized the poor and traded in stereotypes year after year.

On average, and I think it is important to make this clear for my colleagues, SNAP households receive about $259 a month. The average SNAP benefit per person is about $128 per month, which works out to just $1.40 per person per meal.

Madam Speaker, $1.40 can hardly buy a cup of coffee for someone, let alone a healthy, nutritious meal. That is what we are asking people to live on, and it is a shame. I hope, in the future, we can find a way to expand the SNAP benefit for those who are in need.

This bill also provides major funding to help stem the tide of opioid abuse, which is ravaging communities across the country, through grant programs that we know work, things like prescription drug monitoring, overdose-reversal drugs, and at-risk youth programs.

We are not waiting around for this administration's long-delayed transportation plan. The President has been rolling it out 2 weeks from now for the last 2 years. We have an infrastructure emergency in our country today. I have bridges in my district that are old enough to qualify for Medicare. Others are older than some of the other States in this country. It is the same old story all across the country.

That is why the American Society of Civil Engineers has given our Nation's infrastructure a D-plus. This is appalling, Madam Speaker. We owe a lot to those who built our roads and bridges a century ago, but we cannot expect them to last forever. H.R. 3055 would provide real funding now to rebuild crumbling infrastructure.

There are also badly needed investments here in our Nation's digital infrastructure because the sad reality is that in America today, 25 million people in rural communities don't have access to high-speed internet. Some are in my State.

Massachusetts has made significant strides in bringing high-speed internet to the rural parts of western and central Massachusetts, but there are still pockets where connectivity is still a problem.

This bill would fund an expansion of rural broadband services that would allow more kids to do homework at home, expand economic opportunities, and improve health outcomes. Affordable broadband should be available to everyone, regardless of their ZIP Codes.

This bill also helps combat the gun violence epidemic by increasing resources for programs that help reduce crime. This includes things like fully funding the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, making schools safer, and investing in mentoring programs for at-risk youth.

This follows language in last week's minibus appropriations bill that provided funding to research deaths and injuries caused by gun violence for the first time in more than 20 years because this majority isn't afraid to stand up to the NRA to protect the people we represent. We know the will of the American people is stronger than the might of the gun lobby.

There is also language in this bill that prohibits President Trump from

diverting important military construction projects to build his unnecessary border wall. This is a wall, by the way, that the President claimed time and time again that Mexico would pay for. Now he is using a bait-and-switch to force taxpayers to foot the bill.

This wall was preposterous when it was just a campaign talking point. It is even more absurd as an actual policy paid for by the taxpayers of this country.

These are just a few of our priorities in the bill. We are delivering on our promise to invest in the things that matter to people.

Chairwoman Lowey, Ranking Member Granger, the entire Appropriations Committee, and their staffs have done an extraordinary job. Their work deserves a great deal of praise by both the Democrats and Republicans. They are trying to fund our government in a timely way.

I don't know what the Senate is going to do on appropriations. They haven't done much of anything on anything so far.

But I do know this: These bills are an investment in our future. They are tailored toward providing opportunity for all Americans and delivering on our pledge to make this place work for them again.

Fixing our infrastructure, reducing gun violence, providing economic opportunity for small businesses, ending hunger, these are the kinds of things our constituents want us to address.

I urge all of my colleagues to show the American people that we are listening by voting for this rule. Let's keep bringing forward appropriations measures that truly represent the will of the taxpayer.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I enjoy listening to the gentleman engage in debate, but I will say this, that when I look at this rule and all the amendments in order, I think I want to waive this rule because there are so many amendments that we are making in order here.

The gentleman, I appreciate his praise saying that we made a lot of good ideas in order, but I would say to the gentleman that he also made some bad ideas in order. The gentleman referred to his amendment, which I disagree with. But we also made amendments from other Republicans; I am looking at the rule here: Mr. Burgess, Mr. Rutherford, Mr. Scalise, Mr. King, Mr. Posey, Mr. Walberg, Mr. Gosar, Mr. McKinley, Mr. Hudson, and Mrs. Walorski. I could go right through this and continue to read the Republican amendments that we made in order.

In the Rules Committee last night during the markup, my friends offered a number of amendments. Of the amendments they offered, nearly half of them violated House rules or were duplicative.

When people draft amendments in a way that legislate on appropriations bills or violate any of the House rules, it has been customary for Democrats and Republicans to not make them in order. We try to work with them to fix them, but last night, many of the amendments, including a Democratic amendment that the minority offered we could not vote for because it was not complying with the House rules.

I am sorry that that is the case, but people need to know that, when you are amending appropriations bills, you need to draft them in a way that is compliant with the House rules.

A lot of the amendments that were offered by my friends were the oldies but goodies. We have wall amendments, abortion amendments, and stuff that we have voted on time and time and time and time again; and I appreciate they want more time to vote on it, but we need to get our work done here.

As the gentleman referred to, there is a Member on the other side who has decided to have a little bit of a temper tantrum and call for a vote on every single amendment and try to invoke every single procedural measure so that everything is dragged out and moves at a snail's pace. That is his right. I don't think it is a particularly effective tactic, but if it makes him happy, he can do whatever he wants. He has that right to do that on the House floor.

I was in the minority in the last session, and I lived through the most closed Congress in the history of our country when the Republicans brought more bills to the floor that were completely closed and that were unamendable. Nobody could offer an idea. They did that more than any other Congress in history. So we are trying to do this better. I think we are, in many respects, doing it better, and we are going to continue in that spirit.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree), who is a distinguished member of the Appropriations Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Maine an additional 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, let me just address the issue of the Endangered Species Act that the gentleman referred to. It is not a ``Washington knows best'' and is certainly not a ``politicians know best'' approach. It is based on science, on available science, not on a special interest that is trying to get a different outcome.

If you don't believe in the direction of the act, if you don't believe that it should be adhered to, then the remedy is to introduce an alternative law. I would certainly vote against it, but the gentleman has a right to do that.

The Endangered Species Act already ensures there is public notice and public participation. There is an opportunity to comment on listing and delisting decisions.

It is our view that Congress should not interfere in the process outlined by the Endangered Species Act because it then becomes about politics--not science, but politics--and it should be science that determines the survival of a species.

I know science is a tough subject for my friends on the other side to deal with, because so many of them don't even believe that we have a climate crisis. But, in any event, I just wanted to respond.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Madam Speaker, I would point out to the gentleman that this legislation contains the largest increase to combat Asian carp in years.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Morelle), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Madam Speaker, let me just say to the gentleman from Iowa that we made in order last night one of his amendments related to the census question. And I strongly disagree with him on that. I hope we can defeat the amendment with a strong bipartisan vote.

But, nonetheless, we made his amendment in order, and I look forward to the debate on the floor and, again, look forward to voting ``no'' on it.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I thank the gentleman from Ohio for the constructive way that he has brought his concerns to the floor. I am very sympathetic to what he is trying to do. The Appropriations Committee believes that the funding level in the bill will support hiring the maximum number of immigration judges who can be brought on board in a single year. Nonetheless, we are going to have to invest significantly more because there is a backlog.

I think the problem with his amendment, and we talked about this last night, was the offset. He wanted, basically, to take $71 million from the general legal activities, which funds Justice Department divisions such as the Civil Rights Division; the Civil Division, which includes funding for cases involving consumer and elder fraud; the Criminal Division, which includes mutual legal assistance reform; and the Environment and Natural Resources Division. These litigation components do a great deal of important work.

I think the conversation should continue, and we should, hopefully, be able to build consensus around an offset that doesn't rob Peter to pay Paul.

I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio very much.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I appreciate the fact that the gentleman appreciates the staff who have been forced to remain here late into the night and into the early morning while he has insisted on vote after vote after vote. I am willing to venture a guess that the staff doesn't appreciate him very much.

I appreciate that the gentleman wants to do something about the here and now, about what is happening right this second. I wish the gentleman had that same attitude before he voted to delay the implementation of the emergency supplemental bill to deal with the disasters that hit Texas and a number of other States.

Let me assure the gentleman that we are very concerned about the humanitarian crisis at the border, and we are

engaged in negotiations with the Senate and the White House, trying to resolve this.

There are serious humanitarian needs at the border, many of which have been exacerbated by the Trump administration's cruel immigration policies. I mean, House Democrats understand these urgent needs. We want to address them, and negotiations continue.

Appropriators are continuing to have important conversations about how best to balance funding to address the humanitarian needs of the border with the imperative to hold this administration accountable.

If Republicans work with us, I am told that, by July 4th recess, we can pass a bicameral, bipartisan bill to provide humanitarian funding and protect the rights and the dignity of migrants.

It is hard for me to accept that the heart of what this administration is doing has anything to do with being humanitarian, with caring about the plight of these migrants. I have seen the separation of children from their parents, the cruel separation of children from their parents at the border. I have listened to this President go on a rampage, diminishing the plight of these refugees, in many cases, fleeing for their lives.

We are working, hopefully, in a bipartisan, bicameral way to get this done. But I would say this: If we care about doing what is right from a humanitarian perspective, it is not embracing the policies of this President.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), who is my friend, and all those who participated in the debate here today.

Let me just make one observation about the previous question and this debate on the border crisis. I am looking at a Politico column that just appeared at 12:58 p.m. It says:

House inches toward 11th hour deal on funding the border

crisis.

We probably would have reached a deal already, because the negotiations have been ongoing, but instead, Members have had to spend an inordinate amount of time on the House floor voting on amendment after amendment that passed almost unanimously.

One of the things I have learned about this place is that we have a lot of people who like to embrace the theater of Washington, and sometimes it becomes the theater of the absurd, people who know that issues are about to be solved, but who then stand up and demand that it gets solved so that when it gets solved, they can take a bow and take credit.

The bottom line is what has gone on on this House floor has delayed, I think, a solution here that we all want, and my hope is that Politico is correct and that we will get to this resolution soon and that there will be a big, strong, bipartisan support of whatever the agreement is, but I assure you about one thing, no deal is coming to a conclusion because of the theatrics that have happened on this House floor with demanding vote after vote after vote.

It really has become silly, it has become absurd, and I think we are better than that.

If people want to solve issues, they ought to support the negotiators of both parties that are trying to work

out a deal, and that is the way this place should operate. When it doesn't, it becomes silly, and that is what has been going on here.

Madam Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question.

I would also say that there is no such thing as a perfect rule or perfect bill, but this is it. There are 290 amendments that are going to be debated on this. That is not clamping down on the process. There are 290 amendments.

There are a lot of amendments here. I started reading some of the Republican amendments that have been made in order. I have got to be honest with you, a lot of them, I think, are really terrible ideas, and I am going to fight like hell to try to defeat them because they are so bad. But they are going to have their day on the floor and they are going to be able to debate them.

That is not counting all the bipartisan amendments that have been made in order where Democrats and Republicans actually came together and forged a collaboration and a coalition to try to get stuff done for the good of our country.

Now, Madam Speaker, I understand that some watching this debate might find the appropriations process to be a little arcane, but it is actually incredibly important.

It is about whether Congress is going to make investments that give everyone in this country a shot at a better life. That is even more important today, especially with this administration in power.

Republicans have claimed for years to want a government so small that they could drown it in a bathtub. Well, this administration is taking it one step further, and wants a government small enough to leave millions of poor and working Americans with nowhere to turn. That is why it has released one extreme proposal after the next that would cut government spending to the bone for hardworking families, all while the wealthy get a windfall.

I have heard from so many in my district that are rightly frustrated by this approach. They want to see investments made in our communities that help all Americans, and that is what this does.

Let me say it again. The Appropriations Committee, the Democrats and the Republicans on the Appropriations Committee and their staffs, deserve bipartisan praise for the incredible amount of work they have put into this.

If you want to grow our economy and you want to combat gun violence, you want to rebuild our infrastructure, and more, then you should support this bill.

My friends on the other side who talked about wanting to debate more Republican ideas on the House floor should also support this bill, because, again, we are making 290 amendments in order for this bill. Again, some of them I agree with, some of them I plan to vote against, but they are all going to be debated.

Madam Speaker, I will conclude by saying, in addition to thanking the Appropriations Committee and their staff, I want to thank the Rules Committee, the Democrats and the Republicans, and our staffs, for all the time that they have put in during, not only this week but last week as well. It is like final exam week. These are all-nighters for the staff, and oftentimes that gets overlooked, so I want to thank them for their patience and for their diligent work.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' on the previous question, ``yes'' on this rule and on the underlying resolution.

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

Madam Speaker, reserving the right to object, my friend on the Rules Committee has made a commitment this year, which he has been following through on, to try to bring order to an otherwise fairly chaotic process up there.

This is clearly just a clerical error, and it is one that we all worked through together last night, so I have no objection to the gentleman's amendment request.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. We just came out of a long night in the Rules Committee. I say ``we'' from the Member side. We were out of there by midnight. I have not yet asked the Rules Committee staff when they got out of there last night because I really didn't want to know the answer to that.

When we meet in the Rules Committee on appropriations bills, we are in for long nights. My first year in Congress, Madam Speaker--the gentlewoman may have been following it at the time--it was when the big Republican majority came in as the new Democratic majority has come in now. The appropriations season hadn't been finished, so the first order of business when we came in as a new majority was to take on the appropriations challenge.

It seemed crazy at the time--this is a minibus, a group of four bills together--what we decided to do was to take the entire discretionary account of the entire United States of America, bring it down here to the House floor, and consider it under an open rule.

I brought a copy of that rule down with me, Madam Speaker. It was House Resolution 92. We heard the Reading Clerk read this morning. It took Joseph a while to get through that.

We are only considering a small fraction of the budget today. Back then, we were considering the entire Federal budget, and it was right here in three pages. The truth is, the part that dealt with the appropriations bill is only one of these sections. The other two were housekeeping business.

We allowed the entire body to bring their ideas to the table to see what might stick. I say it was a radical idea because I had just gotten to Congress. I went back and looked at the numbers, historically. It turned out, it didn't use to be a radical idea. We have made it a radical idea to let all the amendments come to the floor.

Again, my friend from Massachusetts has a very hard job as chairman of the Rules Committee. I introduced an amendment last night, Madam Speaker, barely before the committee ended, after I had had a chance to question the cardinals who were responsible for that language, and my friend from Massachusetts made it in order. He is doing everything he can to try to make the process more open than it has been in the most recent past.

But if we go back a little bit further, if we think about how to change the culture in this institution, it hasn't always been this divided.

Do you remember the first year that Speaker Pelosi sat in the chair that you are sitting in right now, Madam Speaker? She was the first, as you recall, Democratic Speaker since 1994 and the first woman to ever lead this institution. When she sat in that chair for the very first time, we had an open appropriations process. There were about 110 Democratic amendments that were offered and about 300 Republican amendments because, when you are in the minority, it is harder to get your agenda in the underlying bill.

When you run the show, as Mr. McGovern does, you are able to get all your good ideas in the bill. I have no doubt that every one of Mr. McGovern's good ideas is contained in the underlying bill. That is the privilege of leadership. When you sit on the outside, as I do and as Mr. Stauber does, it is harder to get your ideas in.

So, historically, as Speaker Pelosi did in 2007, more amendments are made in order for the minority party than are made in order for the majority party because the minority party hasn't gotten a chance to influence the process.

I am proud, over the 8 years that I was a part of the majority party here and had the privilege of sitting on the Rules Committee, more than half of the amendments, on average, across all the bills, were given to the minority party. But in this bill, Madam Speaker, again, despite the chairman's best efforts, the minority party received less than one- quarter of the amendments that are available.

What I am saying is, when Republicans were doing this from their leadership spot and we were giving more amendments to the other side, now the majority party is giving not 100 percent more amendments to their side, not 200 percent more but, more than 200 percent more.

By my statistics, since last time around, we have moved in the right direction. It used to be 300 percent more amendments given to the majority party.

Madam Speaker, I don't say that to grouse about sour grapes. Again, I say it with sincerity when I tell you that what Chairman McGovern is doing on the Rules Committee he is doing out of a real love of this institution, trying to reopen the process, but we have got to find a way to trust ourselves.

Most of what you heard the Reading Clerk read had nothing to do with the amendments of the bill we are talking about. It had to do with closing down the process, in many ways for the very first time in my congressional career, because the minority party, Republicans, are frustrated that we haven't been able to fund humanitarian needs on the border.

Now, I know talking about the border is a dog whistle to many folks in this institution. They think, as you heard the gentleman from Massachusetts mention, that it is about the wall and it is about immigration and it is about all sorts of things that it is not.

What we are talking about are children who are in the custody of the United States of America. Rightly or wrongly, like it or not, that is where we are today. And we can either fund the needs of those children, we can either fund the healthcare of those children, we can either fund the education of those children, or we cannot.

What we have heard from this administration is the same thing we have heard from the Obama administration when we had this very same crisis in 2014, and that is that we don't have enough resources to provide for the flood of folks who have been taken into U.S. custody.

The White House made this request 6 weeks ago, knowing that we were going to run out of money this month, and the House has taken no action on that request.

When we had the very same Rules Committee hearing last week, Madam Speaker, that we had this week, my friend, the chairman, talked about his sincere desire to move this kind of legislation, but it hasn't moved.

My friend from California who sits on the majority side of the Rules Committee and serves on the Appropriations Committee talked about the meeting they had in the Appropriations Committee that day to move this in an expedited way, and yet it has not yet moved.

The reason the rule considers these measures to close down the parliamentary process here is because folks are rightfully frustrated with the flow of the floor. We have serious work that we need to do, and when you are in procedural nonsense, you don't get any of that work done. But that procedural nonsense comes from a very sincere frustration that we have very real needs that are shared needs, very real passions that are shared passions, and that the consequences of failure affect us all. It affects who we are in our individual districts; it affects who we are as a nation; and for the life of me, I cannot understand why it is that this issue is receiving the neglect that it is from the leadership party.

We are going to talk about that in our previous question amendment. If we defeat the previous question, we will bring up an amendment to add to the rule language that will allow us to have this important debate and provide these important funds. I will reserve the time to talk about that, Madam Speaker.

But I do want to say we had ample opportunity in the Rules Committee to make the process wide open, and that decision, candidly, is above the chairman's pay grade, and the process was not allowed to be an open process.

So then we also had ample opportunity to close the process down completely. That is completely within the chairman's pay grade. He rejected that idea and made the effort to take some very important steps forward to returning us to regular order, and for that I am grateful.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber), who is one of our young leaders.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

I find my friend from Virginia is almost always right about everything, so the fact that he is so wrong on this makes it worthy of commenting.

We are not here night after night voting because the Rules Committee opened up the process. We are here night after night voting because what we would ordinarily have done by voice vote, through the comity that this institution, sadly, is losing some of every day, we are demanding recorded votes, because we can't get a vote on funding the humanitarian crisis that is at the

border, a crisis that my friend from Virginia cares about, my friend from Massachusetts cares about, my friends from Tennessee and Iowa care about. You go right across this institution. It does not matter your ideological position; you care about this issue.

We are voting night after night to draw attention to the fact that we cannot get our voices heard, not because our voices are heard in volumes never before seen.

In fact, an interesting sidebar, Madam Speaker: If you go back to the days of open rules, you will actually find the committee made more amendments in order on almost every division than we would have ordinarily had if we just had an open rule. When we clamp down on the process, that steam drives the amendments up. These conversations should be had in committee, not on the floor of the House.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Kustoff), my neighbor to the north, a leader on these issues.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say to my friend from New York that he is one of the bright spots on the Rules Committee. We are doing a lot of things differently this cycle than we have done them in years past, and he has been a real partner and a leader on that, Madam Speaker.

If you ever think that it is nothing but partisan nonsense--which you could imagine in a 9-to-4 committee, that that kind of thing could break out--I encourage you to come see Mr. McGovern and Mr. Morelle in action. You might be surprised with what you find.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), a good friend and a leader.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Stivers), a classmate of mine and a perennial leader in this institution.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to remind folks that we can defeat the previous question today and get on with the business of providing for the families and children along the border.

This is something that everyone in this institution cares about. For whatever reason, we can't move legislation forward. Everybody is talking about it. Nobody is doing anything about it.

There is no Member of this institution who is more frustrated with that than the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy). If we defeat the previous question, we will bring up H.R. 3056, the bill to fund that crisis management at the border.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) to discuss that underlying bill.

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

I want to begin where my friend from Massachusetts left off. I have not enjoyed coming down to vote on things we could have voice-voted either. I have not enjoyed being here until midnight on votes when I knew how they were going to come out, when we could have been working together on issues where I didn't know how they were going to come out and where we were trying to be agents of change.

But when we are in the minority, it is the only tool that we have to draw attention. The reason we have been here night after night is not because Mr. Roy is trying to inconvenience anyone. It is because he went to the Rules Committee and offered an amendment to do something that everybody in this Chamber knows ought to be done, and he didn't even get a vote. Folks wouldn't even let him bring his idea. Here we are, in the people's House, on an issue that is a bipartisan issue, and he did not even get a vote.

He is not here to say it is his way or the highway. He is here to say that he thought this was a place where ideas were debated and agreed to or defeated. On that, I think he is absolutely right. He is absolutely right.

My friend from Massachusetts is right, Madam Speaker, when he says that he has opened up this process more than it was the last cycle under Republicans. It is true.

But we have heard Member after Member who said: ``I have a good bipartisan idea. I have a good bipartisan idea, but the Rules Committee didn't allow it to be heard.''

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 92 from 2011, conveniently offered by Mr. Woodall, me, that was the festival of democracy in February to March 2011, where we didn't just have an open rule on one appropriations bill, or two, three, or four. We opened up the entire Federal budget and allowed every Member's voice to be heard. From the most liberal Republican to the most conservative, from the most conservative Democrat to the most liberal, everybody had a say.

Madam Speaker, the problem we are having, I tell the gentleman from Massachusetts, is not that we are opening up the process and so that is why we are having all of these delays. The problem is that the process is still too closed. That is why we are having delays.

I can understand it if you beat me when I am trying to represent the views of my constituents. But when you shut me down, I think it offends each and every one of us.

Appropriations bills have been that loan vestige of openness in this institution. Democrats shut them down before I got here. Republicans didn't improve much on that model, save this resolution from 2011. There is still much room for improvement on both sides.

Madam Speaker, let's start that improvement, start that improvement by defeating the previous question.

Let's go back to where this whole disagreement started. Let's give the gentleman from Texas an opportunity to be heard on the bill from the gentleman from Alabama. Let's fund this crisis that we all agree needs to be funded.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of my amendment be inserted in the Record immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Madam Speaker, I will close with the words from the chairman of the Rules Committee last week:

I take a back seat to no one on this issue. We will deal

with this issue. We will come up with something quick, and I

look forward to working with you. We need to move this bill

expeditiously.

I believe every word that he said. But it has been 7 days and the sole result of those meaningful words is nothing. We might have the luxury of another day. We might have the luxury of another 2. But that luxury is fast eroding, Madam Speaker.

My friend from Massachusetts does take a back seat to no one when it comes to caring for children, which is why we are all counting on his leadership to move this issue forward with the seriousness that every Member of this institution believes it deserves.

Madam Speaker, I urge my friends: Defeat the previous question. Let's have this conversation today, not tomorrow, not the next day. Let's fix today what we can fix today.

Madam Speaker, success has an amazing way of making people feel better about themselves. Doing things that matter has an amazing way of making people feel better. It turns out, in this institution, Madam Speaker, success is incremental.

We do something well together today, we do something even bigger together tomorrow.

Defeat this previous question. Take up this issue of families and their care, and then we will move on with the rest of the appropriations business exactly, flawed or not, as my friend from Massachusetts has crafted.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Woodall for yielding to me today.

Madam Speaker, I offered four amendments to improve this bill and benefit northeastern Minnesota, but, like last week, all four were rejected. They were not rejected on the merits, of course, but they were rejected in the Rules Committee before even being debated on the floor.

Two of my amendments would have removed onerous studies put in place by seasoned politicians from the Twin Cities and Washington, D.C. These studies in the committee report language are simply designed to delay important job-creating mining projects in my district.

Unfortunately, these politicians play politics with the consequence of killing jobs because, to them, our livelihood and these mining projects are nothing more than some faraway idea in a faraway land. Their well-funded interest groups oppose these jobs, so they attempt to move the goalposts, lay down more red tape, require more studies, and make it impossible--or at least attempt to make it impossible--to permit.

I say this: we can do both. We can mine and keep our environment pristine and clean.

However, to my constituents, these projects are a reality. These good-paying jobs will put food on the table, and they will put gas in our car and clothes on the backs of our children. These jobs will allow us to work, recreate, play, and raise a family in northern Minnesota.

These projects not only mean good-paying, union-protected mining jobs in cutting-edge industry, these projects can mean a larger property tax base, increased enrollment in our schools, and a population growth in our communities.

These mining projects are a big part of our economic engine, yet Washington, D.C., and Twin City politicians can sneak language into a committee report to undermine a fair process, while arbitrarily rejecting my amendments.

Another amendment I introduced would have ensured no funding is available to list the gray wolf under the Endangered Species Act. As I testified last night at the Rules Committee, the gray wolf has recovered. Even the Obama administration attempted to remove it from the Endangered Species Act in 2013.

In northern Minnesota, wolf attacks on cattle and domestic pets are becoming far too common, burdening our farmers who already are struggling. One small northern Minnesota county alone accounted for 21 confirmed wolf attacks on cattle, and local officials expect the number to be much higher, as many cattle that simply go missing are likely wolf attacks.

Because the gray wolf is listed as Federally endangered, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is unable to control them. Our local experts, who truly understand the problem, have their hands tied because politicians in this town, Washington, D.C., think they know best. But they do not.

I thought my final amendment was a no-brainer, Madam Speaker. It would have increased the Forest Products Timber Sale program by a little more than $6 million. Because it is in the National Forest System, it would have no negative budgetary effect.

The Forest Products Timber Sale program provides needed resources for Forest Service personnel. It allows them to research, recycle forest products, and find new ways to market them.

Meanwhile, an increase to this program means getting our loggers out in the woods and creating jobs for our communities. This would have directly benefited both Superior and Chippewa National Forests. It would have allowed our loggers and our Forest Service personnel to handle local environmental challenges like ensuring fallen trees do not contribute to forest fires.

My amendments would have directly benefited the small, rural communities in northern Minnesota. Unfortunately, powerful politicians used the system to their advantage by rejecting my amendments and preventing even an open debate on the issues.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

I rise today to honor the life of Frank LaMere. Frank LaMere was a leader for the Winnebagos, who had land on both sides of the Missouri River in the Sioux City area, and also for Native Americans, especially in the upper Midwest.

Over the years, our lives interacted multiple times. I had the opportunity to work with him and see the gentleness of his nature.

I will say that he mellowed out in his later years, but he never let up. He never took his foot off the throttle. He just found a smoother way to get to the goals, which were to help out his Native American people.

He was a model of dedication to selflessness, and he also had more than his fair share of tragedy, loss, and demons to fight.

Over the course of his life, he demonstrated that no matter the obstacles, he could rise above them, as we could rise above those and do the most good we can with the tools we have to work with.

He overcame addiction himself. He had dedicated his life to being a voice for the voiceless, including securing housing, food, and other necessities for the people whom he did such a good job representing in the area.

Yet, tragedy still exists in our communities, and Frank LaMere saw the need to address those situations. We collaborated on a couple of important things together. They were the passions of Frank LaMere who passed away on Sunday evening.

The imagination and the dream that he had was to build Hope Street, which would be a treatment center and housing center primarily for Native Americans who are drug addicted or alcohol addicted.

That project, by the way, has the language that allows it to qualify in this appropriations bill that we have before us this week.

Also, the second project that was a very, very important project was when Frank and I had a chance meeting in the airport in Omaha, and we began to discuss these things, too, that were on his mind, that brought about the bill that is now H.R. 184. That is the Winnebago Land Transfer Act.

In 1865, the United States Government and the Winnebago Tribe signed a treaty that granted that land on both sides of the Missouri River to the Winnebago Tribe. As the river changed and situations changed-- actually, I shouldn't say both sides of the river. It was the Nebraska side of the river. When the river changed, that meant that a lot of that land actually ended up in Iowa.

The Corps of Engineers came in 105 years later and condemned that property for their own project. It was a takings, and I believe it was an unconstitutional takings. In doing so, they never compensated them for that land, and they didn't use that land for the project for which they had intended.

So, over time, the Winnebagos were able to put the money together to go to court. The statute of limitations had expired. The court ruled that, if they were going to rule on the issue, they would grant the land back to the Winnebagos, but it was beyond their jurisdiction because of the statute of limitations.

The only thing that puts that land back is an act of Congress, and that is the Winnebago Land Transfer Act, H.R. 184. If we can conclude that this week or next week, it will be the time that we have finished the biggest part of the work of Frank LaMere. We should do so to honor his life.

One of the things that he was quoted as saying, and this was at the services for him: ``If you haven't been marginalized at least once a week, then you probably haven't done very much.''

I can identify with that, Madam Speaker, and I can identify with the life of selfless work of Frank LaMere.

We honor his life. Let's honor his life in this Congress this week or next.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate his working with me on this important issue.

I do want to say that I appreciate the floor staff and staff in the Parliamentarian's Office over the last few days. Obviously, we have had some interesting activities on the floor of the House that I think are important because I think it is important to vote and that this issue is important.

I do want to thank the staff for all of their hard work in support of what goes on on the floor. As a former staffer, I know the amount of time that goes into that.

Madam Speaker, I do believe that we should defeat the previous question. I do believe that we should move immediately to consideration of H.R. 3056, which my good friend from Alabama has put forward, as an important reflection of what the President and his Office of Management and Budget have asked for to deal with the humanitarian crisis at our border.

We have gone over quite a bit of what has been going on on our border. Lost in all of that are the people, the humanitarian reality of what is happening at the border, the children, moms, families; the lack of places to put people; a Border Patrol that is overwhelmed, literally overwhelmed trying to do its job to secure the border of the United States.

They literally don't know where to put people. They have them and they are going, ``What do I do with them?''

They have to follow the law. They have to try to do screenings. They have to try to do health screenings. They have to try to perform the basic functions of their duty. Yet, they don't have the resources necessary to do it because this body, for whatever reason, refuses to do that.

I know there are ongoing negotiations. There are ongoing conversations in the Senate and the House about trying to reach some agreement. But let's be honest: This has taken far too long since the President's initial request, leaving Border Patrol, ICE, and those who are dealing with this crisis at the border without the knowledge of whether they are going to have the resources necessary to do it and without any support for what they are doing today.

Today, somebody is going to be abused at the border. Some little girl, some family, is going to be abused at the hands of the cartels that have operational control of our border.

If you talk to anybody with deep knowledge of what is going on at the border, they know the cartels have operational control of our border. They are making hundreds of millions of dollars moving people, not just fentanyl, not just dangerous narcotics, but people. It is something that should end today.

We have the power, this body, to end it today. We should just call up H.R. 3056 and pass it. It would solve the problem. It would at least solve the problem of what they are dealing with in the humanitarian crisis.

What it won't do is solve the asylum problem. What it won't do is solve the catch-and-release problem. What it won't do is solve the problem of being able to take unaccompanied children safely back to families at home.

None of that will be solved in H.R. 3056. But H.R. 3056 is the bare minimum of what we ought to do in this body to ensure that people have the resources necessary to care for people when we are trying to manage a broken border overrun with crime, where communities in Texas are being ravaged, where yesterday a mayor came here and gave a press conference talking about car chases in the streets, where fentanyl is pouring across our border.

I urge this body to defeat the previous question and to move to H.R. 3056.