Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2019

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 43 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), 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 may be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 43, providing for consideration of H.R. 268, making supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes.

The rule provides for consideration of the legislation under a structured rule. The rule makes in order 15 amendments from Members on both sides of the aisle. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee. The rule also waives the requirement for two- thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee on Rules on the same day it is presented to the House with respect to any resolution reported through the legislative day of January 23, relating to a measure making or continuing appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019.

Madam Speaker, I rise now in support of the rule for H.R. 268, our emergency disaster relief bill, to provide $12.14 billion in recovery and relief assistance for millions of Americans suffering from the damage caused by recent hurricanes, typhoons, mudslides, flooding, earthquakes, and wildfires.

These national disasters follow decades of scientific warnings to Congress that accelerating climate change would bring us extreme weather events characterized by unprecedented ferocity and violence, and here we are in the middle of the global crisis of climate change dealing with profound natural catastrophes like these.

Last year, Hurricane Michael, the most intense hurricane ever to strike the Florida panhandle brought winds surpassing 125 miles per hour and gusts of up to 200 miles per hour, killing 45 people who were crushed and drowned by the hurricane, and inflicting $40 billion in economic damages, and $5 billion in insured losses.

In 2018, the people of California, who have lost 10 million acres of forest in the last decade to wildfires, experienced the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season in recorded history with more than 8,500 fires burning an area of 1,893,913 acres, the largest area of burned acreage ever recorded in a fire season in the United States of America.

An astonishing 7,100 structures burned to the ground. In July and August, it seemed like the entire State was ablaze with the worst damage taking place in northern California which was declared a disaster area. Millions of people in San Francisco and the bay area were forced to wear gas masks to go to school or to go to work.

In November, yet another round of wildfires visited massive destruction of life, limb, and property on the people of California. One fire, the so-called Camp fire, displaced tens of thousands of people and killed at least 86 men, women, and children, burning many of them to death in their cars or as they sought refuge and tried to flee from their cars and run down the road.

The fire, which lasted many days, annihilated more than 18,000 structures and buildings and destroyed the entire town of Paradise, turning it into an inferno, a hell on Earth. This was in our country.

The same kinds of astonishing events that destroyed entire communities in Florida and in California were experienced by people all over America last year: hurricane devastation in Puerto Rico, Texas, and the Carolinas; unprecedented flooding and drought all over America; and typhoons in the territories, a catalogue of climate-change intensified misery and suffering that the entire Congress should see as calling upon the decency and resources of the American people to address.

The $12 billion legislation the majority brings forward today in H.R. 268 will ensure that communities across the land can recover from these disasters with the resources that they need to rebuild.

The bill helps farmers suffering from crop and livestock losses, coastal communities rebuilding their infrastructure and preparing to weather future storms; dislocated workers, veterans, students, and other Americans displaced and uprooted by these catastrophes.

The bill invests in restoration of disaster-damaged forests. It sends aids to local communities to restore more than 250,000 acres of watershed. It funds restoration of rural communities. It offers $600 million to continue disaster nutrition benefits to the hard-hit people of Puerto Rico, still reeling from Hurricane Maria, and it allocates critical funding for social services, mental health, education, nutrition assistance, and infrastructure resiliency in communities across the land.

We will rebuild our transportation systems with this legislation. We will repair housing. We will repair businesses and public infrastructure. We will repair and reconstruct hurricane-damaged Veterans Administration and Department of Defense bases and facilities across the country.

But the majority is not stopping there. We are not just offering aid to States and local communities across the land to rebuild and renew. We are reopening the Government of the United States so we can actually send this aid, so we can offer the expert

technical assistance these communities need, and so we can use the full apparatus of our government, including the currently closed down Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard where our hardworking personnel are not being paid, to get America moving again

The National Governors Association, a bipartisan group of Governors from the 50 States called for an immediate reopening of the government that will allow for the release of $85 billion in Federal aid and loan assistance that is being held up because a third of the government has been shut down. That is the Governors of our States, the people closest to surveying the damage on the ground.

Indeed, by reopening the Government of the United States of America, we are not just helping to address the disasters that have befallen our people across the country; we are ending the manmade disaster of the government shutdown.

And when I say it is manmade, I don't mean to use archaic sexist language, Madam Speaker. I am trying to be precise. This is the shutdown that one man, President Donald Trump, gave us and proudly claimed as his own in the December 11 White House meeting when he said, ``I am proud to shut down the government, Chuck. I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down,'' said the President of the United States. ``I'm not going to blame you for it.''

So far this shutdown that the President is proud to have delivered to his people has closed nine Federal departments: Department of State, Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior, Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Treasury, HUD, and Department of Transportation.

It has caused 800,000 Federal workers to be furloughed or compelled to work with no pay at all. It has threatened public safety in national parks which are overflowing with garbage and backed up waste in the bathrooms. It has threatened the tax refunds of millions of Americans. It has threatened 38 million low-income Americans who depend on SNAP benefits for proper nutrition for their families, and it has unleashed profound chaos and anxiety in the land.

In my congressional district, tens of thousands of Federal workers have been denied pay; air traffic controllers, Coast Guard personnel, NIH researchers, scientists at NOAA. I have heard from scientists at the FDA who have been furloughed and prevented from working on the prevention and containment of E. coli, salmonella, and insect infestation of our food supply.

I have spoken to an Army veteran who has spent the rest of his career after leaving the Army as an air traffic controller who now must raid his own retirement plan and his daughter's 529 college plan with a 10 percent penalty in order to pay his mortgage.

I have spoken to several constituents who have been forced to pay their mortgages with credit cards or loans from other family members, and I have talked to constituents who have been forced to forego medical treatments because they can't balance their checkbooks, when they are ordered to work but receive a pay stub like many have emailed to me, showing zero net pay, zero gross pay.

Hundreds of thousands of people who work for private contractors and small businesses working with the government across America have been injured as well; many furloughed, laid off, or fired with no real promise of making their money back, unlike the Federal workers who at least, I hope, should be getting their money back because of legislation that the majority has brought forward.

But the 172,000 Federal workers in my State are losing $778 million every 2 weeks, and the State has already lost more than $60 million in taxes.

The economic reverberations are awful, and they are spreading.

Now, this shutdown is a brutal assault on the separation of powers and the Constitution of the United States:

It does not form a more perfect Union. It does not establish justice. It shuts the Justice Department down.

It does not ensure domestic tranquility. It defunds the Department of Homeland Security.

It does not provide for the common defense, but it robs our Coast Guard personnel of their paychecks.

It does not promote the general welfare, but it furloughs food inspectors.

It cheats civil servants out of their salaries; it promotes tax fraud by locking IRS agents out of their offices; and it idles environmental scientists, diplomats, air traffic controllers, and TSA agents who are calling in sick because they can't even afford to get to work now.

This policy is not in service of ``we, the people,'' and that is why every public opinion poll shows the American people overwhelmingly rejecting the Trump shutdown, this scandalous assault on the public good.

In America, we don't hold the government or the workforce or the people hostage over a policy dispute. That is an absolute betrayal of the separation of powers and how government is supposed to work in the United States of America.

Now, my good friends across the aisle should be confronting the shutdown with us. We are asking them to join us in getting the emergency aid to our people all across the land and in reopening the government.

I know it wasn't their idea, Madam Speaker. I know they were backed into this situation by President Trump and FOX News and Ann Coulter, whom the President apparently saw on TV and then changed his mind and decided to shut the government down.

But now, I am afraid that our friends across the aisle have become enablers of the President, and now they own a piece of the shutdown. The party of Abraham Lincoln, who saved the Union with malice for none and charity for all, has become the party of Donald Trump, who shut down the government with charity for none and malice for all.

Let's put an end to it right now, Madam Speaker. In the age of climate change, we have no time left for these foolish and self- destructive games. We must act as first responders for the American people.

Our new majority in the House of Representatives is up to the task. We are ready to govern. We are ready to lead. Let's help our people recover from the natural disasters which have been exacerbated by climate change, and let's end the manmade disaster of the shutdown of our own government right now.

Americans know the truth of this situation. Let's act together to end the Trump shutdown, which the American people rightfully despise and deplore. Let's put the government back to work for the general welfare, starting with the millions of Americans still buffeted by the terrifying weather calamities of 2018.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), my friend, for his very thoughtful words and that kind welcome to the Rules Committee.

I have heard nothing but wonderful things about how he operates on the Rules Committee, and we are indeed fortunate to have him serving in this capacity. I really do look forward to working with him in the months and years ahead.

And I admit that it has been a somewhat awkward process trying to reopen the government of the United States. This shutdown is unique for at least two reasons I can think of. One is it is already the longest shutdown in the history of the United States; and the second is that, when the shutdown began last year under the 115th Congress, it was the only time that the Congress adjourned during a shutdown.

So rather than stay and try to work it out, we were adjourned before recess, and the Congress went home, so it was left in the hands of the new majority and the new 116th Congress to try to get it going again, which is why, yes, it is the absolute first order of business for us to open up the Government of the United States.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Shalala), who is also a new and a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington State for his comments. I would urge him to stick with his original instinct to support the legislation.

He said that he finds lots of important stuff in it, aiding the victims of hurricanes and earthquakes and floods and so on. All of that is absolutely right. That is why we are voting for it. We urge him to vote for it, too.

He says that we are playing politics in a shameful way, that we are engaged in partisan politics, by adding a measure to reopen the Government of the United States that will allow us to get aid to all of these people and to allow all our workers to be paid.

What I consider shameful is holding the Government of the United States of America, the Federal workforce, private contractors, and the people hostage over a policy debate.

We have never seen anything like this before, and now it is the longest shutdown in history.

So let's reopen the government. And we are willing to debate anything you want, but we can't do it in a hostage-taking, ransom-type situation.

Since when did opening the Government of the United States become a poison pill? I just don't see that.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Escobar).

Madam Speaker, the first thing I am afraid I need to point out is that certain of our friends on the other side of the aisle are experiencing a kind of a political speech impediment where they are unable to correctly pronounce the name of our party. We are the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party.

I was reading a biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt recently called ``Traitor to His Class,'' which was very interesting. He said:

If you don't want to call us the Democratic Party, call us

the democracy.

So those would be the two choices that would be the most suitable, at least from our side of the aisle.

The second thing I want to point out is this is a clean continuing resolution. We have not loaded it up with a bunch of partisan sweeteners or ideological ``gotcha'' resolutions.

This is a clean continuing resolution to get disaster assistance to our people, the people of the United States, and it opens up our government to make that assistance possible so we can end the manmade disaster of the shutdown.

So I think that it well suits those who are saying they both want to get the aid to Americans and they want the government of the United States to be reopened.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Mrs. Lee).

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

I continue to be baffled about why some of my colleagues think that opening the Government of the United States--our government--is a poison pill and something they can't support.

Look how far we have fallen, Madam Speaker. We are voting for billions of dollars in aid to the people of Florida, and the people of Texas and California and Puerto Rico, so we can deal with the mounting natural crises and emergencies around the country. We need to open the government to do it, and there are those who say that is too high a price. They want to get the aid to the people, but it is too high a price to reopen our own government.

We can't find an example of another democratic country where the chief executive has shut down his own government the way that President Trump has done in this case.

We know that he expresses a lot of admiration for Vladimir Putin in Russia and for Orban in Hungary and for Duterte in the Philippines and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who recently ordered out for the assassination of a journalist for The Washington Post.

Those are his friends. Those are the people he looks up to. So maybe he thinks this is a normal way of doing business.

Well, it is not in the United States of America. Let them close the government in Russia. Let them send the workforce in Hungary home. Let them put the civil servants in the Philippines at rest. Why don't they shut down the government of Saudi Arabia?

Why are they doing this to the people of the United States of America?

We are not playing games. He is playing a game with us. He is holding us hostage over his pet obsession, and the American people know it.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).

Madam Speaker, may I ask how much time I have remaining.

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

Madam Speaker, our beloved colleagues across the aisle have asked us to come back to the negotiating table and to compromise.

Madam Speaker, we have compromised. The bills that we started out passing were bills that were overwhelmingly or unanimously passed by the Republicans in committee or on the floor of the Senate, so we are passing their bills to reopen the government. The very first order of business is to reopen the government.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague for conceding the fairness of the amendment process that we have adopted here today, and I do hope that it will be the beginning of a new era in Congress where we can work together and bring in the best ideas from everybody.

Having said that, we still have a disagreement, and the disagreement is this: We brought forward four continuing resolutions that incorporated the language that came from Republicans in the Senate, and were voted out on a 92-6 basis, in order to pass it.

Now, my distinguished colleague says, well, maybe the Republicans in the House would have felt differently about that. Well, of course, they controlled the House in the last session, but they adjourned without us ever taking it up. They adjourned into Christmas break and into a shutdown.

We were left with this mess when we got into power. That is why our first order of business must be to reopen the Government of the United States. We have offered multiple continuing resolutions in order to do that. In fact, I think a dozen of my Republican colleagues have already voted for different CRs in order to keep the government going.

So when the gentleman kindly asks: ``Well, how can you expect us to do this?'' lots of Republicans understand the urgency of reopening the government.

One position says: We will reopen the government if you do what we want. Our position is: Let's reopen the government.

You see the difference there? We are not holding anybody hostage. There is no political ransom. We are not making any demands. We are saying: Let's pass this legislation that has overwhelming, if not unanimous, support to get disaster relief to our people, and let's reopen the government so we can get them the relief.

Instead, we get accused of playing political games. They call reopening the Government of the United States a poison pill. That has to be making some history in itself.

The word ``emergency'' has been bandied about a lot, Madam Speaker, over

the last few weeks. The President even threatened to invoke emergency powers that he thinks he has in order to impose his fantasy wall on the government when it is very clear that he didn't get it through 2 years of a Republican-controlled House and Senate. And he is not getting it through this Congress, and he didn't get the funding from the Mexican Government, which was what the original promise was.

So now he wants to see if he can find emergency powers to do it, but he has delayed the emergency. Think about that. It is as if you saw an emergency in your neighborhood, and you say: Well, instead of calling the police or the fire department, I will wait a few weeks to do it.

That is not a real emergency. What is a real emergency?

Well, climate change is obviously a real emergency. The entire weight of scientific evidence tells us that is a real emergency.

The government shutdown is an emergency for more than 800,000 Federal employees who now have to explain to their kids why they don't have a paycheck and why they are borrowing from their own retirement funds or from the kids' college funds.

Where people can't get needed medical care, they are not able to pay for medically indicated conditions they have because they don't have the money to do it, that is an emergency.

Hurricanes Florence and Michael, those are emergencies, and that is why we want to get aid to the people there.

That is what this legislation is all about.

The California wildfires, which killed dozens of Americans, that is an emergency. That is why we are trying to get aid out to the people of California.

But a legislative debate over the proper means of homeland security when we spent more than $9 billion on homeland security over the last decade, and our side is fighting for the best innovations, the best technology to invest in border security? That is not an emergency. That is a legislative debate that we can have.

So we go back to the basic point: Let's get aid to our people, from Puerto Rico to North Carolina and South Carolina, from Florida to Texas. That is what this bill does. It gets aid to our people. It reopens the Government of the United States. It puts us back in the business of promoting the general welfare.

That is what we have been sent here to do, to promote justice and the general welfare and domestic tranquility, not shut down the government. Let's open it up, and let's get aid to the people of the United States of America. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who is the majority leader of the House, for our first official colloquy.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland. I appreciate his kind remarks and would return those as well.

The gentleman is well-versed at this process and is a noble battler in the debate of ideas. I look forward to having continued conversations about, not only the areas where we may have some differences, but how we can find common ground. The gentleman is very good at working with both sides to find common ground, and, obviously, right now we are in the middle of one of those differences that hopefully can get resolved.

As we have been in these meetings at the White House with the other leaders, both House and Senate, Republican and Democrat, the unfortunate thing is that we have been at an impasse. The President, through his Department of Homeland Security, has made a formal request and a detailed request for the amount of money it will take to secure our border; to properly give our agents--the people who are risking their lives to keep our country safe--the tools they need. It requires a lot of things. It might require more border patrol agents, more tools and technology, but clearly also physical barriers. That seems to be the area where we have had an impasse.

I know that as the President put a formal offer on the table backed up by the experts at the Department of Homeland Security for what it will take to secure the border, up until this point, we haven't seen a formal proposal response to counter that offer, if, in fact, the gentleman's side does agree that we need to secure the border. The President has made a formal request that came from our experts at the Department of Homeland Security.

The only offer I have seen put on the table is the Speaker's offer, and I am not even sure if it was serious, when she said she would support $1. Now, I know the gentleman from Maryland would hopefully recognize that $1 is not a serious counteroffer.

The President has had multiple meetings at the White House and has continued to extend an invitation for whenever there is a serious counteroffer that can be backed up with an explanation of how that can actually secure our border, if, in fact, that is the objective of the other side.

Can the gentleman from Maryland share with me when that counteroffer will be made, when a formal, serious proposal to get our government back open and secure our border will be put on the table?

Reclaiming my time, those were not our bills. The House had a negotiation going on with the Senate. The Senate, as the gentleman knows, passed some bills--not all of the bills that were brought to the House floor, but brought some bills that were different from the House bills. As you know, when the Senate passes a bill and the House has a different version, you go to conference committee. You don't just say: ``We are going to take the Senate bill.''

Also, as you brought that bill to the floor, the Speaker, the majority leader brought to the floor as part of that package a bill that did not pass the Senate floor, a bill that would have reversed the Mexico City policy. That change was dramatic because that would have allowed taxpayer money to go to foreign government entities that provide abortion.

It has been the policy of this country, since Ronald Reagan went to Mexico to deliver that speech and create the Mexico City policy, that we don't give taxpayer money to fund abortion. And I know that has gone back and forth through different administrations.

This President has made it very clear that he will strictly enforce the Mexico City policy. That bill on the floor would have reversed it. That is not language that passed the Senate floor.

In addition to that, if you go back throughout these negotiations, at the very beginning, the President has been talking about a crisis at the border. The crisis at the border is very real. In our first meeting with the leaders in the Situation Room at the White House, both the Speaker and the minority leader of the Senate interrupted the Secretary of Homeland Security every time she tried to go through this new crisis that we are seeing.

It is not just the drugs, which are dramatic and we need to stop. It is not just the human trafficking, which is dramatic and we need to stop. It is not just the murders that are happening. There are murders that happened in so many States.

In your State of Maryland, just recently, someone who is in this country illegally from El Salvador was sentenced to life in prison without parole in Montgomery County, Maryland, for the murder of someone, and he had no remorse for his crime.

We just saw a police officer in California who was murdered by someone who came back and forth through this country illegally multiple times because we don't have physical barriers to secure our border.

So that presentation was interrupted, and we never got through the full presentation; but ultimately, the Secretary of Homeland Security has laid out why we have a crisis at the border, and it needs to be resolved, and they went into a detailed breakdown of costs to secure the border.

So at issue right here, now, is a difference in amount. If your side truly does agree that we have to secure our border, which I have heard the Speaker, the minority leader, and others say they need to secure the border, yet they haven't been willing to agree to more than $1 in the request that has been made by the administration to secure the border.

So the real question is, at the heart of this debate, if we are all for border security, we can talk about border security.

In fact, back in 2006, President Obama, when he was a Senator, talked about the need for securing the border when he voted for the Fence Act. The minority leader, Mr. Schumer, at the time voted for the Fence Act. That language, the language--and you can call it whatever you like: a fence, a wall, cement, steel slats. But ultimately, it is law, language that allows what can and can't be built.

The language that Minority Leader Schumer at the time voted for in 2006 would have given the Department of Homeland Security many of the tools they need in language, but not the money. And so now we are at a point where, if it is all of a sudden he is against that kind of physical structure that he was for in `06, he ought to explain why, and so should others who have maybe changed their position.

But if the language in 2006 would give the Secretary of Homeland Security the tools they need and the authority they need to actually start securing the ports of the border that are between ports of entry--we have ports of entry, and everybody knows where those are. And we, by the way, stopped a lot of really bad people from coming into our country at ports of entry. What we don't know is how many people come through the areas where we have no ports of entry, where we have no borders.

Everybody recognizes that you can't just stop people at the points of entry and then have no protection in the hundreds of miles--we are talking about over 500 miles of unprotected area of this country on the southern border where there is a crisis that is growing every single day.

And if we acknowledge that--now, I know the minority leader and the Speaker went on TV the other night and said it is a fabricated crisis. How could you call this a fabricated crisis when you see deaths, when you see over 90 percent of the heroin that comes into this country and kills Americans every single day is coming across our southern border. That is not a fabricated crisis. Those are real serious things that are happening, that are bad.

There are good people who come to this country. America is the greatest country in the world for letting people in legally. We let over a million people into our country legally every single year, and it enriches our country. It is a legal process. And there are millions of people waiting to come to this country the right way.

So while we recognize that greatness of our country, we also recognize that there are people who are bad people who come into our country every single day as well, and we need to have the tools to secure our border so we can stop that.

So the real question is: How much money is the other side willing to support to actually secure the border?

If the department that is tasked with keeping our country safe is saying they need $5.7 billion, if you agree to a smaller number, if you want to put on the table a smaller number--it is not $1, and let's at least recognize that was an insult. So if it is not $1, then what is the amount you will support and put on the table to start a real negotiation to solve this crisis?

I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, Lindsey Graham did say we need to build the wall. Lindsey Graham has a different solution, I am sure, than the gentleman from Maryland. So let's be clear.

And I was speaking to Senator Graham last night about this. He wants to start building the wall. And clearly, your side has not been willing.

And the President, by the way, in the meeting in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room, 2 days ago looked at the Speaker directly and said: Okay. We don't agree even on some of these other areas of government that haven't been open, but if you will agree to work with me on the wall, I will support another 30 days of keeping all government going, even on the areas we disagree, but to open everything up and continue negotiations on the wall. And the Speaker said no.

We could have everything open today, but the Speaker is the one who is being held hostage by the far left elements of your party because she is yet to agree to anything, not putting more than $1.

She said on TV last week she would support $1. That is an insult. And I have yet to see, in any of the meetings I have been in, her willingness to support more than that.

And so we could have everything opened today. That offer has been put on the table. The President, himself, has said you can write the definition of the wall. You can ban cement wall. The President has already acknowledged he would be willing to support that. He would be willing to support a lower number if you can justify how it secures the border, but that offer has never been put on the table.

We could end this crisis today. Twenty-one days in is too long. And there is a solution. But the solution includes, it is not going to be your way or the highway. You can't say: ``No, we want everything or nothing.'' You have got to be willing to put something on the table that will secure the border of this country, or just say you are not for border security. But you can't say you are for border security and then not agree to more than $1.

I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman is finished. We will, obviously, have more time to go back and forth on this, but let's keep in mind a few facts.

First of all, the last shutdown of the United States Government was dubbed the Schumer shutdown because the Senate minority leader wanted to force his way on DACA.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman for one moment.

Oh, it lasted very shortly because the gentleman from New York realized he was on the wrong side of the issue, just like right now your side is on the wrong side of this issue opposing border security.

Let's be very clear what the fight is about, and it shouldn't be a fight. It is a fight because the President has said: Here is a proposal that my Department of Homeland Security has brought that said these are the tools they need to keep the country safe with a crisis at the border.

It can't be denied. I know some on your side want to deny it. I don't think the gentleman from Maryland denies it. But, clearly, when the Senate minority leader and the Speaker of the House go on national TV and say it is a fabricated crisis at the border, the American people see what is happening at the border. We can debate how best to solve it.

The President, through the Department of Homeland Security, has put down a proposal of what it is going to take. This is not a new idea.

Obviously, the President ran on this as a front-and-center issue. He not only ran on it, but he was elected by the American people as President to carry out border security and build a wall. It was part of the national debate.

I know some people on your side don't even want to recognize that that election occurred and the result, but it happened.

You were not the majority leader when that happened. He was elected on that. We were still in the majority.

Let's remember why we are here. To think that this is some new idea the President is bringing forward is ignoring the history, and let's go through some of that history.

Obviously, it was front and center in the presidential election, and he was elected in large part on building a wall to secure our country's border.

Then we go to the first spending bill as he was President, and we had a disagreement. There were a lot of things that we were in disagreement on.

We wanted to rebuild our military, and we finally came to a 2-year agreement to do just that. It was critically important to start rebuilding the military of this country that was decimated, to give our men and women in uniform who risk their lives for our country a much- needed pay raise. We finally did that.

In that negotiation, the President wanted and he was talking about $25 billion for full border security, to build out the full 550 miles that are not secure right now, and they are well identified. The gentleman from Maryland knows those areas where we haven't built walls. Sure, we have got some money to build walls. There is about 120 miles of wall being built, wall that is not all cement. Some of it is steel slats.

Let the experts figure out the best way to secure our border. We are not the architects of the border. Let the experts be that.

But there is some wall being built, but not enough, especially in the areas where Federal law today prohibits wall from being built.

You want to know how ridiculous some of the laws are right now that we are trying to change? Federal law prohibits the President from building walls in the most cost-effective way, in the most efficient way. Why would we have those kinds of prohibitions in law?

We passed a bill through the House before the shutdown happened. You voted no. A lot of your side voted no. I think all your side, in fact, voted no. But it was a bill the President would have signed that would have given him the tools he needs to secure the border.

It went over to the Senate. The reason it didn't get to the President's desk is not because there wasn't Republican support. They have a 60-vote rule in the Senate.

I can disagree. You might even disagree, I don't know. I disagree on that. On appropriations bills, they should at least let the majority rule so we can properly govern this country in a more efficient manner. But they have a 60-vote requirement.

So the Senate minority, the Democrats in the Senate, all voted together to block it, and that led to a shutdown. That bill would have kept the government running and secured the border, but Democrats voted no in the House, Democrats voted no in the Senate, and so we have a shutdown.

How are we going to get out of this? How are we going to get it resolved? We can talk about hostages. We can talk about the people on your side of the aisle who refuse to support any border security with a dollar amount behind it. You can use words all day, but words don't secure our borders. Borders secure our border. Walls and barriers secure our border.

The President has said that you can call it and define it whatever you want. He has been very flexible in wanting to negotiate. But in every one of those meetings, there has not been a counteroffer put on the table by your side.

If we want to resolve the crisis, it involves both sides coming together. The President is already out there publicly, in our meetings, saying he is willing to negotiate and come to a different place.

You should work with your side to come up with definitions, to come up with a different dollar amount. But it has to end in securing our border. If we all agree on that, it has to end in the actual language and dollars to accomplish that objective.

The President said: I will give you 30 more days. Even though we don't agree on some of these other things, I will agree to sign that into law, if you will agree to work with me on the wall.

The Speaker said no. It was the Speaker who said no, not the President. That is why we are at day 21.

We didn't even need to be at day 1. We passed a bill out of the House. The Senate killed it because every Democrat voted no.

So here we are. Republicans and Democrats and everybody in this room know how we can solve this problem, but it is not by you all sitting there and saying we only are going to support a dollar and nothing more. Real money has to be put on the table to solve the crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I know that we are closing this. I do want to go back.

Last year, when the President signed the omnibus bill to keep the government open, at that time he said: This won't happen again. He laid down a marker last year that, okay, he will go along with a bill that is far short of what he needs to secure the border, but he wasn't going to do it again. That was a year ago.

So everybody has known that this issue is going to have to get resolved because lives are at risk. The President, like we did, took an oath to protect this country. That is what this is about. We surely want to open up all areas of government, but keeping the border secure is part of that. And so when the President signed the bill last year, he said: It is not going to happen again.

Now, obviously, when we came to this year, there were some people telling the President the votes weren't there to put the money in place to secure the border. In fact, the now Speaker, when she was minority leader, went to the White House and told the President: The votes aren't there in the House to fund your request for the wall.

We had over 218, clearly.

Good for you, and, obviously, things have changed.

But when the minority leader then told the President the votes weren't there to fund the wall, maybe the President took her at her word and thought that was an accurate assessment of the House. It turned out she was wrong. We passed the bill to fund the President's request.

The House had a difference with the Senate. It is surely not the first time in this country's history where the Senate passed one bill that was short of what we needed to secure the border, and we came back and passed a bill to fully fulfill the President's request to secure the border. So we ended up at an impasse not because there weren't enough Republican votes, but because there were no Democratic votes to do that. And now we are here today.

Let's talk about quotes. He wants to quote Republicans. I will quote a Democrat. I won't tell you who it is first.

In 2006, when there was a bill to put $50 billion in place, over 25 years, for border security, this Democrat in the Senate said it will authorize some badly needed funding for better fences and better security along our borders, and that should help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country.

That was in 2006, for over $50 billion for border security, and the Democrat who said that was then-Senator Barack Obama. So you can quote Republicans. I will quote Democrats.

That bill passed, but it didn't put the money there, and that is why we are here.

And again, he can talk and give great speeches and say we need $50 billion, but if you don't appropriate the $50 billion, the money is not there to actually build the fencing that is needed.

And so now we need to talk about how to fund the wall, how to fund the structure, call it what you will. And again, the President, himself, has said you can title it however you want. You can ban cement fencing.

But at the same time, what Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer voted for in 2006 is the authority to build what is needed, but they didn't put the money there. It is time to finally back up the word. It is hot air until you put the money on the table.

So the money has been put on the table by the Republicans, at least an offer, backed up with real data of where the money would be spent to secure this country. There has not been a counteroffer.

So let's talk now about the final issue, and that is adjournment.

I know later today the House will be voting to adjourn. Last week, the House, under the Democratic majority, as you proudly talk about the fact that you all are in the majority, you all voted to adjourn. We voted not to adjourn.

We should stay here to get this job done, to finally have a real negotiation to solve our differences. We can solve our differences, but we are not going to solve them by continuing to adjourn every weekend when we should be negotiating and getting the government back open and securing the border.

On this final thought, would the gentleman address the vote, the motion that will be made later to adjourn that we oppose?

I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland.

And when you look at the women who are coming across through this trek to try to cross the border, first of all, asylum has been offered by Mexico to all of the people as part of that caravan. Thousands of people were offered asylum, work permits--turned it down. There is a legal way to seek asylum.

It seems to me, if another country offers you asylum and you want to leave your country, you take the asylum, but they turned it down. But the women who are coming over, Doctors Without Borders has done a study and said that over 30 percent of the women who are on this trek have been sexually assaulted or worse.

We should all want to address this crisis. There is a way to solve the crisis. If we talk about hostages, both sides can use terms. But when the President of the United States and the White House look at the Speaker and say, ``I will sign a bill that contains things that we have yet to negotiate that I don't agree with; I will sign it if you agree to keep negotiating,'' and the Speaker of the House said no, that is the my-way-or-the-highway approach that is wrong.

The President has put multiple things on the table, has offered to negotiate on terms, on dollars, on every front, and not one counteroffer. That has got to change. We can solve this crisis, but it is going to involve both sides being willing to put something on the table to solve the border security crisis. I hope we can get there, and we will keep working at it.

I appreciate the comments and the thoughts of the gentleman from Maryland, and I truly do believe that he wants to solve this. We have some differences. Let's keep working and get it done.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. We have reversed positions, of course. For a number of years now I have had the privilege of having a colloquy with Mr. McCarthy who was then the majority leader. So Mr. Scalise has now undertaken my role, a role probably he didn't welcome, but I know that he will do well as minority whip.

As majority leader I am still here doing the colloquy, and I am proud to be doing it with Mr. Scalise who is an outstanding Member. I congratulate him on his position and look forward to working with him through the years toward trying to create agreement, consensus, and action by the Congress on behalf of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning- hour debate and noon for legislative business.

On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business with last votes no later than 3 p.m.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspensions, as is the natural order, will be announced at the close of business today.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, we will consider H.R. 268 which is the Disaster Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2019. Chairwoman Lowey released this legislation last week. It will provide relief and recovery assistance for Americans affected by recent hurricanes--some of which were historic in their power and devastation--wildfires, typhoons, and other natural disasters.

Mr. Speaker, we will also consider additional legislation related to fiscal year 2019 appropriations.

We are on day 21 of the shutdown. The House Democrats will continue to work so that it comes to an end as soon as possible.

Members will also be advised that additional legislative items are possible. I might add to that, it is possible we will deal with one, two, or three of the appropriation bills that haven't been passed, but it is also quite possible that, hopefully, we will deal with the balance of the appropriation bills which have not been enacted. We will have to see what transpires over the next 24, 48, 72, or 96 hours. Hopefully, we will be able to move forward to get our Federal employees back to work.

I thank the gentleman for his observations.

Of course, as the gentleman knows, we have and continue to be and are today even more so concerned about the fact that the President of the United States has taken hostage the Government of the United States and shut it down. As a result, what we have asked for before we get into serious negotiations is to let us open up the government; for, after all, when we have border security being our focus, nobody that is protecting the borders for the United States of America is getting paid. The morale is low; the apprehension is high; and we believe very strongly that the first step we ought to take is open up government.

Then, as the gentleman well knows, we have articulated on numerous occasions--and I hope the gentleman believes we are honest. And when the gentleman reviews the record of when we were in charge of the House and the Senate, we made very substantial investments in border security, as I think probably the gentleman knows.

Furthermore, we have been ready to support and offered the bills that the Republicans have passed. And, in fact, I think the minority leader in the Senate said that he would accept the number that the President suggested, and

we made some counteroffers. They were rejected.

In fact, Senator McConnell believed he had an agreement with the President on keeping the government open. He sent us a bill to do just that in the waning days of December, and as the minority whip well knows, that bill was not taken up on the floor of this House.

In fact, a bill which had been pending for 11\1/2\ months in committee first came to the floor with 10 days left in the year. That bill included a number far above the number that the President originally asked for and far above any number that had been discussed. Although it passed the House, the House knew then, very well, that it did not have the votes in the Senate to pass, and it did not pass. As a result, the government shut down.

And we continue to be in a place, as we said at the White House, to negotiate on border security to secure our borders, to protect our people from those who would come across our borders to commit crimes, protect against drugs being imported, protect against the trafficking of human beings. We all share that view: Republicans and Democrats. The issue is how we most effectively accomplish that objective.

Pending that, the government, as we took power--and it was our responsibility--what we have done over the last 2 weeks is to pass, essentially, your bills. I don't know how we can be much more bipartisan than that than to pass your bills.

Mr. President, the Government of the United States partially has been shut down. That is the issue here. We can have the debate that the gentleman just discussed--not a word about opening up the people's government, not a word about 800,000 people who are not getting their salaries, not a word of the financial instability that he is subjecting 800,000 people to, ``he'' being the President of the United States. They are being held hostage for the ransom of doing what they believe is the right thing to do on border security.

However, Mr. Hurd says--a Republican who has more border mileage on

the border than any other congressional district in America--what the President wants to do is not the right thing.

Senator Ron Johnson says a similar quote. Lindsey Graham said he thought it was a bad investment. Now, he didn't say it yesterday or the day before. He said it about a year ago.

The government is shut down. There is no excuse for that. But the President wants his way, and he has taken 800,000 people hostage, and the ransom he demands is his wall.

Nancy Pelosi has nothing to do with shutting down this government. We have passed bill after bill over the last 2 weeks to open up this government.

If the minority whip thinks it is good for border security not to pay people who are protecting the border, he and I differ.

Let me tell you what Mick Mulvaney said. Now, he wasn't there last night, and I talked to Senator Graham last night. He made the statement that I just reflected to you.

Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said, in 2015--I understand it is not when he is working for the President, who is paying his salary-- ``To just say build the darn fence and have that be the end of an immigration discussion is absurd and almost childish for someone running for President to take that simplistic of a view.''

He said that on WRHI on 8/25/15. Look it up.

The government is shut down. If the minority whip will look at the record, we funded more money for border security in 2009 than was funded in the next 7 years under Republican control.

They didn't bring their bill, Mr. Speaker, to the floor until 11\1/2\ months had passed. But now border security has to be done right this second or we are going to close down government, keep it shut, and keep hostage 800,000 people and millions and millions and millions of Americans who rely on the services of government.

A, we are for border security. We do not want people coming into this country who are not authorized to come into this country.

B, we care about crime. We care about drugs. We care about investing money to stop drugs coming into the country and to treat those who are afflicted with drugs.

The record reflects that, Mr. Speaker. But the record also reflects that the Republicans have, over and over and over again, used the shutting down of government, the taking hostage of the people's government, to get their way.

Newt Gingrich did it first for a long period of time in 1995 and 1996, 21 days. We are going to surpass that this time. He did it because President Clinton said: I am not going to allow you to cut education spending for the people of United States as deeply as you want to cut it.

Then Senator Cruz came over here and talked to the so-called Freedom Caucus and said: Unless Obama agrees to repeal the Affordable Care Act, we are going to shut down government.

And they shut down government. Very frankly, when we tried to open it up, the minority whip didn't vote to open it up. So maybe he doesn't care about opening up government, paying people who are working for the people of the United States. I don't know.

Then, just recently, a few weeks ago, when they came to the end of the fiscal year, they had not done their job. The Republicans are in charge of the Senate; they were in charge of the House; and they have the Presidency of the United States.

So we did a CR, and we voted for it because we didn't want to shut down government. Then we came to the December date to which that CR ran, and, lo and behold, the majority leader of the United States Senate sent us over a bill. It was not our bill; it was a bill from the Republican majority leader. It came here under unanimous consent. Their Republican-led Senate sent it here, and, lo and behold, the leadership in the House would not take up that bill.

Why? The President, who had told Senator McConnell he would sign it, changed his mind. Whether it was Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, I don't know who the principal adviser in that decision was, but one person communicated: I won't sign that bill.

So the Republican leadership decided: We won't put that bill on the floor.

They put a bill on the floor--they said over and over and over again: This week, we put bills on the floor that wouldn't pass the Senate.

They put a bill that they knew would not pass the United States Senate on the floor, sent it over there. It didn't pass, and government has been shut down.

The gentleman continues to want to talk about, can we negotiate? We can negotiate. The President walked out. He walked out because Nancy Pelosi, when asked, ``Thirty days from now, will you support the wall?'' said, ``No.''

The President had a tantrum, and he walked out. He said: Well, this is a waste of my time.

This is not a process where the President tells us to do things. As I recall, Mr. Speaker, the Constitution of the United States, Article I, says we are the policymakers; we are the ones who pass the laws; we are the ones who say what the executive department carries out as policy.

So we ought to pass these bills. Then, yes, we ought to deal, honestly and openly and together, to make sure the borders are secure.

The gentleman said the immigration system does not work; it is broken. He is absolutely right. The Senate, 5 or 6 years ago, passed a bill, in a bipartisan way, with over 62 votes, 14 Republicans, and sent it to the House under Republican leadership 6 years ago. They have never brought that bill to the floor. We have pleaded with them to bring that bill to the floor to fix the immigration system. It has never come, Mr. Speaker, to the floor of this House.

But what we should never do, we should never take hostage the government of the United States, the employees who toil every day on behalf of the policies that we adopt and on behalf of the American people. We should never take them hostage and say: If you don't do what I say to do, we are going to keep them in an unpaid status, working if they are critical employees and locked out if they are not.

Mr. Speaker, it is very, very unfortunate that we find ourselves in this position. I would urge that the Republican

whip, who is my friend and whom I respect, talk to the President of the United States and say: Let's open up the government. Mr. Hoyer has told me we will sit down and have a rational, reasonable fact-based, expert- based discussion on how, in fact, we accomplish the objective we all say we want to accomplish, and that is to make our borders secure.

We are prepared to do that, open this government.

Will the gentleman yield?

Does the gentleman remember how long that lasted?

Oh, no. I think there was an election, and he did raise that question. As I recall, that is why I am the majority leader and you are the minority whip.

We could go on and on, Mr. Speaker. The fact of the matter is the Senate sent us a bill to keep the government open. They passed it unanimously, under Republican leadership. The President said he would sign it. He changed his mind, and this House folded. And the Republicans who were in charge at the time wouldn't even put the Senate bill on the floor.

We are not prepared to be bludgeoned by taking hostage 800,000 people who work for the Federal Government and who are not now being paid, some of whom are working.

And, ironically, they are working to protect the border and to make sure our planes are flying, to make sure people who fly on planes are not in danger.

We want the President of the United States to open up this government. We want the Republicans to help us open up this government. We just passed four bills that are the Senate bills. Senator McConnell is not going to take ``yes'' for an answer because the President tells him: I am not going to sign those bills.

Let me tell you something, Mr. Speaker. I have been a Member of this body for some period of time, and I served with George Bush. He was President of the United States, and we had a Democratic House, and we didn't have a shutdown. He signed appropriations bills. We worked together. We respected one another.

I would hope, Mr. Speaker, in closing, that the whip would, in fact, help us open up the government, and then we are prepared to sit down-- he knows me--and talk about how we make our borders secure and protect our people and, yes, give humanitarian services to those who are seeking asylum, running from violence and mayhem and murder. We are prepared to do that. We want to do that.

I would hope the whip, I would hope Senator McConnell, who was quoted just a few years ago as saying, ``shutdown is a failed policy''-- shutdowns ought not to occur. Adults who are responsible ought not to allow that to happen, realizing full well that in order to preclude that from happening, compromise is absolutely essential on both sides.

President Trump is the President of the United States. We have to work with him to compromise, to come to agreement. But there are an awful lot of Republicans--I quoted Will Hurd; I quoted Ron Johnson; I quoted some other Republicans--an awful lot of Republicans who think the President has the wrong idea. And, frankly, as Mr. Mulvaney said during the course of the campaign, it wasn't a very realistic idea.

But, that aside, it is time for us to open up the government, and then we will have an extensive discussion, as we must, as we should, in the best interests of the American people, to keep our borders secure and keep them safe.

How many Republicans were in the House at that point in time?

You had 240-plus.

That bill passed, did it not?

Was that bill brought up in the House?

The gentleman has a different concept of negotiating than I do. If somebody takes somebody that I care about hostage and says now I want to negotiate with you, it is not a negotiation. That is a demand. That is a ``if you don't do it, I am going to harm people.''

When you said the President of the United States said: This is the last time I am going to open up government, I am going to sign an almost overwhelmingly supported piece of legislation by Republicans and Democrats--George Bush never did that. I don't ever remember Ronald Reagan doing that or George H.W. Bush doing that or Bill Clinton doing that. They did it when it was a close vote, but not when it was overwhelming that we ought to open up the government.

As long as hostages are held by your opponent, you are not negotiating. You are subject to being demanded, ``Do what I say.'' That is not the democratic process, and it is harming, literally, millions, tens of millions of people in the process in order to get his way. I have not seen that before.

The other two shutdowns were legislative shutdowns. There is no doubt this is an executive shutdown, and you just said it: I will never sign something like this again unless it gives me what I want.

Frankly, that is what we saw in the negotiations over the 3 days we were there. The last day, of course, was about a 10-minute day because the President stomped out.

Mr. Scalise, all I can tell you is I share your view of the objective, but because we don't agree with the same ways and means to accomplish that objective, shutting down government ought not to be the alternative. The alternative ought to be to keep talking and getting to a place where I think you and I both want to get, where these borders are secure, where people are not being transported across it for human trafficking purposes, where murderers don't come across the border.

But there is a surge right now across our border, and that surge is of mostly

mothers and children seeking asylum, coming to ports of entry--not across any fences or borders, coming to ports of entry. The border guards are telling us they are turning themselves in. They want to, because they are seeking refuge from a country that has purported to be a country of refuge, that raises a statue in New York Harbor to send that message. But we need to make them known to us when they come into the country. We agree on that.

So, rather than all this rhetoric back and forth, Mr. Speaker, it is a simple proposition. Senator McConnell has said, unless the President says he will sign on opening up the government, he won't put it on the floor. That is the only person who is stopping you, because we have sent bills.

Mr. Cole of your side said: I don't like the bills because they are only Senate bills. We don't like them either, but we like, less, government being shut down. We like, less, 800,000 people being put at risk. We like, less, the anxiety that we are causing our Federal employees in terms of the financial stability of their homes and their ability to put food on their tables and pay their mortgage and pay their rent.

Surely--surely--we ought to be able to come to agreement that that is not what we ought to inflict to get our way. I hope we open up our government.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), my good friend, for yielding the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating my friend on his recent appointment to the Rules Committee, where we have already had the opportunity to interact with one another. And I want to again congratulate him for bringing his first rule to the floor as well. I know we are going to have a good relationship in the next couple of years as we work together.

Madam Speaker, we are back here in appropriations; only this time, the majority has taken what was an important, likely bipartisan disaster relief appropriations bill and turned it into a partisan football.

Last night, the Committee on Rules was scheduled to meet on a $12.1 billion supplemental appropriations bill. At the last minute, the majority chose to make in order and self-execute an amendment that would tack on an additional measure, a continuing resolution to fund the government through February 8.

I don't know if I can fully convey how disappointed I am that the majority is seeking to play politics with this important issue and use an otherwise noncontroversial disaster appropriations bill as a vehicle to pass a controversial spending bill that is going absolutely nowhere.

Last year, the Nation faced a wide variety of disasters, from wildfires in the West to hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and the

Southeastern United States, and the volcanoes in Hawaii.

When disaster strikes, we have an obligation to help each other. I don't think there is a single Member of the House who would disagree with that fundamental principle.

Before the Rules Committee acted last night, we were on our way to a bipartisan bill that fulfilled that principle. But today, we are considering a partisan bill that will not resolve the shutdown, and it holds up crucial aid for disaster victims.

To that end, Madam Speaker, I have to say that the original version of the bill was actually very good. It took roughly what the House had passed at the end of the last Congress and added to it.

In December, we passed a bill that provided $7.38 billion in disaster relief. The original bill up today would provide $12.1 billion in disaster relief, with additional money going mostly to increase existing accounts and to provide nutrition assistance to Puerto Rico. Frankly, I was prepared to be fully supportive of that measure.

Moreover, I was especially pleased that the majority took the steps toward an open process. They issued a call for amendments, considered them, and made some very good amendments in order.

I want to commend Chairman McGovern for taking these steps and giving Members on both sides of the aisle an opportunity to present the case for their amendments to the Rules Committee and, in many cases, to the full House.

But instead of moving forward on a joint disaster relief bill, the majority decided at the last minute to turn this noncontroversial piece of legislation into a controversial one by attaching a self-executing manager's amendment which adds a continuing resolution to fund the government through February 8.

Madam Speaker, I want to be clear. I want to end the government shutdown as well. I have said countless times on this floor and elsewhere that the primary responsibility of legislators is to fund the government and keep it open. Our constituents deserve no less than the full amount of government services we have promised them.

At the end of December, I voted in favor of a bill that would have done exactly that. It would have funded the government through February 8. It would have funded disaster relief, and it would have provided funding for border security. A majority of the Senate favored that bill, and the President had said he would sign it. Unfortunately, the Democratic minority in the Senate blocked consideration of the bill, a bill that could have stopped this shutdown before it ever happened.

This, now, is the fourth proposal by my friends across the aisle to reopen the government. Tomorrow, we will be likely considering a fifth proposal. Unfortunately, each of these items has in common the same flaws.

The Senate made it clear that it will not take up any spending bill that the President cannot sign, and the President has made it clear that he will not sign any bill that does not address border security. Yet my friends across the aisle continue to put forward measure after measure that simply do not provide funding for border security.

Today, the majority is seeking to one-up itself. They have taken a disaster relief bill to provide funding for victims of hurricanes, wildfires, and volcanoes, and they are attaching to it the same funding bill the House previously passed. The House may have passed it, but the Senate won't, and the President won't sign it.

Why, then, does the majority insist on using disaster victims as leverage to avoid addressing border security?

Madam Speaker, I want to reopen the government. I want us to provide for disaster victims, and I want us to provide for border security. We can accomplish all three of these things. The House can do all three of these things. In fact, the House has done all three of these things as recently as December. Why the majority only wants to accomplish one of those and wants to do so by using disaster victims as leverage is beyond me.

I know my friends think they can force the Senate and the President to bend to their will, but they cannot, and they will not. In divided government, negotiation and compromise are indispensable in governing. So far, my friends have engaged in neither.

Madam Speaker, today, we should be happy to provide needed relief to disaster victims. Instead, we are here on the fourth proposal from the majority on government funding and a fourth proposal that does not address fundamental problems, does not negotiate with the majority, and does not put forward a bill that can become law.

To quote the baseball legend and philosopher Yogi Berra, ``it's deja vu all over again.''

So I would suggest my friends go to the bargaining table with the United States Senate and with the President of the United States and see if they can actually work with the other bodies and help us come to some resolution, the differences between the two.

Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Newhouse), my good friend and former member of the Rules Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser), my good friend and a new member of this body.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida

(Mr. Rutherford), my very good friend and former law enforcement professional and sheriff.

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

I wish to notify the House, Madam Speaker, that if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will bring up the appropriations package the House passed in December, including full funding for the government through February 8, $7.8 billion for disaster relief, and $5.7 billion for border security.

Madam Speaker, that is a bill that the Senate will actually take up and pass. That is a bill that the President has said he will actually sign.

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

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend again for the time; I thank him for participating in the debate; and I congratulate him on being close to finishing his first rule.

Madam Speaker, in closing, I want to respond to a couple of things that my good friend said. First of all, he said he brought ``their'' bills to the floor, meaning our bills, I presume. He didn't bring our bills to the floor. He brought Senate bills to the floor.

Actually, those bills are nothing like the bills that the House had passed and, in many cases, are quite inferior to the product that had been jointly compromised between the two bodies.

Just speaking from something I know very well, which is Indian healthcare, the bill that he presented to us had absolutely no House input from either Republican or Democratic Members, had $135 million less for the Indian Healthcare Service, had $26 million less for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I can go on and on and on.

The bills actually that, frankly, we were pretty close to having conferenced and done were, honestly, quite superior. They had many Democratic and Republican suggestions in them and many Member suggestions. If we passed what the majority is presenting, all we are doing is just turning over the appropriations function of the United States House of Representatives to the United States Senate and saying: We don't really need a House; anything you guys do is fine.

That is the product that has been presented to us. It is not acceptable to our side to simply throw away House prerogatives and positions.

Again, my friends have the majority here. We respect that. They will almost certainly prevail on the rule and on the vote, and I certainly accept that. That is the way this institution works.

But what he fails to tell me is whether or not he is ever going to get the Senate to ever pick this up. So far, he hasn't. This is the fourth attempt. We will see another one tomorrow. Whether or not he can actually produce legislation that the President of the United States will sign, so far, he hasn't. And they are the majority.

Under our constitutional system, passing legislation through the House is simply not sufficient. It has to be able to pass the United States Senate. It has to be signed by the President of the United States, unless two-thirds of the House and the Senate are willing to override his veto. Frankly, I don't think my friends have two-thirds majority here either, and they certainly don't in the United States Senate.

So I have a modest proposal. Probably the people who are producing this legislation here should sit down and talk with the United States Senate ahead of time and say: Can we split the difference here? Can we find some common ground?

Actually, the President did that in December, literally sent the Vice President to the negotiation to say: We would like to get $5 billion. We think that is the appropriate amount. But what if we settle at $2\1/ 2\ billion? The answer was no.

That is a normal, reasonable compromise. It is called splitting the difference. The President tried to do that.

I do commend my friends, because I know they are serious about wanting to reopen the government. We would love to work with them on getting that done, but it is going to entail some compromise.

Frankly, over the next 2 years, if my friends want to get anything done, and I know they do, they will have to compromise.

Been there before. We were in a situation where we were the majority in the United States House of Representatives with a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democratic President. It took, I will say, some of my colleagues a long time to figure out that we had to have help in the United States Senate, and we had to have a President that would sign bills, and we were going to have to compromise on some things that we thought were fundamentally very, very important.

I suggest my friends learn from our experience in that regard.

Again, I respect the effort to reopen the government. I would love to participate in it. This bill, quite frankly, could have been something that I think would have started us down the right direction, and it almost was.

We had Members on both sides of the aisle that very much wanted to vote for this legislation. Frankly, and again, I commend the chairman of our committee, Mr. McGovern. He set up a process so that we could provide amendments, Member input. We had full consideration of those amendments in the Rules Committee. I would have liked a few more to be made in order, but I can't complain about the ones that were. I think it was a fair process.

Only the Democratic leadership's insistence on putting something that they knew the Senate would not pick up, and they knew the President would not sign, stopped that disaster relief bill. That is all. That literally could have been passed out of here today, could have been passed immediately by the United States Senate, would have been signed by the President, would have gotten us out of this cycle at least a little bit, would have shown us what functioning government actually looks like. But I guess the theater of the moment is more important than actually getting disaster relief to people, so we will go through this exercise yet again.

Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge opposition to this rule and the underlying measure. The majority has taken a noncontroversial, bipartisan, supplemental disaster appropriations bill and has turned it into a political football. Today's bill was originally intended to provide relief for disaster victims, and, instead, the majority has turned it into yet another continuing resolution that is not going anywhere.

This is the same continuing resolution that the House previously passed and that the Senate refused to consider. Whether the Democrats like it or not, they need to engage with Republicans on border security. Instead, they are now bringing up their fourth attempt to pass a government funding bill without border security. And this time, they are using disaster victims as leverage to push their policies.

The majority would be better served to undertake serious negotiations with Republicans over the need for border security and find a way out of the crisis of their making, rather than pushing the exact same bill again.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' on the previous question, ``no'' on the underlying measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I hail from the Seventh District of South Carolina, and for 3 days in September the Nation was rapt as Hurricane Florence stalled directly on top of my district.

I have eight counties in my district. All eight counties were declared disaster areas. The inland counties were inundated, as North Carolina was, and all the rain that fell in North Carolina and those inland counties comes through five river systems out Georgetown County, South Carolina.

My district was overcome by a slow-motion, rolling disaster. And if that wasn't bad enough, that was the third storm in 4 years. Hurricane Matthew hit us 3 years ago.

With Hurricane Matthew, the Federal Government awarded us $95 million to rebuild 1,350 houses for indigent families. And, at the speed the Federal Government moves, as of now, 2\1/2\ years after the storm, about 400 of those 1,300 homes have been rebuilt, so we have got about 1,000 indigent South Carolinians either gone or living in substandard housing.

Now, in this storm, 12,163 homes were ``moderately damaged.'' I asked the definition of ``moderate damage.'' They said that means that there was water inside the house but it was less than 2 feet deep.

My friends, we also incurred $200 million of agricultural damage. In these last two storms, our agricultural department didn't even ask for help from the Federal Government, but the farmers are at their wits' end.

A farmer told me that 3 years ago they used their cash, the last storm they used their equity, and now they are at the end of their rope. We will be losing South Carolina farmers if we don't help these people.

So, I was prepared to support this, and House Republicans passed this disaster bill as part of the supplemental in December.

Now the Democrats bring it back up, and it is subject to opening the government up with no wall funding, and they know full well that the President wouldn't sign it, even if we did pass it.

This is a political game, and they are playing to win. But what they are playing with, the pieces that they are playing with, are hurting people in South Carolina. There are damaged people in South Carolina. They are suffering people who are on their knees.

Three of the counties that were hit the hardest--Marion, Dillon, and Marlboro counties--are some of the poorest counties in South Carolina. Overwhelmingly African American, these people had nothing before the storm, and what little they had has been taken away. And we are using these people as pawns in this fight over the government shutdown.

My friends, enough is enough. It is time to stop playing politics. As my friend across the aisle said earlier: Leaders don't hold people hostage; they find solutions.

And it is time to find a solution. They know full well that, by attaching this continuing resolution to this disaster bill, it will not pass this House, it won't get a hearing in the Senate, and the President won't sign it.

All this is for show. Enough show. Let's deliver this relief to the people who need it.

The storm hit my area September the 14th, 4 months ago. Enough show. Stop using these indigent people as pawns. Enough

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment.

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment, a commonsense fix that gives HUD the flexibility to waive redundant and unnecessary environmental requirements that slow down the disaster recovery process.

Anyone from a district that has endured one of these devastating hurricanes, wildfires, or floods can attest to the fact that Congress should do everything in our power to quickly give these communities relief.

Madam Chair, 3 years ago, South Carolina was struck by Hurricane Matthew. As a result of that storm, South Carolina was awarded $95 million, which was to be used to repair the households of 1,300 indigent families.

The three counties that were most affected were three of the very poorest counties in South Carolina, Marion, Dillon, and Marlboro, and 2 years and 6 months later, about $25 million of that $95 million has been spent, about 400 of those houses have been repaired, which leaves about 1,000 South Carolina families, indigent families, people who had nothing to begin with, either out of their homes or living in substandard, mold-infested housing that could burn down from electrical problems, or the flooring is buckled and so forth. We have to do better.

Why does it take so long? Why does it take two-and-a-half years to get these people back in their homes?

What I want to do, what my amendment does, is remove some of the burdensome Federal requirements that stand in the way of delivering the relief that the Federal Government has offered up money to pay for.

Now we come to Hurricane Florence. Hurricane Florence parked on top of my district and the southern part of North Carolina for 3 days in September and dumped over 40 inches of rain in places. And then when the storm finally did leave, for the next 2 weeks, the rivers rose and people were driven from their homes.

16,000 houses in my district were damaged. 12,000 of those houses had what they call moderate damage, which in their definition means that the house had water inside of the house but it was less than 2 feet deep.

Since the first major hurricane hit my district, I have been in constant contact with all Federal and State agencies involved in the recovery and rebuilding process. I frequently visit homes that are under construction and check with my constituents to ensure the process is going smoothly.

With respect to Matthew from two-and-a-half years ago, almost 1,000 of my constituents are still not in their homes.

My top question is, Why is this taking so long? And what can we do to fix it?

Part of their answer is reforming the long, expensive, and redundant environmental review process.

Currently, before a home is rebuilt with HUD funds, the South Carolina Disaster Recovery Office must conduct two environmental assessments. After completing a countywide assessment, every single home that is eligible to be repaired with HUD funds must undergo a second assessment, no matter the size or type of repair that they are using the HUD dollars to complete.

For example, if someone is using FEMA funds to repair a hole in the roof, the contractor can repair the hole without the homeowner having to complete an environmental study. However, if a home is being repaired using HUD funding, a costly and time-consuming environmental assessment must be completed before even the most minor of repairs can be made to the home.

This onerous regulatory requirement is just one more roadblock that my constituents face in the recovery process.

And I tell you again, the counties that were affected by this storm most severely are the poorest counties in South Carolina; majority African American, these people never had anything to begin with, and whatever they had has been taken away from them, and they need relief and they don't need Federal regulatory roadblocks.

Bringing the regulations that apply to HUD in line with other Federal agencies will create a more streamlined process and ensure the Federal dollars are put to use in a more prompt fashion.

We need to cut down the time and the costs that are preventing people in my district from getting back in their homes, back to normal, and on with their lives, and this practical amendment will do just exactly that.

Madam Chair, I have to reiterate that the House Republicans passed this disaster package in December, and here we come, the Democratic majority has put it back up, but has subjected it to reopening the government, and has made that a poison pill to make it impossible to be passed in this House.

Certainly it will not pass in the Senate, and the President will not sign it even if we pass it in this House.

Madam Chair, I urge Members to vote for this amendment and I urge the Democratic majority to stop playing politics with disaster recovery funds.

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