Providing for budget enforcement for fiscal year 2020.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 294 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

General Leave

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

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 294, providing for consideration of H.R. 2021, the Investing for the People Act, under a structured rule. The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on the Budget. The rule makes in order three amendments, each debatable for 10 minutes.

The rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act. The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The rule makes in order 12 amendments, each debatable for 10 minutes.

Additionally, the rule deems as passed House Resolution 293, which will immediately put in place an enforceable top-line discretionary spending level so that the Appropriations Committee can begin its work.

Finally, the rule provides standard recess instructions through April 26.

Mr. Speaker, the Investing for the People Act is a 2-year budget bill that will raise the defense sequestration caps for defense and nondefense discretionary spending for fiscal year 2020 and 2021.

I believe my colleagues from both sides of the aisle fully understand the devastating effects of sequestration. Across-the-board, mandatory cuts to every Federal program are not a successful path to fiscal responsibility.

Without taking action to lift the caps established by the Budget Control Act, nondefense discretionary funding will be cut by $54 billion. Such drastic cuts threaten public health, the environment, access to education, job training, and lifesaving social services like food and housing assistance.

Cuts to nondefense discretionary funding would also impact our national security. Nearly one-third of investments in this area fund veterans' programs, homeland security initiatives, diplomatic operations, foreign aid, and Justice Department activities.

If an agreement on lifting the cap is not reached, defense programs also stand to lose $71 billion. In a dangerous world, those cuts would be, in my view, harmful to national and global security.

Only a few months ago, the American people felt the harsh effects of a government shutdown. It is time to come together to take decisive action to avoid another blow to essential Federal programs that help hardworking Americans in every State. This legislation ensures working families will be able to rely on continued Federal funding for the programs that keep them safe, support their jobs, and invest in their children.

In fiscal year 2020, defense spending would be capped at $664 billion, with nondefense discretionary spending capped at $631 billion.

The Investing for the People Act would also provide up to $8 billion, annually, for nondefense overseas contingency operations, OCO, activities that do not count against the spending caps, while limiting OCO designation of defense spending in 2020 and 2021 to no more than the fiscal year 2019 level of $69 billion dollars.

In his budget, President Trump proposed continued spending on defense measures but massive cuts to domestic programs like public health research, infrastructure investment, and support for low-income families.

Even as our Nation draws down from our overseas war operations, domestic spending remains at a historic low as a percentage of our economy. H.R. 2021 provides a pathway for improving the lives of Americans in every community and renews our commitment to spending to meet the needs of our communities and invest in our economy.

In addition to protecting Americans from spending cuts, the House will be considering protections for a product all of us here today rely upon to do our jobs and live our lives, just like millions of Americans: the internet. This rule also provides for consideration of essential protections for American consumers who use the internet.

The Save the Internet Act would reinstate the Open Internet Order of 2015 that classifies broadband internet services as common carriers that are prohibited from preferentially treating or discriminating against groups of persons.

An overwhelming 86 percent of Americans opposed the FCC's rollback of net neutrality protections. All this legislation does, Mr. Speaker, is restore those protections.

Fair and reliable internet access is absolutely essential to millions of working families and small business owners. Practices like blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization harm the ability of every American to experience the internet in the same way, regardless of provider or how much money you pay.

The Save the Internet Act includes enhanced transparency protections and enacts specific rules against throttling, blocking, and other violations of net neutrality. The FCC would be empowered to investigate consumer and business complaints and impose necessary fines against internet service providers for violations of the Communications Act.

The bill also provides pathways to internet access for every American, especially those in rural communities who are being left behind by modern, high-speed internet infrastructure.

The Save the Internet Act would once again allow the FCC to fund rural broadband through the Connect America Fund.

Additionally, this legislation revives the Lifeline program, created under the Reagan administration to subsidize phone service for low- income families. Under this legislation, the FCC would again have authorization to use the Lifeline program to expand access to broadband for low-income Americans, especially seniors, students, veterans, and disabled Americans.

In response to concerns raised by our Republican colleagues, the Save the Internet Act also ensures that the FCC has the power to protect access to the internet but does not have authority to make decisions over internet content or the power to impose taxes and fees for internet access.

This legislation forbears the FCC from applying more than 700 regulations under the Communications Act that are unnecessary to protecting an open internet, such as rate setting.

Internet service providers have long claimed that they were hamstrung by net neutrality protections and that strong consumer protections were preventing them from investing in higher speeds and advanced broadband infrastructure.

In reality, ISPs actually increased speeds and invested huge amounts in improving their broadband during the time when net neutrality protections were enforced by the FCC. Moreover, many of the largest providers have failed to keep their promise of increased investing after the Trump FCC repealed those protections, with investments actually shrinking in recent years.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for this rule and for both pieces of legislation underlying it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me just make a few brief comments, and I always appreciate the passion that Mr. Woodall, my distinguished friend and colleague, brings to this discussion.

I do want to say what this is. First of all, the rule before the House has both a resolution, which I talked about, which is really the safety net, it establishes the $1.295 trillion for discretionary spending and, in addition, allows us to do IRS enforcement--$400 million is in the resolution--and the census 2020, which is upcoming and which will take thousands and thousands of people to conduct the census in the way that the Framers identified it to be.

It also has a budget bill. And I do want to just mention just a few points that relate to what Mr. Woodall said.

The major components of the budget are in the budget bill. It provides a top line for discretionary spending, provides allocations to the authorizing committees, provides a revenue floor, enforces all these 302 allocations, and sets new caps for discretionary spending, gives allocations to authorizing committees, all of these things which will match the CBO's baseline, I might add, and enforcement through regular Budget Act points of order.

So this does have a budget bill. What we do with the resolution, however, is critically important because it makes sure that we begin this process.

I think the thing that we all want to avoid in the greatest possible way is a shutdown. We saw that happen, and 2018 made history.

Although the House, the Senate, and the White House were all controlled by the same party, we ended Congress for the first time in U.S. history in a government shutdown, an inglorious end to the 115th Congress.

We need to do anything we can. This starts that process, creates a safety net, and jump-starts the budget process. So this is a completely appropriate and, in my view, mandatory way to start this process. And I will perhaps, if I get a moment or two, talk about the budget that the President submitted to us.

I also want to just mention for a moment, if I can, the comments raised by my colleague relative to the net neutrality bill. This, under the current rule, has enormous exposure to consumers and businesses. It does not impede innovation, what we are attempting to do. In fact, in my view, it will spur innovation, and it provides predictably for all users, consumers and businesses alike.

I do note that the rule that we reported out last night ensures that we do everything we can to reaffirm that commitment to fair access.

The rule made in order 12 amendments, both from Democrats and Republicans. It is a structured rule. Some of those amendments I agree with, some of those I disagree with, but every single one is worthy of debate on the floor. I am very proud, and I want to also congratulate the chair of our committee, Mr. McGovern, for making sure that we have amendments from both sides to discuss on this floor.

I do want to just mention a couple of them. Several amendments aim to strengthen access to broadband internet in rural and underserved communities. Mr. Brindisi, for instance, has an amendment which we will take up which requires the GAO to produce a report about the ways the U.S. government can promote the deployment of broadband to rural communities.

Representative Wexton has an amendment requiring the FCC to submit to Congress a plan on how the Commission would address problems in collecting data on deployment of broadband. By fixing these problems, we can have a better understanding of those communities that are served by broadband and ensure every community has access.

We have an amendment by Representative Waters asking the Comptroller General to submit a report on how net neutrality helps ethnic and racial minorities and how those rules will help disadvantaged groups, rural populations, individuals with disabilities, and the elderly. Without that full information, we cannot ensure that everyone is receiving the same treatment.

We have an amendment from Representative Davids directing GAO to

submit a report examining the FCC's efforts to assess competition. Colleagues are worried about how net neutrality rules will impact competition, but they have no data to back up their claims, so let's collect the data we need. Good policy is always backed by good evidence.

We also made in order an amendment by Representative McAdams which would affirm that ISPs can still block unlawful content, such as child pornography. Some content has no place on the internet, nor anywhere in our homes, and we want to make sure that ISPs block this, as they should, and that nothing in the bill will prevent them from doing so.

There are several other amendments made by Democrats that will be on the floor. I won't go into them any further. But I do want to acknowledge, also, that we have amendments in order submitted by Republican colleagues as well.

Mr. Latta submitted an amendment requiring the FCC to share the list of 700 rules that will be permanently forborne once this bill becomes law, which makes sense to me. We had this conversation in rules yesterday, to ask the question what those 700 rules are. The FCC has determined them to be unnecessary and burdensome.

Let's look at them and see what they are. Let's see the list. Let's show the American people that the government was not regulating for the sake of regulating and that, when those regulations are no longer appropriate, we will remove them.

Finally, my colleagues on the Rules Committee made Representative Burgess' amendment in order. It directs the GAO to initiate a study to examine the virtuous cycle of the internet ecosystem and the effect of net neutrality on that ecosystem--again, an amendment which was made in order to make sure that we have bipartisan discussion here on the floor.

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

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

I appreciate my good friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma's comments.

Those on the other side may say this is messy, but do you know what is messier? Another government shutdown.

We just endured, earlier this year, a 35-day government shutdown, the longest shutdown in our history. In this committee, we are committed to doing everything in our power to prevent that from happening again.

We want to make sure we can move forward with appropriations legislation, and this provision is a safety net to assure that process can begin. Whenever a budget bill comes up, whenever we begin that appropriations process, we will have a path forward.

My good friend raised the question of the President. I have to admit I am new here, haven't been here very long. I have been involved in the budget process in the State of New York for many years.

Frankly, watching the budget and looking at the budget submitted by the President, I would be embarrassed. I think it is no wonder that my friends on the other side of the aisle didn't submit, as an amendment, the President's budget.

The President's budget is devastating. I look to how it would devastate the people in my home State of New York: repeals the Affordable Care Act, eliminates health insurance for 2.2 million New Yorkers, abolishes protections for people with preexisting conditions, substantially increases premiums for older Americans.

If the budget that Donald Trump submitted became law, a 60-year-old living in New York making $25,000 a year could see their healthcare premiums increase by up to $5,000 annually, from $1,600 to $6,300 in 2020, a quarter of their income.

It cuts funding for New York's Medicaid program by $159 billion over the next 10 years. Nationally, the Trump budget proposes to cut Medicaid by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, 36 percent in 2029 alone.

College would be more expensive for 179,000 New Yorkers by completely eliminating the Direct Subsidized Loan Program and taking away grants for 108,000 students by abolishing the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant program. At a time when people need to have knowledge more than at any other time in human history to safeguard their economic future and those of their families, to cut college programs is reprehensible.

But I don't care just about New Yorkers, Mr. Speaker. My friend from Georgia, I have a brother who lives in Georgia. His children live in Georgia. I care a great deal about the people in Georgia as well.

The Trump budget:

Eliminates after-school programs for 41,000 Georgia students by zeroing out the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program;

Takes away high-quality childcare and early education for 4,200 low- income Georgia children by cutting Head

Start by 17 percent in the final year of this budget;

Eliminates nutrition assistance for up to 395,000 Georgians, 90 percent of whom live in households with at least one child, elderly person, or a person with a disability, by cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by $220 billion, nationally, over 10 years;

Takes the food out of the mouths of 4,000 pregnant women, new moms, babies, and toddlers in Georgia by cutting the Women, Infants and Children program by 13 percent in the final year of this budget.

I could go on and on, Mr. Speaker, but I will spare my colleagues a long dissertation on the Trump budget, other than recognize that this House is moving forward. We are beginning this process. We have established a safety net.

This is what Americans want. They don't want another shutdown. And we are going to do everything in our power--together, I hope, in a bipartisan way--to make sure that we continue to move forward in the years to come.

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

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

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

I do note for my friend, Mr. Burgess, whom I serve on the Rules Committee with, that we, in an effort to enhance bipartisanship, made his amendment in order. I believe it is the first amendment in order, and I certainly expect that it will get broad consideration on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from over 120 businesses and startups urging Congress to support net neutrality. This letter says: ``Passing H.R. 1644 will provide certainty for businesses and startups and would ensure critical consumer protections for all internet users.''

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Kevin McCarthy,

Republican Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy: We are writing in

support of H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act, to fully

restore the strong net neutrality protections for Internet

users that were adopted through the FCC's 2015 Open Internet

Order but later repealed.

Net neutrality is fundamental to guaranteeing that every

American has unencumbered access to the Internet. This access

is also essential to a competitive, free market for the

technology economy to thrive as well as entrepreneurship in

this country. The benefits of these protections are not

confined to technology companies and startups. Main Street

businesses across numerous sectors increasingly rely on

unfettered Internet access to run their operations and to

reach customers.

Net neutrality has been critical to the Internet's

explosive growth, creating an open platform on which

companies large and small can grow. We urge members of

Congress to stand on the side of consumers and Internet users

to quickly pass a clean, unamended version of H.R. 1644. This

bill would restore strong rules prohibiting blocking,

throttling, and paid-prioritization while reinstating ex-ante

enforcement and oversight by the FCC to prevent net

neutrality-related harms from happening in the first place.

Passing H.R. 1644 will provide certainty for businesses and

startups and would ensure critical consumer protections for

all Internet users.

Sincerely,

1Huddle, Ad Hoc Labs (dba Burner), Adaptive Energy,

AlleyWatch, Applemon, Attentive, Inc, BetaDefense, Binary

Formations, LLC, Bitly, Bloomers Island, Blue Ocean

Technology, Bluebell Advisors, Inc/Gilbane Advisor, BusBot

Incorporated, CapSen Robotics, Chartbeat, CitiQuants

Corporation, Cogent Communications, Cole House LLC, Concourse

Markets, Contextly.

Creative Action Network (CAN), CredSimple, D3FY.COM,

Darling, Inc., DART Technologies, Digital4Startups Inc., DLT

Education, EarnedCard, Educreations, Elucd, Etsy, Inc, Expa,

Fan Guru, Filament, FinToolbox (Screener.co), FluentStream,

Founder Academy, Foursquare, Friends, G. A. Hensley Company

Inc.

General Assembly Space, Inc., GitHub, Inc., Globig Inc.,

goTenna, Grey Horse Communications, Gust, Gusto, Haute Huab,

High Fidelity hobbyDB, HOGARU, Hoola Hoop LLC, InnovateEDU,

Inwage LLC, JOOR, JustFix.nyc, Karavan App, Karma+, Laconia

Capital Group, Launch Pad.

Loxo, LR, Makeo Company LLC, Mapbox, Market Mic LLC,

Martech, Mavatar Technology Inc., Medium, Meta, LLC,

MetaProp.vc, Minibar Delivery, Mozilla Corporation, Music to,

Neighborland, Neta Collab, Netsyms Technologies, Onfido,

Onfleet, Inc., Outdoor Project, Patreon, Inc.

Postmates, Promogogo, Rainmakers, Reddit, Inc., Rentify,

Rex Ag Labs, Routific, Sandwich.Net, LLC, Shotwell Labs,

Inc., Shutterstock, Inc, Simply Made Apps, SlidesUp, Snaps

Media Inc., Spoonful, SpotHero, Starsky Robotics, Stealth

Communications, Stripe, Stylaquin, Svaha LLC, Tampa Bay Wave.

Tenpin, textile.io, Tinybeans USA Ltd, Tostie Productions,

LLC, Troops.ai, TrueAbility, Tunesync, Twitter, Uncork

Capital, Venrock, Via, Vimeo, Inc., WayUp, Wellthy, White

Lioness Coaching, Women 2.0, WorkHound, Yapp, You

Got Listings, Inc, Zyper.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the sentiments of the gentleman. We certainly agree.

The House has passed disaster relief. We await Senate conferees, so we can move that process forward. But what strikes me is how troubling it is to have this conversation.

The reality is that the President of the United States has chosen which Americans to provide aid to. The island of Puerto Rico, American citizens, has suffered disasters, calamities, as a result of Hurricane Maria, yet the President shows no indication that he understands the plight of the people on Puerto Rico. That is why it is necessary for the House and Senate to come together to provide relief, because the President, frankly, has chosen not to do it.

We welcome the comments by the gentleman. We look forward to the Senate establishing members of a conference committee, so we can work out differences that we may have and move this forward. We continue to hope for that day and hope that the President will gain some enlightenment about how we help and protect all American citizens.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I would just reiterate what I said earlier, which is that all Americans need help in times of disaster.

Despite the fact that some would try to ignore the fact that climate change exists and has created natural disasters that we could not have predicted years ago, the fact is that those disasters continue to happen.

All Americans--I don't care whether you live in New York or Alabama, Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands--all Americans need help.

One of the first bills we passed under a structured rule in this Congress was to provide that relief, yet it sits in the Senate because they seek to choose which Americans get benefited by the Federal Government's relief efforts and which do not.

We are going to stand firmly in the corner of all Americans getting the support from the Federal Government that they deserve. We are not going to pick and choose.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope that my colleagues here across the aisle are going to march across to the other Chamber and insist to the United States Senate that it takes up that bill, that we establish a conference committee, and that we send this to the White House.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the passion that Mr. Woodall brings to conversations, both here on the floor as well as in the two committees on which we are privileged to serve. I thank him for that and thank him for his concerns about how we move forward.

I believe this is moving forward. Today, we are moving forward. We set the tone of how we move forward. We establish our discretionary amount. We end the sequestration caps. We begin to move forward, and I think that is what we want to do.

It is fascinating. I note that Mr. Woodall, in his comments, mentioned you can't get all 435 Members to agree. I certainly understand that, and I appreciate it. We couldn't get one Member to offer the President's budget as an amendment.

The truth is that there is a failure of leadership here. This is a process that is new to me, but I certainly expected that the President would provide greater leadership on how to move forward. We have seen none from the White House, which I find troubling and I find puts us at a considerable disadvantage.

We need to move forward, nonetheless, Mr. Speaker, and that is what we are doing today.

I do know that, for me, the amount of discretionary investments we make will say a great deal about where we are going as a country and what our priorities are.

I think we need to make greater investments in education and in public health, highways and transit, veterans healthcare, agricultural research, workplace safety, K-12 education support, national parks, housing assistance and mortgage insurance, small business assistance, Head Start, food safety, scientific research and space exploration--God knows, as a percentage of GDP, we need to continue to invest dramatically in those--embassy security, Pell grants for higher education students, hazardous waste cleanup, waterway maintenance for commerce and recreation, weather forecasting, hurricane-proofing communities, forest and wildlife habitat management, conservation resources, patents and trademarks, consumer protections, and aviation safety.

The list goes on and on for the kind of investments we need to make to continue to make sure that America leads in the 21st century. That is what this does today. That is what this rule will do. That is what the resolution budget process starts today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues for their words of support for H.R. 2021, the Investing for the People Act. I especially thank Chairman Yarmuth and Ranking Member Womack for their work on our Nation's budget.

I also thank Chairman Pallone and Ranking Member Walden and all those who have worked on H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule, and I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question.

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

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

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

I thank my friend from New York for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. And, at the risk of opening this debate like I opened so many others in 2019: Mr. Speaker, we have taken an opportunity to do something very productive and very bipartisan and we have turned it into something that is going to be very partisan and wholly unproductive.

Neither of the bills we are considering in this rule today are going to be moving through the Senate. Neither of the bills we are considering today are going to be signed by the President. But the good foundation in both of those bills could have been, and we have missed yet another opportunity.

Let me start with H.R. 1644, Mr. Speaker, the so-called Save the Internet Act. I can't speak for everyone else's internet, but my internet is still thriving. I haven't seen any nefarious internet shortages or blockages in recent days.

For the millions and millions of Americans trying to livestream C- SPAN right now, they are having no problems whatsoever. It is going right through the pipes the way it always has, Mr. Speaker. And, if it is in need of saving, it is certainly not in need of saving from this institution.

I understand, Mr. Speaker, that my friends on the other side of the aisle are upset with the Trump administration's FCC.

You will recall that the Obama administration and its FCC took the regulations that had governed the internet from its inception through its explosion of productivity and innovation, all the way through 2015, and threw all those rules out entirely, replacing it with a command- and-control government structure.

In its wisdom and with my great support, the Trump administration and the FCC threw those new rules out, taking us back to those rules that provided the foundation for the internet and all of the productivity that it has provided.

It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that so many folks are afraid of internet freedom that we need to try to find a way to clamp down on internet freedom and bend the internet to the will of the government.

I would argue that the Wild West innovation style that has driven the internet and tech companies from day one shouldn't be boxed in by the government and certainly shouldn't be replaced with a 1930s-era, Ma Bell telephone regulatory scheme.

That is what we are talking about here today with this bill, Mr. Speaker, is turning over regulation of the internet to title II of the Communications Act.

If you have not looked at title II recently, Mr. Speaker, it is almost 100 years old. It was created to govern that wonderful emerging technology called the landline telephone and the monopolistic telephone companies that existed at that time.

I don't know how many of your staffers still have landline telephones, Mr. Speaker. I know your grandchildren probably don't even know how to operate one these days.

We certainly should not be relying on those regulations to bring us forward with innovation. The heavy hand of government regulation always takes us backwards.

The good news, Mr. Speaker, is that, if you see legitimate challenges out there, we do have some bipartisan solutions to help address those: Former Chairman Walden's H.R. 1101, one such bill that could have been on the floor today; Mr. Latta's H.R. 1006, another bill that could have been on the floor today; Mrs. McMorris Rodgers' H.R. 1096 could have been on the floor today, just to name a few.

But none of those bipartisan options were seriously considered. Instead, we are left with a single option, in true government, monopolistic fashion, and that option is to support the Obama administration's failed government takeover of the internet.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose that. I oppose the legislation. I hope my other colleagues will as well.

It did not have to be this way. This could have been a productive partnership discussion about how to take what is obviously a productive and innovative tool fueling, not just urban America, not just suburban America, but rural America, and we could have talked about how to grow it together. But we chose a different path, digging partisan ditches even deeper early in 2019.

If that is not disappointing enough, Mr. Speaker, there is a second bill that this rule makes in order. That is H.R. 2021. That bill comes out of another committee that Mr. Morelle and I serve on, the House Budget Committee.

I love serving on the House Budget Committee, I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker. It is a wonderful committee on which to serve. Mr. Morelle and I are both lucky to be on it, and we have two fabulous leaders on that committee: Mr. Yarmuth of Kentucky leading the Democratic side of the aisle and Mr. Womack of Arkansas leading the Republican side of the aisle.

If you were going to task two leaders in this institution with crafting the kind of budget that I talked about from the well earlier, Mr. Speaker, a budget that would protect Social Security, protect Medicare, protect Medicaid, a budget that would lay out priorities for America, talk about where it is that we want to see our children and our grandchildren go in the 21st century, those are the two leaders who could have brought us together for the first time in a long time around a unified vision.

But, instead, the order came down from on high, Mr. Speaker. There was to be no budget. I assume that is true. We have considered absolutely no budget in the so-called Budget Committee. We have had no budget markup in the Budget Committee. We have had no discussions of budget in the Budget Committee.

Instead, what we have before us today is a bill that is sometimes referred to as a caps deal. You have heard ``caps deal'' before, Mr. Speaker.

It is those times in years past where we have taken what are those discretionary caps, those limits on how much Federal money we can spend, and we have adjusted those so that we can invest in some shared priorities on the one hand while reducing spending in some other, lower priority places.

We have done that in a bipartisan way not once, not twice, but three times. We could have been here today, Mr. Speaker, for a fourth time.

If we are not going to actually do a budget, we still could have been here on a caps deal. But this is not a caps deal. This is not a caps bill that had input from Republicans in the House. This is not a caps deal that had consultation with the Senate. This is not a caps deal that has been done in bipartisanship with the White House.

This is a caps deal that is just a deal among warring factions of a divided Democratic Caucus, and that bill has come to the floor today-- again, a bill that will not be considered in the Senate and a bill that will not be signed by the President.

We can normalize partisan failure in this institution, Mr. Speaker. We can. We can also normalize bipartisan cooperation.

I don't fault the other side for the struggles that are, inevitably, going to happen when a new majority takes over in the U.S. House of Representatives. Leading is a very difficult, difficult thing to do.

But, at the end of the day, the majority is tasked with doing exactly that--leading. The Budget Committee should produce a budget. The United States of America should have a budget.

It is not easy to do. It is not easy to pass this House floor. It is not easy to pass through a committee. But it is what the law requires us to do; it is what we have the right leaders on the Budget Committee to do; and it is what every single Member in this institution knows in their heart that we should do.

Mr. Speaker, I urge defeat of this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to my friend from New York, but I just have too many speakers who have come down to the House floor today to speak about this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), a member of the Rules Committee, our ranking member on the Rules Committee, a member of the Appropriations Committee, and one of the most thoughtful Members of the Republican Conference.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to say that my friend's criticisms of the Trump budget are perfectly legitimate. What he failed to mention, though, is the reason he can make those criticisms is because the law required the administration to offer a budget, and it did. The law also requires this House to offer a budget, and we have not.

We are better than that. This is not an Article II responsibility. This is an Article I responsibility, and we will rue the day that we decided that we would rather talk about what Article II was doing instead of doing the work ourselves here at Article I.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser), a new Member of this institution and a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Rules Committee.

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

My friend from New York is right: They did make a number of amendments in order, but not enough amendments to solve some underlying problems.

One amendment they didn't make in order was an amendment to provide disaster funding to so many of our communities that have been waiting on disaster funding--not for a day, not for a week, not for a month, but, now, into the new year.

If we defeat the previous question today, we can correct that injustice, and I will bring up an amendment to the rule to make this disaster funding possible. It is critically important.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Austin Scott) to talk about that, one of the greatest advocates for that language here in the House.

Mr. Speaker, as we have heard so often on the House floor, hopeful wishes are not enough for our constituents. We need to deliver results.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Dunn), who has been working hard in that direction.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I would say to my friend from New York, we do not have any further speakers remaining, so if he would like to get this show on the road, I am prepared to close if he is.

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my friend from New York on the Rules Committee, and I really do enjoy serving with him on the Budget Committee.

It is neat to be on the Budget Committee as a freshman because you are working with the biggest issues that we have in this country. We all care about healthcare and how it gets implemented, but we can't implement it if we can't pay for it, so the Budget Committee grapples with those issues.

We all want our seniors to be protected. They have been paying into Medicare and Social Security their entire lives, but we know those programs are headed toward bankruptcy. We can't solve those problems except in the overarching look of a Federal budget process. It is what the law requires.

We get to talk about those big ideas. We get to think those big thoughts. We get to come together to make big and, yes, Mr. Speaker, difficult decisions.

President Trump, in his budget, made difficult decisions. I dare say I could go Member to Member in this Chamber and find 435 people out of 435 who would find at least one flaw in the President's budget. I bet I could.

It is hard to write a budget for the United States of America, but the law requires that we do it. More importantly, even if the law didn't require that we do it, Mr. Speaker, we know that we should. We know the Constitution lays out that responsibility, the power of the purse, for the House. We have constituted an entire committee called the Budget Committee.

I don't want to wow you, Mr. Speaker, with my eloquence, but do you know what the responsibility of the Budget Committee is? It only has one: write the budget.

For years, there was a time when the Senate was not taking up budgets in its Budget Committee. I wondered why they didn't disband the Budget Committee because the only job the Budget Committee has is to write the budget.

We know we need to do that together. We know we do, but we are not.

The second bill this rule makes in order is the government takeover of the internet bill. Again, if you think the internet is broken and the benevolent hand of government can fix it, this is the bill for you. If you think the internet is not broken and perhaps government ought to stay where government is, and the freedom of the internet should continue, this is not the bill for you.

We need to defeat both of these bills, and we need to defeat the rule.

I do want to point out, for the Rules Committee, we were working just beyond those doors last night, Mr. Speaker, and I think the Rules Committee did the best it could with the material that it had to work with. I see the staff director of the Rules Committee sitting over there. He has a tough job.

I think the chairman did the best he could. You cannot solve the problem of a flawed, partisan committee process with the inclusion of amendments in the Rules Committee. You just can't do it. But they tried as hard as they possibly could, making in order as many amendments as they could to try to satisfy as many concerns as they could.

The problem is not the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker. That is not why we need to defeat the rules today. The problem is the leadership decision that has been made to bring up these two flawed products that were created in a partisan way when we could have brought to the floor two positive products created in a collaborative way.

We have to make a decision in this Chamber. Either we are in the business of making a point or we are in the business of making a difference. So far, the first 4 months of this year, we have been great at making a point, but we have been struggling to make a difference.

Like it or not, we have a Senate that has to pass this legislation and a President who has to sign it if we are to make it the law of the land. The two products today fail that test.

Let's not waste another moment on them, Mr. Speaker, not another moment. Let's reject this rule. Let's not bring these two pieces of legislation to the floor. Let's go back to the drawing board collaboratively, as we know we can. Lock any bipartisan group of Members into a room together, Mr. Speaker, and they will craft a better solution. We have the right leaders in this Chamber for this time. We just need to free them up to lead.

Defeat this rule. Defeat the previous question.

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

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

Mr. Chair, I rise reluctantly in opposition to H.R. 3055, and but let me say that I appreciate the efforts of the majority in producing the fiscal year 2020 appropriations package that we will be considering today.

As my colleague from New York referred to, this bill does address many priorities and concerns of Members on both sides of the aisle and, certainly, those of us from the Republican side of the aisle. Mr. Chair, we do appreciate that.

I am pleased that the bill provides critical resources for our world- class space program. It funds NASA at levels necessary to work toward the completion of the Space Launch System and the Exploration Upper Stage, and it provides strong funding to continue developing deep-space exploration technologies.

This bill also includes important funding for our Federal law enforcement components and valuable support for our law enforcement partners back home. These resources will help eliminate the sexual assault kit backlog. It will support drug courts and other vital initiatives to address the opioid crisis and help put an end to human trafficking.

The Commerce, Justice, Science bill that is a part of this package is a testament to the commitment that Chairman Serrano made to work together. As he referred to earlier, we worked very closely together. While we may not have agreed on everything that is in this bill, there was a lot that we could agree on.

Let me add that I also appreciate the majority's attention to rural development matters when crafting the Agriculture appropriations bill. I am particularly appreciative of the continued robust funding for the rural broadband program and for what now-Chairman Bishop and I worked on together to draft in the last Congress.

Yet, the fact that there are programs in this bill deserving strong support does not negate the need for fiscal accountability. Unfortunately, the bills

in this package have been written to an irresponsible top-line number.

The Commerce, Justice, Science bill alone, for example, includes a $7.5 billion adjustment for the 2020 Census plus an additional $2.3 billion above the fiscal year 2019-enacted level. It is money that the Department of Commerce says it does not need.

I stand willing to work with the majority in good faith because if we are to avoid more continuing resolutions or even a protracted government shutdown and sequestration, we need to come together in a bipartisan fashion, along with the administration, to agree on a realistic top-line funding level.

Finally, I still have many unaddressed concerns with this bill.

The bill lacks additional funding requested for NASA for the purpose of establishing a permanent U.S. space presence on and around the Moon within the next decade.

The bill also contravenes existing law by funding lawyers for the individuals who are here on our southern border without documentation.

Also, it prohibits the Justice Department from using performance metrics to measure immigration judge productivity. Let's be honest: An immigration court system with a docket approaching 900,000 cases and no appreciable case completion goal is a system devised for those who do not have a lawful right to remain in this country.

In addition, the bill eliminates several longstanding Second Amendment protections that have enjoyed historical, bipartisan support throughout the years.

The bill also prohibits the Census Bureau from including a question just merely on citizenship in the 2020 Census.

In closing, again, I thank Chairwoman Lowey and Ranking Member Granger for their hard work and that of their staff. Certainly, I thank Chairman Serrano for his dedication and hard work on behalf of the appropriations process and the United States of America.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of this amendment offered by the gentleman from Louisiana.

NASA's plan for facilities to support our human exploration mission is not sufficient, because nothing is more important than keeping our American astronauts alive and safe on these exploration missions.

We will continue to support robust funding for NASA exploration. The funding that is mentioned here, which is part of the SLS Orion and related ground system programs, is critical and supports multiple NASA facilities and personnel, and it even allows NASA engineers to assist commercial space companies with complex engineering challenges.

I urge my colleagues' support of this amendment, Madam Chair, and NASA's exploration programs.

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

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of this en bloc amendment.

I thank Chairwoman Lowey and Chairman Serrano for working with our side of the aisle, including many provisions that are important to many of our Members here on the Republican side.

Included in this en bloc group of amendments are several NASA and science-related items that I wholeheartedly support.

Congressman Babin's amendment enables the Office of Space Commerce and the Office, Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs to better assist American companies to be globally competitive, while still retaining necessary requirements for consultation with relevant agencies.

Representative Foster's amendment emphasizes the need for NASA to move towards a demonstration stage of using safe, low-enriched uranium for power on the Moon and in space, including thermal nuclear propulsion to Mars.

Madam Chair, I appreciate Chairman Serrano's decision to offer this bipartisan en bloc amendment, and I would urge my colleagues to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of the amendment.

Unfortunately, there is a campaign that seems to be of fear that surrounds this citizenship question. It really should be an educational campaign.

I would just like to reiterate some important facts about the Census itself.

The proposed question regarding citizenship status only asks if a respondent is a citizen, as has already been pointed out. It does not ask if the respondent is here lawfully or not.

Also, a person's response, if they are not a citizen, does not provide the government with any reliable information about whether they are lawfully present in the U.S.

Furthermore, by law, the Census Bureau cannot, and it will not, disclose anyone's sponsor or share data from which any individual can be identified by ICE or any other Federal agency.

Fortunately, the Census Bureau is deploying expert communicators and trusted messengers to conduct local outreach in hard-to-count communities and motivate each and every person to respond to the Census.

A successful 2020 Census will provide a full and accurate and a secure account of every person who is living in the United States, while gathering the data vital to both understanding our Nation's changing demographics and bolstering enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.

The citizenship question does not threaten anyone. The bill includes the outreach sources needed to make this fact abundantly clear to everyone. Inclusion of this provision will only serve to sow more confusion and to make the allocation of the 2020 Census more difficult.

For those reasons, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the amendment.

Madam Chairwoman, I rise in support of this amendment that is offered by the gentleman from Florida. It is in human nature to explore.

Wernher von Braun and his team in Huntsville, Alabama, designed the rockets that took us to the Moon. The Marshall Space Flight Center which is just north of the district I represent in Alabama, put the shuttle through full-scale stress tests as part of its safety certification. Now, the Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful rocket in the world, is 80 percent assembled.

With Orion on top--the capsule which allows deep space exploration-- the SLS will launch from Cape Canaveral.

As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, we further honor it by pushing ahead with the SLS mission, which will land the first female American astronaut on the Moon's surface.

Madam Chairwoman, I urge support of this amendment.

Madam Chair, I rise in reluctant opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, as I mentioned, I do rise in reluctant opposition to the amendment. The U.S. Marshals Service's Federal Prisoner Detention account supports detention of all who are remanded to the custody of the Attorney General ahead of trial or sentencing.

Of the largest segments of the average daily population of 61,000, 31 percent are held on drug charges; 24 percent are held on immigration charges; and 14 percent on firearm charges.

Moreover, the detention of individuals for these offenses is on the rise. The U.S. Marshals Service cannot afford to see this account reduced by this magnitude. There are some dangerous offenders out there. Again, I think this is an important program, but I don't think it is in the best interest to pull this money from the United States Marshals Service, and, therefore, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition. I am opposed to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition, reluctantly, to my good friend from Michigan's amendment.

As I said, there are some issues here that I think we do need to make clear. The amendment would reverse the July 2017 order from Attorney General Sessions, which included safeguards to ensure such adoptions are legal and conform to Department of Justice policy.

Adoptions allow the Federal Government to recover funds that are proceeds of or that are connected to Federal crimes but where property happens to be discovered by local law enforcement.

Moreover, this type of Federal and local cooperation fosters important collaboration between agents and officers. We should not return hastily to the Obama administration policy, but rather continue to review carefully the practice of forfeiture adoption as part of a broader discussion of asset forfeiture reform.

Violent crimes, gangs, and drug trafficking are a growing and continuing problem. We should not take away a tool from law enforcement that it needs to combat criminal groups and make our streets safer.

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

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

Mr. Chair, I rise to oppose the amendment. This proposal would prevent Federal law enforcement from enforcing current law and from protecting public health and ensuring community safety.

Under the Controlled Substances Act, the Drug Enforcement Administration defines schedule I drugs as having no current acceptable medical use and a high potential for abuse. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, there is no scientifically recognized medical benefit from smoking or eating marijuana plants.

Claims of benefits from smoked or ingested marijuana are anecdotal and generally outright fabrications. It is established by fact that such marijuana use has real health and real social harms.

This is true especially for young children with developing brains and those with impaired physical conditions as well as psychological conditions. New data shows crime and health problems from marijuana use and trafficking in particular in States that decriminalize its use.

This amendment that is before us sends the wrong message about widely abused drugs in the United States. The Drug Enforcement Administration says more young people receive treatment for marijuana dependency than for alcohol and other illegal drugs combined. The amendment ignores the problems with abuse and sends the false message to youth that smoking marijuana is healthy.

Mr. Chair, I urge rejection of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I do rise in support of the gentleman's amendment, and I appreciate his work on behalf of domestic manufacturing.

This amendment would highlight the importance of the Department of Commerce antidumping duty and countervailing duty investigations and the threat posed to American businesses from foreign companies selling products to the U.S. at less than fair value, commonly known as dumping, as well as the threat of imported goods from foreign countries that benefit from financial assistance from a foreign government in the form of a counter-vailable subsidy.

This amendment would also encourage better utilization of resources to self-initiate these investigations, pursuant to U.S. law.

Although most antidumping duty and countervailing duty investigations are initiated following a petition on behalf of an industry alleging injurious dumping and/or unfair subsidy of imports into the U.S., antidumping and countervailing duty investigations can be self- initiated by the Department of Commerce from information that is made available.

The self-initiation of antidumping duty and countervailing duty investigations is an important tool in cases where a U.S. industry consists of small companies or is fractured and the members of that industry cannot meet the threshold necessary to file a petition.

The United States needs to strongly enforce our trade laws and not allow our domestic manufacturing capacity to be degraded in the face of unfair trade practices that hurt American employers, workers, and communities.

These investigations are crucial. They are important tools in the effort to ensure a level playing field that allows our businesses and our industries to compete.

Mr. Chair, I think this is a good amendment. I ask that my colleagues support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I actually rise in strong support of this amendment. I certainly understand the concerns about potential misuse of Census data. Thankfully, misusing Census data is a felony. It is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and by a $250,000 fine.

Put another way, by law, the Census Bureau cannot disclose anyone's responses or share data from which an individual can be identified, by ICE or any other Federal agency. That is in current law.

So I join my colleague in opposing the use of any funds that would be made available to violate the confidentiality laws that govern our Census.

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

Mr. Chair, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Chair, if a Member quotes a reference to a newspaper that impugns the character of a Cabinet official, does that violate the House rules?

Mr. Chair, as the chairman of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, I would like to talk about the fiscal year 2020 Commerce, Justice, Science bill, which is contained in division A of the minibus.

The budget proposed by the Trump administration for the agencies in this bill was totally inadequate. The President proposed eliminating a large number of programs that Members on both sides of the aisle strongly support.

Thankfully, with an allocation of $73.895 billion, this subcommittee was able to address these problems and to invest in the future of our Nation.

This legislation makes significant investments in justice reform, economic development, and the science agencies. We increased funding for programs and research focused on climate change, as well as for efforts to address gun violence and to implement the 2020 Census.

Let me highlight a few issues.

In order to address the ongoing challenges faced by the Census Bureau leading up to next year's decennial Census, this bill provides $8.45 billion for the Census Bureau, of which more than 90 percent directly funds the 2020 Census. This amount is $2.3 billion above the administration's very inadequate request.

In addition, this legislation carries language that prevents funding from being used to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census form.

This bill also rejects the administration's proposed cuts to climate change programs. We provide over $2 billion for NASA Earth Science, a significant increase over fiscal year 2019, as well as a 17 percent increase for NOAA climate research activities. Significant increases are also included for NOAA programs that address the impacts of climate change.

To address the epidemic of gun violence in our Nation, this bill increases funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by $122 million over fiscal year 2019. We also provide $80 million for grants to help improve firearms background checks and $125 million for school safety grants authorized by the STOP School Violence Act.

To ensure our Nation's science agencies have the resources needed to continue our leadership in research and innovation, this bill adds substantial funding to NASA, the National Science Foundation, and NIST.

The bill also includes strong funding increases for economic development activities and infrastructure improvements in hard-hit rural and urban areas--in particular, for the Economic Development Administration and the Minority Business Development Agency.

We also provide large increases for the Legal Services Corporation, the Violence Against Women Act, opioid reduction initiatives, and the First Step Act, among many others.

In sum, there is a lot in this bill that both sides support, from science to economic development to justice reform.

I thank the staff on both sides of the aisle who have worked so hard to put this bill together and to manage the amendments offered on the majority staff. I thank our clerk, Bob Bonner, as well as Jeff Ashford, B.G. Wright, Matt Smith, Shannon McCully, T.J. Lowdermilk, and Trisha Castaneda. And on the minority side, I thank Stephanie Gadbois and Kristin Richmond. I also thank, on my personal staff, Marcus Garza, Angel Nigaglioni, and Matt Alpert.

I want to take a moment to say that, as you will hear, we don't always agree, Mr. Aderholt and I, but it has been a pleasure working with him in the tradition of the Appropriations Committee, which tries to find common ground.

I know that even if he tells you that he doesn't like the bill, there is a lot in here that he likes. So I am looking for maybe a ``maybe'' vote from him.

I also thank Chairwoman Lowey and Ms. Granger. It has been said before, but it hasn't been said by me, that we make history every day in this House, and what a historic moment it is that the ranking member and chairwoman are both women. That is the first time in history.

I think this is a good bill that envisions the people and priorities of this Nation, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, my primary objection with the gentleman's amendment is with the offset. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA, is not very well known by the American people, but it is quite important.

The NTIA is critical to the deployment of 5G wireless network technology around the country, which is an expressed goal of the majority of Members on both sides of the aisle, as well as the White House.

Additionally, NTIA is working to expand FirstNet, which ensures cell phone connectivity for our first responders in disaster scenarios.

This amendment would cut NTIA's budget by 8 percent. For all these important programs to continue, NTIA's role as the policy leader in the area of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and data privacy, I cannot support a big cut to this budget.

Madam Chair, I oppose the amendment and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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

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

Amendment No. 4 Offered by Mr. Scalise

Madam Chair, pursuant to House Resolution 445, I offer amendments en bloc, which are at the desk.

Madam Chair, the amendments included in the en bloc were made in order by the rule. I support the amendment and urge its adoption.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I urge adoption of the amendments en bloc.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, the amendments included in the en bloc were made in order by the rule and have been agreed to by both sides. I support the amendments and urge its adoption.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney).

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gonzalez).

Madam Chair, I support the amendment and urge its adoption. I hope everyone votes for it, and I yield back the balance of my time

Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, the inclusion of the citizenship question was a unilateral decision by Secretary Ross last year. Secretary Ross chose to overrule recommendations from nonpartisan experts at the Census Bureau and ignore the potential impacts, including those the question would have on response rates to the Census, without rigorous testing and analysis.

Even more recently, additional evidence on the other side's attempts to abuse the Census in an effort to gerrymander districts has come to light. Files recently discovered from a Republican redistricting specialist revealed that the citizenship question would result in a structural electoral advantage for Republicans and non-Hispanic Whites.

The Voting Rights Act enforcement excuse the Republicans lean on is nothing more than a ruse and their solution in search of what they view as a problem.

It is unfortunate that they have turned to the Census to play this political game to undermine the American people.

Most changes to the Census undergo years of testing and analysis before being added to the decennial Census form. The reason we have that process is to better understand the impact a change can have on the response rate and accuracy of the Census. It allows for the Bureau to better plan and adjust its operational and outreach strategies.

Census is only testing the impact of the question this summer with results anticipated in October, after critical milestones have passed. The administration leaves no time for the Census to mitigate the potential impact of what they may find.

Wilbur Ross refused to listen to the expert advice of advocates and experts at the Bureau who did not recommend adding an untested question so late in the process.

Additionally, there is no doubt that including this question will have a serious negative impact on the self-response rate of the Census. People would simply choose not to respond to the Census form, and the Bureau will be forced to engage in expensive, in-person follow-up that was not originally assumed in their cost estimate.

This should not be an issue that divides us. It should not matter whether you live in a red or blue State or whether you represent an urban or rural district. The question will impact everyone.

This amendment will reduce the accuracy and increase the undercount in places like Florida, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, California, and New York. This, in turn, will affect reapportionment and the distribution of Federal funds for the next decade in many of the communities we represent.

We can and should do better. Our Constitution is clear. It requires that we count all persons every 10 years.

In conclusion, the issue is very simple: If you represent a community that will be undercounted by this question, then you should oppose the amendment. If you support the strict interpretation of the Constitution, then you should also oppose this amendment.

Madam Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, the gentleman is correct: There is a campaign of fear, but it is not by what we are doing here. It is what Wilbur Ross wanted to do.

The Constitution is clear. Count all the people: not the Whites, not the Blacks, not the Hispanics, not women, not men, Republicans or Democrats--all the people.

And so it is really strange to me that people in many districts that do not support our position are not yelling. After all, you may not like undocumented people in your district, but they, if they get counted, bring more Federal dollars, allow for more redistricting properly. So why would you oppose that?

Let us speak to the Constitution.

Yes, there is a campaign of fear, and it was fear to try to put into people who were undocumented to say: We are going to ask you your citizenship. Although we are not supposed to ask you that, we are going to ask you that, and maybe that will turn you away from filling out the form, which is what will happen, and we will not get an accurate count.

Lastly, it is in everyone's interest in this country to get an accurate count.

Madam Chair, may I inquire how much time the other side has remaining.

Madam Chairwoman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to it.

Madam Chair, I commend the gentleman and his cosponsors on this amendment, highlighting July 20, 1969, the 50th anniversary of the United States landing a man on the Moon.

I have no opposition to the amendment.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wilson).

Madam Chair, I urge bipartisan support and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment. This amendment is consistent with the trend in recent years to acknowledge that States, D.C., and the territories are taking charge of their marijuana policy.

I urge that the amendment be agreed to.

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

Mr. Chairman, the amendment, if adopted, would pose serious risks to our economic and national security. It would undermine our efforts to help create jobs, address the deadly opioid crisis, and increase critical scientific research and legal services for underserved communities.

A 14 percent decrease would, for the Department of Commerce, close over 30 foreign commercial service posts and 10 domestic field offices and lead to the dismissal of hundreds of Commerce personnel who support and create U.S. jobs by leveling the playing field for U.S. businesses in overseas markets; cut over $1 billion from the U.S. Census Bureau, which undermines the Census Bureau's ability to invest in critical information technology infrastructure to safeguard Census data as it moves to an online platform; and limit Census' flexibility to conduct important outreach and follow-up activities in hard-to-count communities, including rural parts of the country.

This amendment would also cause massive cuts in an array of agencies and programs critical to national security, anticrime efforts, and the constitutionally required 2020 Census. It would slash funding for efforts to create jobs, fix aging infrastructure, and respond to the reality of climate change.

I urge a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, very briefly, in closing, we get folks on the

floor who tell us how much money we have to cut from the budget, from the appropriations, but they really never take time to ask their constituents how they feel about new roads, about hospital help, about education, about climate change, about other issues. You would be surprised how many people who may not scream out in support or against a certain amendment would feel the pain of our cutbacks and would not be for them. So I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of the amendment.

The Commerce Department has illustrated that it requires additional oversight. This increase to the inspector general will restore critical positions that will provide transparency to Congress on what Secretary Ross is up to.

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

Mr. Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

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

Mr. Chair, today I rise in support of my straightforward, commonsense amendment, which will increase funding for veterans treatment court programs and help ensure that veterans have access to the resources they deserve to successfully reintegrate into their communities.

As a Nation, we have a responsibility to ensure that the brave men and women who are wounded, either physically or psychologically, in service to our Nation receive the care that they deserve.

Veterans treatment courts do just that by assisting veterans involved in the criminal justice system who are experiencing post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, sexual trauma, mental health symptoms, or substance abuse as a result of their military service.

Studies show that these programs work. Through a coordinated system of treatment, community support, and peer-to-peer mentorship, they are able to reduce recidivism and increase participating veterans' overall quality of life.

Through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the DOJ provides local court systems with the financial and technical assistance they need to develop and implement their own treatment courts.

My amendment would increase funding for this program by $2 million so that Federal assistance is available to more courts like those in Beaufort or the recently established program in Charleston.

This is particularly important to the Lowcountry, because my district has one of the highest concentrations of veterans in the country. As their representative in Congress, I have made it my mission to ensure that they have the support that they have earned.

Mr. Chair, I want to ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in supporting my amendment as well as the underlying legislation.

Mr. Chair, in closing, I would like to thank Chairman Serrano and the members of the subcommittee for their work in constructing this important legislation which will allow us to make strides towards addressing gun violence, supporting law enforcement, and investing in important scientific research. I also want to thank Chairman McGovern and my colleagues on the Rules Committee for allowing this important amendment to come to the floor.

Mr. Chair, to ensure that veteran treatment courts in the Lowcountry and across the country can continue to provide this essential service to our Nation's veterans, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my straightforward, commonsense amendment to the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill that blocks all fiscal year 2020 funding for NOAA to approve seismic air gun blasting in the Atlantic. These approvals are called Incidental Harassment Authorizations, or IHAs.

In order for companies to receive permits for seismic exploration from BOEM, they must first have authorization through NOAA to conduct activities that harm or disturb marine mammals, such as whales.

NOAA issued five IHAs in November of last year, which are currently being challenged in court in South Carolina by 10 States, 16 towns, and various conservation and business groups. If the judge finds these IHAs unlawful, my amendment would prevent NOAA from reauthorizing these approvals for seismic air gun blasting in the Atlantic.

Additionally, my amendment would prevent NOAA from approving new applications for seismic surveys that would expose marine mammals to one of the loudest man-made noises in the oceans today.

Seismic air guns create an underwater blast louder than all but military-grade explosives. Companies fire air guns as often as every 10 seconds for days, weeks, sometimes even months on end. This can have impacts

across the entire ecosystem, from marine mammals, to fish, to plankton.

In addition to being harmful in its own right, seismic blasting is a key step towards this administration's ultimate goal: bringing drilling rigs to the South Carolina coast and elsewhere up and down the Atlantic seaboard.

Offshore drilling activities anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean are a threat to hardworking Americans, coastal economies, and abundant marine life. And communities up and down the coast have made it very clear where they stand on this issue. They don't want drilling off their coasts and they don't want seismic exploration for oil and gas resources.

My amendment to the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill can help protect the Atlantic Coast from a future of expanded offshore drilling and unnecessary, unwanted seismic testing.

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

Mr. Chair, as the designee of Mr. Moulton, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, I rise again because there is no time to waste when it comes to protecting the North Atlantic right whale, a species whose calving and migratory grounds are right off the coast of my district.

By even the most generous estimates, there are fewer than 420 right whales left in the ocean. Without immediate Federal action, the right whale could become extinct in the next two decades.

Humans have killed nearly every right whale in existence through our direct and indirect actions over the past two centuries.

Today we are at a crossroads. We have a choice. We can be the generation that saves the right whale or the generation that allows their extinction. We can act right now by adopting this amendment. It will provide targeted investments so we can better understand how both right whales and East Coast economies can thrive.

This is a unique opportunity. Few people in the history of the Earth have had the ability to help a species survive. In fact, the opposite is true. From the passenger pigeon to the western black rhinoceros, humans have driven the extinction of iconic species through centuries of choices.

It is a choice to hunt the right whale to near extinction. It is a choice to jeopardize the right whale by drilling off our coast or harmful seismic air gun blasting. And tonight it is a choice to protect the right whale and the hundreds of thousands of jobs up and down the East Coast that rely on the healthy ecosystem that the right whale creates.

Let's be the generation of leaders that chooses to bring the right whale back from the brink.

Mr. Chair, I thank my colleagues for their support on this issue. I want to single out my friend from across the aisle Mr. Rutherford, as well as Mr. Huffman and Mr. Grijalva for their leadership on this issue at the Natural Resources Committee. I also want to thank Mr. Moulton for the opportunity to offer this amendment.

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