Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 28, I call up the bill (H.R. 266) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the measure under consideration.

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

I rise today in support of H.R. 266, the fiscal year 2019 Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

Today is the 21st day of the Trump shutdown, and the damage it inflicts on the families and communities across this country continues to grow.

More than 800,000 Federal workers are without pay, and today will be the first missed paycheck for those families. Many of our civil servants are working without pay, and telling them that they have to file for unemployment is outrageous and it is wrong.

Today, Democrats are offering this bill that provides critical funds to reopen the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Indian Health Service, and other important agencies.

Our national parks, America's crown jewels, are under threat. This administration continues to allow visitors to enter as if everything is normal.

Our Park Service does not have the funding to ensure visitor safety, address the most basic standards of cleanliness, and protect park assets.

Joshua Tree National Park is experiencing significant damage because there are not enough rangers to stop off-road driving in the park. New tracks are being cut into the sensitive landscape, and many of Joshua's trees, the precious namesake of this park, have been destroyed.

Just this past week, the Department of the Interior announced an illegal plan to force parks to start redirecting funds from entry fees. Now, those fees are designated for capital improvement projects, and now they will be used to clean toilets.

There is no substitute for the park system's annual operation budget of $2.5 billion. As I said, lasting damage is being done to our national parks, and their long-term upkeep is being compromised.

We must ensure public safety and protect our pristine spaces; and that is why I am calling on the National Park Service to close all parks until the government reopens.

Congress needs to pass this bill to fully fund and staff and protect our national parks. Passing this bill will allow the Forest Service to get back to work on critical activities, like hazardous fuel management. That work needs to happen now in order to prevent wildfires.

The Environmental Protection Agency's mission is to protect human health and the environment, but the Trump shutdown has furloughed more than 13,000 employees, stopping inspections at drinking water systems, stopping inspections at hazardous waste management facilities, and stopping inspections at chemical facilities. This places the health of the American people and their communities in jeopardy.

The Trump shutdown is particularly threatening to the health and safety of our Native American brothers and sisters. Once again, we have failed to meet our treaty responsibilities to Tribal nations. Basic services like health clinics, Tribal justice services, and food assistance for seniors, are being put at risk for nearly 1.9 million Americans throughout Indian Country.

Approximately 54 percent of the Indian Health Service budget goes to Tribal organizations to run their own programs. During the Trump shutdown, critical programs in Indian Country run by Tribal organizations stop. This includes the Domestic Violence Prevention Initiative, the Indian Children's Program, the Suicide Prevention Program, and Alcohol and Substance Abuse Programs.

Native American Lifelines is an example of a healthcare program that is under contract with the Indian Health Service. Clinics focus on care for the needy and the elderly, and I am outraged to report that, as of today, these remarks that I deliver, well, those clinics have been forced to close, and they will not be able to continue to coordinate care for their patients, like the 80-year-old woman who depends on Native American Lifelines to help her manage her type 2 diabetes.

It is time to reopen the government. The Interior bill before us was drafted by the Senate, passed overwhelmingly with a bipartisan vote of 92-6.

This bill also should be familiar to everyone as it was part of a six-bill package that passed overwhelmingly on the House floor with bipartisan votes last week. This bill provides $35.9 billion, which is $601 million over the fiscal year 2018-enacted bill. It maintains funding for nearly every agency at or above the fiscal year 2018- enacted level, including the Environmental Protection Agency.

It is important to note, however, this bill does not contain any new partisan riders.

Now, clearly, I would have written things differently, especially with regard to funding for Indian Country. However, this bill will immediately open up the Department of the Interior, the EPA, and other agencies, and give us a path forward to end the Trump shutdown.

Last year, Congress had the opportunity to pass the bill negotiated by the Conference Committee, but Republican leadership controlled the floor and they chose not to finish their work.

And then we thought there was an agreement to keep the government open while the issues of homeland security were being worked out. Senator McConnell brought the continuing

resolution to the floor of the Senate and it passed unanimously. But Speaker Ryan, along with President Trump, decided to shut down the government, and Congress went home.

Now, nearly 800,000 employees are without a paycheck today, and Democrats are doing everything that we can to quickly pass a bipartisan bill to reopen the government. We need to finish last year's work so that we can move forward to serve the American people in 2019. So I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I couldn't agree more with my colleague and the former chair. When we were developing the bill, we had a much superior product as we came out of conference committee.

But it is time to move forward. Speaker Ryan did not bring that to the floor. We must move forward and begin our work, our important work, on 2020.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), the chairwoman of the full Appropriations Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Madam Speaker, the time to pass the 2019 bill was December of last year. We need to move forward. My priority is to get the government open, to get it back working for the American people, and to have the Federal employees who are working so hard and those who are forced to be home to have a paycheck.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), who is the chair-designee of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I have a rhetorical question, and that would be: If we had been able to bring the continuing resolution to the floor, if we would have been able to get the President to sign it, would that have given us the breathing space to bring back the conference committee reports and would the President have signed it? I have not heard the President offer that as a solution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree), a member of the Appropriations Committee, who proudly serves on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, as I asked a rhetorical question earlier: If the President would say, ``I am going to do a short CR; I will sign it; we are going to let the conference committee refile their bills for 2019 to open up the rest of the government, get the people back to work, and get the paychecks back into those families' hands; and while we are doing that, we will negotiate the Homeland Security bill,'' I would be all for that, but I have not heard that come from the President of the United States.

So today, Mr. Speaker, I bring a bill to bring paychecks back to people who don't deserve to be pawns in this government shutdown.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic Majority Leader.

Mr. Speaker, I also hail from one of the Great Lakes States. The funding in the Senate bill and the House bill for the Great Lakes was identical. So at least in this portion of the funding, it was equal for both the House and the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), who is a member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say, once again, I am sorely disappointed that, before the end of December and before the new Congress came into being, some of the suggestions here were to move forward with conference committee reports, to bring them to the floor, to work with the President. Now that we have the new Congress sworn in, for the President to say: You get those conference committee reports going. We will do a continuing resolution to keep government open. We will negotiate the Homeland Security bill off to the side--but there is silence. There is no commitment. Quite frankly, I don't know if the President would change his mind again, if he did agree to that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Kilmer), who is a member of the Appropriations Committee and serves on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman and I would both be concerned. I quote from one of President Trump's tweets: ``Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for forest fires that, with proper forest management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives and money.''

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to note that the bill that we will pass today, hopefully shortly, will provide $1.76 million more than House Republicans passed last year for the Department of the Interior wildland fire management and $26 million more for the U.S. Forest Service for wildland fire management.

Mr. Speaker, I think we should all grieve for loss of life and loss of property for those who have been impacted by our wildland fires.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), the chair of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

As you know, Mr. Chairman, I feel as strongly as you do about the health and protection of our public lands. In your view, as chairman of the committee that oversees the Interior Department, is the administration protecting the quality of our public lands during this shutdown?

Will the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva) yield once more?

I agree with my colleague that this administration, when it comes to public lands, is making matters worse, not better, by choosing to keep some parks open during the Trump shutdown. This political attempt to minimize the consequences of the shutdown will only result in further damage to our national treasures and place the safety of visitors at risk.

Using funds from fee collections to provide operations support to the parks hurts the parks in two ways: This small funding stream cannot replace the $2.5 billion we provide for park operations each year that ensures the safety of visitors, maintains clean and orderly park operations, and safeguards park assets. Redirecting these funds away from their intended purpose delays the capital improvements needed to sustain our parks for our future.

Because of this, I join the gentleman in urging the President to close the parks for the remainder of this Trump shutdown or, better yet, to sign this bill into law so that our parks can open fully and safely.

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

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record two articles dealing with the administration's illegal use of taking fees to keep our parks and refuges open.

[From the Hill, Jan. 6, 2019]

House Panel To `Demand Answers' on Interior's Move To Use Visitor Fees

To Keep Parks Open

(By Miranda Green and Timothy Cama)

The House Natural Resources Committee intends to

investigate the Trump administration's decision to dip into

visitor fees to keep parks open, the panel's chairman warned

Sunday.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said that his committee--which

oversees Interior--has plans to look into the legality of the

decision, saying the shutdown has done ``terrible damage'' to

the U.S.

``President Trump and his advisors apparently just woke up

to the fact that the shutdown they created several weeks ago

has done terrible damage to our country,'' Grijalva said in a

statement Sunday.

``This is not how a rational president behaves, and the

Natural Resources Committee will demand answers about whether

these moves are legally justified.''

The National Park Service (NPS) announced to staff Sunday a

plan to dip into ``entrance, camping, parking and other fees

collected from park visitors'' to pay staff to assist in

urgent maintenance needs at a number of national parks

overburdened by visitors during the recent government

shutdown.

``As the lapse in appropriations continues, it has become

clear that highly visited parks with limited staff have

urgent needs that cannot be addressed solely through the

generosity of our partners,'' Daniel Smith, NPS deputy

director, said in a statement obtained by The Hill.

Smith said he and acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt

developed the plan to ``address the maintenance and

sanitation issues that have arisen at a number of highly

visited parks.''

``We are taking this extraordinary step to ensure that

parks are protected, and that visitors can continue to access

parks with limited basic services,'' the statement read.

Bernhardt signed a memorandum Saturday to use the fees

known as Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act money, The

Washington Post reported.

Jonathan Jarvis, who led the Park Service under President

Obama from 2009 to 2017, slammed the strategy as a

``significant departure'' from how the agency has

historically used the money parks.

``Since [the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act's]

original passage, it's always been interpreted by the Park

Service as not available for operations,'' said Jarvis, who

worked in the agency for more than three decades, including

as director of the Pacific West region.

``This is a significant departure. It wasn't even a

consideration during the 16-day shutdown when I was

director,'' he said, referring to the 2013 shutdown. ``That's

eating your seed corn.''

Jarvis worried that using the fee money in this way would

take it away from park maintenance, which has a backlog

nearing $12 billion across the country.

Jarvis had officials close parks entirely during the 2013

shutdown, despite criticisms from Republicans and others.

He's been highly critical of the Trump administration's

strategy to keep them open with little to no staff.

``It sends a particular message that they don't really care

about the resource, and probably increasingly, they don't

seem to care about the visitor either,'' he said. ``They only

seem to care about the bad press that they're getting.''

The gates to most U.S. national parks were left open under

the most recent shutdown, which has extended since Dec. 22.

While visitors have been able to access parks, many services

including bathrooms and trash pick-up was suspended as

government employees were kept home. That's created a number

of headaches across the country at highly visited parks where

trash is piling up, bathrooms are at capacity and visitors

aren't being watched by experts.

At least one park, Joshua Tree National Park in California,

was shuttered due to ``health and safety concerns.''

While in the past access to national parks has been

restricted during a shutdown due to safety concerns, former

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made keeping parks up a

priority during his tenure.

During the last shutdown last January, Zinke told reporters

the parks shouldn't be used as a bargaining chip in shutdown

negotiations.

``Our public lands and our monuments really belong to the

people and not the government,'' he told CNN.

He said however, ``by law'' Interior wasn't allowed to

provide clean up services to parks.

``Law enforcement is still there. But things like cleaning

the bathrooms . . . and telling the story of our parks, which

is important--that side of it, while the `Schumer shutdown'

is in, by law we're not able to provide those services,''

Zinke said, mentioning the GOP label for the shutdown at the

time.

In an interview earlier this week Zinke told The Associated

Press that the public should ``Pitch in, grab a trash bag and

take some trash out.''

Zinke's last day at Interior was Jan. 2. He resigned from

the agency in December amid multiple ethics investigations.

However, Interior's plan to dip from the fee pot was laid

out clearly in its 2019 shutdown contingency plan, which

read: ``Parks that collect fees under the Federal Lands

Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) will utilize available

retained recreation fees balances to provide basic visitor

services in a manner that maintains restrooms and sanitation,

trash collection, road maintenance, campground operations,

law enforcement and emergency operations, and staffing

entrance gates as necessary to provide critical safety

information.''

Spokesmen for Interior and NPS did not return requests for

comment.

Critics are questioning the legality of Interior's decision

to use the park fees, money that is assigned by Congress to

pay for other federal expenses, including the department's

multibillion-dollar maintenance backlog.

Theresa Pierno, president of the National Parks

Conservation Association, called NPS's action the equivalent

of stealing.

``Instead of working to reopen the federal government, the

administration is robbing money collected from entrance fees

to operate our national parks during this shutdown,'' she

said in a statement.

``It's incredibly concerning that the Acting Interior

Secretary is putting political pressure on Superintendents to

keep parks open at the expense of parks' long-term needs and

protection.''

Out of the 418 park units across the country, 165 collect

fees, and they took in $285.2 million in fiscal year 2017,

according to a report last year by the Congressional Research

Service. Usually, at least 80 percent of that revenue has to

stay with the park that took it in, and the rest can go to

other parks.

At least one group, the National Park Hospitality

Association, applauded the agency's fee strategy. The

organization represents companies that operate businesses in

parks, like gift shops, restaurants and lodging.

``NPHA has actively supported visitor fee retention by

federal recreation providers and use of collected funds for

visitor-related purposes,'' Scott Socha, the group's chairman

and president for parks and resorts at Delware North Cos.,

said in a statement.

Mr. Speaker, responsibility of funding the government is one of Congress' most important duties. Republicans failed to meet this obligation, and they have allowed President Trump to peddle chaos.

The Trump shutdown is creating uncertainty for families, businesses, and communities. More than 800,000 employees are not getting paid today. For that, I am deeply heartsick. Vital services are being disrupted and small businesses are being forced to lay off employees.

Democrats are ready to end the Trump shutdown. The Interior bill has already received bipartisan support from the Senate. After this House bill passes, Senate Republicans will have a choice: pass their own bill and end the shutdown, or reject it and keep the government closed.

On Monday, the National Governors Association sent a letter asserting ``a Federal Government shutdown should not be a negotiating tactic.'' I agree with the Governors. I am sure that Federal employees whose paychecks are being withheld today feel the same way.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great reluctance that I read again the tweet by the President of the United States:

``Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for forest fires that, with proper forest management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives and money.''

That was the President of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I don't even know where to begin with regards to the President's recent threat to block disaster response funds to Californians struggling to restore their lives, to get back in their homes, after the devastating fires of last year, so I am going to spend the rest of my time directly responding to this motion.

I think we can all agree, every single one of us, that preventing wildfires is important, and my colleague and I just disagree on the best path forward. I believe that the best path forward is to reopen the government so the U.S. Forest Service can get back to work on the activities that prevent wildfires, critical activities like the hazardous fuel program that should be going on right

now if we want to prevent fires this coming year.

Additionally, again, I would like to note that the bill that we should pass today provides $1.7 million more than the House Republicans passed last year for the Department of the Interior Wildland Fire Management program and $227 million more for the U.S. Forestry Service in wildland fire management.

Responsibly funding the Federal Government is one of the most important duties of Congress. This previous majority failed to do so with the most basic task of keeping the lights on.

Here we are, day 9 of the 116th Congress. We Democrats are ready to reopen the Federal agencies that have been shut down by President Trump.

This legislation has already garnered strong support--strong bipartisan support, I would add--in the Senate. We need to ensure that the Federal Government is open and that it is working for the American people and that our Federal employees get the paychecks they deserve.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 28 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), my good friend, the ranking member, 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 Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 28, providing for consideration of H.R. 264, making appropriations for financial services and general government; H.R. 265, making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs; H.R. 266, making appropriations for the Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies; and H.R. 267, making appropriations for the Department of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies, each for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019. The rule provides for consideration of each bill under a closed rule.

Mr. Speaker, we need to pass these bills, because we need to reopen government.

Let me just say to my colleagues, quite frankly, this is not the way I had hoped we would start the new Congress, essentially cleaning up the mess that my Republican friends left us from the last Congress, but we are where we are, and this is an emergency. It is time to reopen the government.

Mr. Speaker, what we saw last night from the President, in my opinion, was a disgrace. He used the Oval Office to fearmonger and smear immigrants. There was nothing new, no plan to get us out of this shutdown, no solutions, just more of the same offensive rhetoric we have heard time and time again from this President.

But this Democratic majority is moving quickly to end the Trump shutdown. On day one of this new Congress, we passed a complete funding package using bipartisan language to reopen government, and now, today, we are taking further action to help the American people while responsibly protecting our borders.

This rule will allow us to pass individual appropriations bills to reopen key government agencies. That includes the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, to prevent Americans' tax refunds from being withheld during the shutdown; the Department of Agriculture, to prevent hungry families from losing the lifeline of SNAP benefits and assure that our farmers get the services that they need; the Department of the Interior, to prevent our national parks and monuments from being further degraded and allow EPA to resume its work protecting public health and our environment; and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to help hardworking families in the process of realizing the dream of homeownership. These bills offer us a way out of the President's shutdown, an embarrassing spectacle that never should have happened in the first place.

Nineteen days ago, the President of the United States threw a temper tantrum. He went back on his word, breaking his promise to sign bipartisan appropriations bills that would have prevented a quarter of our government from shutting down.

He turned on FOX News or some rightwing radio show somewhere and changed his mind. Suddenly, the President demanded $5 billion in funding for his offensive border wall just to keep the lights on-- billions of dollars, by the way, that would just have been a downpayment on an unnecessary project that would cost tens of billions of dollars, and not at Mexico's expense like President Trump promised over and over and over and over again.

Now the costs have been shifted to the American taxpayer, when, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, only 25 percent of the public says they support Trump shutting down the government over the wall--25 percent. This is crazy, but this doesn't have to continue.

At his press conference the other day, the President boasted he could keep our government closed for years. Now, he may not know how to get us out of this mess, but this Democratic majority does, and there are many responsible Republicans on the other side of the aisle who are with us on reopening the government.

Last week, our funding package passed with bipartisan support. Seven Republicans voted with us, including Republican Congressman Will Hurd, whose district includes much of the U.S.-Mexico border.

In addition, a growing number of Senate Republicans have encouraged the majority leader to bring those bills to the floor, including Senator Collins of Maine and Senator Gardner of Colorado. Senator Gardner said, recently: ``The Senate has done it last Congress; we should do it again today,'' and I agree.

So let's send these bills to the Senate so they can once again pass Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The Senate Majority Leader already supported these bills once. Why not support them again to finally reopen this government?

Because we can't wait for the President to publicly promise to sign these bills before we act--we already know his word isn't worth much; his broken promise is what got us here--it has fallen to Congress to get us out of this shutdown.

Congressman Hurd said after voting for the Democratic appropriations package last week: ``Ultimately, Congress is a coequal branch of government, and it should operate that way.'' He is absolutely right. And these bills are this majority's latest attempt to fulfill our responsibility.

There are 40 million Americans who rely on SNAP to put food on the table. Their benefits will lapse shortly if this shutdown is allowed to continue.

Mr. Speaker, why should Americans go hungry just because the President wants to appease someone like Rush Limbaugh? Why in the world would Congress sit idly by as thousands of people trying to buy a new home or refinance FHA-insured mortgages are left in limbo?

We are now in tax season. If we don't end this shutdown, more than 2 million Americans who every month turn to tax assistance centers will find them closed as they try to complete their annual returns.

This is madness, and it is completely unnecessary. Tax returns delayed, home purchases in limbo, food assistance in jeopardy for the hungry, trash piling up in our national parks, it is an embarrassment-- not to mention the 800,000 Federal workers who aren't getting paid, and countless more contractors.

It can be over in a heartbeat if we pass these bills and the Senate takes yes for an answer. These bills honor our responsibility to turn the lights back on. They don't waste even a dollar of taxpayer money on the President's immoral border wall, nor should they. People overwhelmingly object to building it.

I hope this President comes to his senses, that he stops holding our Nation hostage as he plays to the fringes of his base. But none of us can control that. We do have the ability, though, to do our jobs and to end the shutdown. That is what this Congress will do again today, and I urge all of my colleagues to join with us.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Oklahoma's comments. I just want to make a couple of quick points before yielding to my next speaker.

We, as Democrats, are struggling in support of border security, and we have supported initiative after initiative to basically make our borders more secure. We believe in investing in infrastructure and more personnel. We believe in providing more judges to be able to adjudicate asylum claims so we can process people more expeditiously. We believe in technology. It is 2019, yet the President insists on this medieval approach to border security, which most experts say is just ineffective.

On top of all of that, our objection is that it is going to cost tens of billions of dollars. The President said that Mexico is going to pay for it, but now he is saying that the American taxpayers are going to pay for it. I mean, give me a break.

As far as why we are doing the strategy of taking up these Senate- passed bills, let me remind my colleagues: They passed the Senate 92-6 back in August.

I would have liked a different process. My friends were in charge of everything up to a week ago. They controlled the House; they controlled the Senate; and they controlled the White House. Yet they sent people home during the holidays and just kicked the can down the road, and we have inherited this mess from the last Congress. So we are doing the best we can.

If the Senate would vote, like they did in August, again for these bills--92-6--we won't need the President. We could override his veto; we could reopen the government; and we could stop all of this nonsense right now. That is my hope.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my friend from Washington State, a former member of the Rules Committee. I should just tell him-- and I am a little bit surprised, since he was on the Rules Committee-- two of his amendments that he offered didn't even comply with the House rules, so that is why they wouldn't be made in order.

But let me just say to him, as I began my remarks, it is unfortunate that we had to start this Congress cleaning up after the last Congress, but that is where we are. That is what you have given us. And I am eager to return to regular order as soon as we reopen this government.

What we are witnessing is extraordinary. In fact, it is unprecedented. For the first time in history, we have begun a new Congress in the middle of a government shutdown.

I tried last month to bring up appropriations bills, bills that Mr. Hoyer offered on the floor to reopen this government, but you shut me down every single time, so here we are.

We meant it when we said that we would do everything we can to reopen this government, because this is a real emergency. 800,000 hardworking civil servants are either furloughed or working without pay. That is what an emergency looks like. This is an emergency.

I appreciate the kind of laid-back attitude of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle who are like: Well, let's start all over again. Let's reopen the process. Let's have endless debate from now until whenever.

But do you know what? It is not us who are not being paid; it is our constituents. So this is an emergency. It is time that all of us come together and end this ridiculous shutdown and then get on to the business of the future. That is what I am committed to.

I hope that the Rules Committee will be much more accommodating to my friends on the other side of the aisle than my friends were to us, by the way, overseeing the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Mitchell) left the floor, but I know Mr. Newhouse is still here, and I am complimented by the fact that they quote me so much. But I want to quote me, too, because I am going through what I have said about open rules and about the way this House should be run.

On November 14 on the floor I said:

And I am not suggesting that every rule needs to be an open

rule or that there is never a time for a closed rule, but

there is never a time for more than 100 closed rules. There

is no justification for that.

That is me. And on April 24, I said:

I am under no illusion that every bill has to be an open

rule; although it would be nice to have at least one symbolic

open rule before the year is out.

On April 13, I said:

I can't promise that every rule is going to be an open

rule, but I can say that there would be a greater attempt to

try to accommodate Members.

On September 2, I said:

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am not suggesting that everything that

the House considers should be under an open rule. There are

times when a closed rule might be necessary. But more than

100 closed rules? There is no justification for that.

So I think I am being pretty consistent here, because I have actually voted for closed rules on this floor that have been suggested in times of emergency. I voted for one to actually bring a continuing resolution to the floor so that we wouldn't have to deal with the mess that we are in right now.

So in times of emergency, in times of life or death, yes, there are justifications for a closed rule, and this is one of them because this is last year's work. This is what my friends on the other side left us with, unfinished business from last year. Not only unfinished business, but they allowed the President to shut the government down.

So hundreds of thousands of American workers are in a panic right now because last year's majority, my Republican friends, did not do their job.

This is ridiculous. We ought to figure out a way to have our discussions without shutting the government down. This is not the way you are supposed to run government. And so we are offering a solution here so that we can reopen the government and continue our conversations about whatever you want.

The gentleman from Oklahoma said we should split the difference on the border wall.

Mexico was supposed to pay for it.

Why are we splitting the difference? Why are we assuming the cost of a border wall when the President said that Mexico was going to pay for it, a border wall that most experts say is useless and ridiculous and that that money could be better spent on other ways of enforcing border security?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

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

Mr. Speaker, let me say to my friend from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) that I think he is one of the best Members of this Chamber. I admire him, and I think that he is absolutely right when he says that the Appropriations Committee did its work, and that goes for Republicans and Democrats. People worked together, and they moved appropriations bills forward. So I find no fault with and I have no blame for the appropriators.

What I do blame is his leadership that, at the last minute, when the President decided to have a temper tantrum and threatened to shut the government down, the Republican leadership was complicit, basically, and said: We will go along with this. And here we are.

By the way, I can't wait to get this over with so we can get on to other business. By the way, we are going to bring up the disaster appropriations bill next week. We have a notice out asking for amendments. I think the deadline is on Friday at noon. I can't recall the last time a disaster appropriations bill ever solicited amendments. We are going to do that. But I appreciate his words.

Mr. Speaker, this is an emergency. We are now dealing with a major crisis in this country, and it is not just Federal workers. USA Today reported last week: ``Government shutdown 2019: Homebuyers with USDA mortgages can't close on house sales.''

Mr. Speaker, I include this article in the Record.

Government Shutdown 2019: Homebuyers With USDA Mortgages Can't Close on

House Sales

[From USA Today, Jan. 3, 2019]

(By Janna Herron)

Jordan and Tracey Smith of Madison, Maine, were scheduled

to close on their first home on Friday. But the government

shutdown has gotten in the way.

The couple needs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help

finalize their mortgage that is guaranteed by the agency. But

the USDA's operations have been closed for 13 days, so the

couple and their five children remain in limbo.

``We're living out of boxes. We're paying our landlord on a

week-to-week basis, but he has people waiting to move in,''

says Jordan Smith, 32. ``We just want to move and get this

process over with.''

It's the same for other borrowers who depend on the USDA.

The department provides--through private lenders--mortgages

with no down payment requirements and low interest rates and

fees to rural and suburban homebuyers. It's a small program,

helping just over 140,000 people to buy a home in 2017, but

is considered one of the best options around if you're

eligible.

``We just can't close a USDA loan without a commitment

letter from them. ``Your loan

is at a standstill,'' says Pava Leyrer, the chief operating

office of Northern Mortgage Services in Grandville, Michigan.

Leyrer's company is an approved USDA lender.

Leyrer is telling her affected clients to call their

representatives. Otherwise, they may ultimately need to

switch into a different loan. ``How long will the seller

wait, especially if the sales contract expires?'' she says.

Waiting for repair money

In other cases, those who already have a USDA mortgage are

running into trouble. Jenneffer Azcuy, a homeowner in Lynn

Haven, Florida, with a USDA mortgage, is waiting to get the

insurance money she needs to repair her house after it was

damaged by Hurricane Michael in October.

``Since my insurance repair check is over $7,500, the USDA

controls the disbursement of funds,'' Azcuy says ``But the

money is tied up.''

On mortgages it guarantees, the USDA requires that it

oversees how insurance claims funds are used to make sure

they are spent properly. When insured losses exceed $7,500,

the agency requires the funds to be deposited into an escrow

account it controls.

Azcuy has a contractor lined up to repair her leaky roof,

replace a fence, and fix the gutters and outside doors. She

has called the USDA for help but can't leave messages because

the voicemail is full.

``It's ridiculous. This town is devastated as it is from

the hurricane,'' she says.

What about other mortgages?

The other mortgages backed by the government are unaffected

so far by the shutdown. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the

Veterans Administration--which all back home loans--are

running as normal.

The Federal Housing Administration, which guarantees

mortgages popular among first-time homebuyers, is operating

with a smaller staff because of the shutdown but is still

approving loans.

``You can get some answers,'' Leyrer says, but adds: ``They

are slower to respond, and it takes longer to get through on

the phone because of limited staff.''

Lenders are also working around other shutdown-induced

hiccups.

For instance, they can't verify a person's tax information

with the Internal Revenue Service, which has limited

services. As a result, many lenders are still approving those

loans conditionally and will confirm the information later

when the IRS reopens, says John Stearns, a loan originator

with American Fidelity Mortgage Services in Mequon,

Wisconsin.

``If there is a problem, then I have to figure it out

then,'' Stearns says.

On Capitol Hill

Azcuy and the Smiths hope the new House of Representatives

convening on Thursday can end the shutdown. Democratic House

leaders have scheduled votes on a package of bills to reopen

the federal government and provide more time for Congress to

negotiate a border funding deal with the White House.

Until then, they wait.

``My wife and I support Donald Trump. We agree with border

security,'' Jordan Smith says. ``But he has to look and see

that this is affecting other people's lives.''

Mr. Speaker, the article reports on the situation of Jordan and Tracey Smith of Madison, Maine, and their five children. They were scheduled to close on their very first home last Friday, but this ridiculous Trump shutdown ruined that. They need the Department of Agriculture to finalize their mortgage, but USDA has been closed for weeks.

Here is what Mr. Smith said: ``We're living out of boxes. ``We're paying our landlord on a week-to-week basis, but he has people waiting to move in.''

So lives are being thrown into turmoil, and we don't have a lot of time to just carry on these conversations and endless debates. This is a time for action.

This is the first time a prior Congress ended in a government shutdown. It is fitting. It is almost like an exclamation point to the President's first 2 years in office.

But it is a new Congress, and we are ready to responsibly clean up this mess and do what the last Congress could not do. We are offering an extremely reasonable solution to this unnecessary government shutdown. The underlying legislation is virtually identical to the four appropriations bills that already passed the Senate, 92-6.

Compare that to what the prior Republican majority put forward in the waning days of last Congress. They passed a partisan funding bill with billions of dollars for the President's wall, legislation they knew Democrats would never support and that the Senate would never pass. Then they left town. They refused to even recognize me when I tried again and again to bring up a bipartisan bill to end the shutdown.

800,000 workers stopped receiving paychecks. That includes, by the way, thousands of border and law enforcement officers, more than 41,000 Federal law enforcement officers, people like FBI agents and DEA agents, nearly 54,000 Customs and Border Patrol agents and Customs officers, and almost 90 percent of the Department of Homeland Security employees.

This Trump shutdown is an embarrassment. We owe our Federal employees and all Americans better than this. Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to vote for this rule and the previous question and join with us in supporting these underlying bipartisan funding bills. This is another chance for us to do the right thing. Let's take it and bring an end to this unnecessary and painful Trump shutdown.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, Chairman McGovern, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we are back again on appropriations, and we are back again on the exact same set of bills as before.

Last week, the House agreed, over Republican objections, to pass a set of appropriations bills, six of which would fund the relevant departments for a full year, the seventh of which would fund the Department of Homeland Security until February 8.

Today, not content with already having passed these bills once, my friends in the majority are again bringing up four individual bills that were part of the same package covering the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development bill, Financial Services and

general government bill, the Agriculture bill, and the Interior and Environment bill. Nothing substantive in these bills has changed. Indeed, nothing substantive has yet changed anywhere in this process:

The government remains partially shut down;

The Senate is refusing to pass the bills my Democratic Party colleagues are proposing;

The President is refusing to sign them; and

The majority is proposing to fix the problem by passing the exact same bills.

To quote the great Yogi Bera: ``It is deja vu all over again.''

While I commend my friends in the majority for trying to reopen the government, let's be clear about what they are proposing. The four bills under consideration here represent only the Senate-passed versions of the bills covering the fiscal year 2019 appropriations process. They represent no input at all from the House, no input at all from the Appropriations Committee, and no input at all from the joint House and Senate conference committees that were appointed to iron out the differences between these bills and their House counterparts.

In essence, the Democrats' only plan is for the House to swallow the Senate's original bills, abrogate our authority and responsibility as a coequal House of Congress, and declare victory. What is more surprising is that my friends now expect that having tried this same thing before, they will now get a different result.

To be clear, last week, when the House passed these exact same bills, the Senate made it known these bills would not come to the floor; and even if they did, the President has made it known that he would not sign them. I don't know what they think is so different about this week over last to make my friends think that all they need to do is to pass them again and, magically, the Senate will pass these bills and the President will sign them.

Perhaps even more surprising, the majority now wishes to bring these four bills forward under a closed rule, with no opportunity for the House to amend them and no opportunity for Members to weigh in. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I understand how hard it is to have a full process on appropriations bills. But it is, indeed, possible, even when funding bills carry over into a new year or even a new majority.

In 2011, right after Republicans took majority control of the House, we considered a bill on the floor to fund the entire Federal Government. We did it under an open rule, with only a preprinting requirement. When we considered that bill on the floor, 162 amendments were offered from both sides of the aisle, and we had a grand total of 66 hours of floor debate on the bill, stretching out over 5 days.

Given the amount of time we used in 2011, I fully understand what an undertaking that would be. But unless the majority believes that these bills will quickly pass the Senate and quickly be signed by the President into law, then there is plenty of time for thoughtful debate and plenty of time to hear ideas from all Members of this House. Instead, the majority has chosen to push forward with an appropriations strategy that they know cannot succeed.

Mr. Speaker, the House should be taking steps this week to negotiate with the Senate and the President to end this shutdown. That means that, whether the majority likes it or not, they need to engage on border security.

The American people have told us time and time again that they want action on border security. The solution they are proposing today does nothing on that front.

Even if we pass these bills today, and even if they, ultimately, became law, the border would remain unsecured and the Department of Homeland Security would remain shut down. Nothing the House will do in this package will change that essential fact, and nothing in this package is a step on the road to changing that essential fact.

Mr. Speaker, it wasn't always this way. In 2006, 64 Democrats joined Republicans in passing the Secure Fence Act, which President Bush signed into law. Those 64 Democrats then included 13 current Members now and one additional Member who has since gone on to the Senate. Even liberal lions of the House, like our good friend and former colleague Congressman Barney Frank, joined the Republicans in voting for border security. I am unclear what has changed, from then until now, that would cause the entire majority Caucus to refuse to work with Republicans on border security when so many did so back in 2006.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, while I agree with the good intentions of the majority in seeking to fund the government, their method of doing so is in no way sufficient. Instead of abrogating our own authority, embracing a Senate-only product that the President will not sign, and kicking the can down the road, we should be taking concrete steps to reopen the government, secure the border, and move on to the many important needs of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule and the underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to make a couple of quick points, and then yield to another speaker, if I may.

Mr. Speaker, I want to disagree a little bit with my friend's memory on

what the last Congress did and did not do. Quite frankly, it was the most successful Congress in enacting appropriations bills in 22 years, 75 percent of them across the floor on time. We will see how good the record is as my friends are in the majority. And I am going to work with my friends on that, because I know it is the intention to do that, but it is no easy task.

To say that the last Congress didn't act when, in fact, it put a bill over in the United States Senate that the President would have signed is simply untrue. To suggest that Republicans controlled the Senate in this process, when a Democratic minority in the Senate kept us from getting to 60 votes, there is where your real obstruction was. Quite frankly, this problem would have never happened if the Senate chose to operate the way we do, by simple majority vote, and the President would have had a bill.

One last point, if I may. The President did offer to negotiate. The reports in the media are that he actually offered to reduce his request by half. That is normally, around here, considered a real negotiation: Let's split the difference and find the common ground.

My friends didn't choose to take up that offer. So the idea that they have somehow been innocent bystanders when they were in the minority, in a process out of control, simply misstates reality.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and then I will yield to my good friend from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to take up the challenge. I would be happy to meet with anybody to reopen the government. I would be happy if we had a product in front of us, which we did have in late December that had actually been agreed to by the United States Senate.

Why my friends chose to just simply take the Senate bills--which I will assure you, are not nearly as good as the conference bills between the two bodies--and throw all of the work out that this body did over a year, the appropriators, and the rest of the authorizing committees that play a supplemental role in this, I will never know.

It would have been a lot harder to vote ``no'' than just simply sit here and strip 435 Members of their ability to legislate, which is effectively what my friends in the majority have chosen to do.

I hope going forward we can do exactly what my friend suggests. I would also suggest that the people he mentioned go meet with the President of the United States. He was here all December, happy to negotiate with anybody. He wasn't in Hawaii. He was here. He offered to split the difference. That was an unacceptable offer to my friends.

So if you want to negotiate, negotiate with the President. If you want to do something with the Senate, I would expect that you should probably sit down and talk to them because you are sending them something this week that you sent last week, that they didn't take up then, and they are not going to take up now.

So whenever we want to negotiate, I would be thrilled to be at the table, but I haven't seen any evidence that my friends do want to negotiate. Instead, they simply want to dictate. They simply want to dictate the outcome and achieve what they think is a political victory, and that is coming at the expense of the American people. Real negotiations mean sitting down and settling differences. It doesn't mean shooting paper back and forth across the rotunda.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Mitchell), my good friend and a distinguished Member.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to notify the body, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to report modified open rules for each bill before us today: H.R. 264, H.R. 265, H.R. 266, and H.R. 267. The rule would include a preprinting requirement.

Mr. Speaker, the bills before us today are simply nothing more than Senate products. House Democrats would rather try to win political points against the Senate than allow this House to do its job. Again, the Senate hasn't indicated they will take up these measures, and the President has not agreed to sign these measures. There is time to do this the right way.

In 2011, right after Republicans took the majority control of the House, the government was operating under a continuing resolution, and we considered a bill on the floor to fund the entire Federal Government, and we did it under one open rule with just a preprinting requirement.

There were a total of 66 hours of floor debate from the afternoon of February 15, 2011, to the early hours of February 19, including one stretch of debate that lasted 42 hours.

I do understand what an enormous undertaking it would be, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't and can't take the time.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I was amused--and I actually mean this in very good spirit--when my friend mentioned how frequently he had been quoted in today's debate, and I have to say I consider my friend one of the great debaters in this Chamber, and I enjoy hearing him quoted on the floor of the House. So I accept that, and I hope the gentleman knows it was a compliment to him in many ways.

I also want to tell him--and I mean this very seriously--I take him at his word. I don't have any doubt my friend wants to operate differently than we have operated in the past and that he wants this institution to be more open to inclusion of various points of view and very sincere debate, and I pledge to my friend I will work with him in that endeavor.

Now, it is hard to resist pointing out the gentleman's first six bills have all been under closed rules. I suspect we will continue to point that out until we have an opportunity to say to my good friend-- and I think we will in the very near future--``Congratulations, you are following through on the things that you said.'' Again, I know my friend will do that at what he considers and the majority considers the appropriate time.

We have a lot of discussion, Mr. Speaker, about who did and didn't do their jobs in the last Congress. I would tell you, in my view, that the House did its job. It passed its bills. It sent to the Senate a product that the President would sign.

Mr. Speaker, I would tell you, you are doing your job here, as well, right now in the majority. You passed bills last week. You sent them over to the United States Senate.

In our case, the minority in the Senate blocked consideration of our bills. Had those bills been placed on the floor, we wouldn't be here today. They would have all passed. They had majority support in the Senate; they had a President willing to sign them; and they had already passed the House.

The only reason why we are here today is because the Democratic minority in the Senate manipulated the rules of the Senate in such a way that they could stop action. I suspect we all have had frustration with that as House Members in the past. I think we will again in the future.

I also want to reflect with my friends, and I draw this conclusion not so much out of their actions, but actions that my own party, from time to time, has committed, and I suspect I will say this to this Chamber many times: Pursuit of absolute victory in domestic political disputes is always a mistake. It always leaves a divided country and an embittered opponent, and you will rue the day when you pursue it. We have certainly done that, Mr. Speaker, on my side of the aisle.

I think that, to some degree, though, is what is going on today. Sooner or later--and we are going to live with a Republican Senate for the next 2 years and a Republican President for the next 2 years--my friends in the majority will have to decide whether they want to govern or debate, because that is all we are doing now.

Mr. Speaker, you are not the opposition party anymore. You are the majority party, and you have every right to pursue your agenda. But if you really want to govern, if you really want to get something done, in the end, you are going to have to work with the Republican Senate, and you are going to have to work with the Republican President.

We learned that hard reality when we were in the majority but dealing with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President in 2011 through 2014. I hope my friends learn the lesson more quickly and become wiser than we were. I hope they benefit from our experience.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I urge opposition to this rule and the underlying measure. The majority today is putting forward a closed rule to bring up four appropriations bills, each of which the House has already passed last week.

But, unfortunately, each of these bills is not a product of the House of Representatives. These bills are Senate products that do not reflect any House input. What is worse, they do not solve the fundamental problem of border security, and they do not represent a serious effort to reopen the government.

Since the Senate will not pass these bills and the President will not sign them, all we are accomplishing here today is spinning our wheels. The majority would be better served to undertake serious negotiations with the President and the Senate over the need for border security and to find a way out of the crisis of their own making rather than hoping that something will be different this time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I think this is my first time in a long time of having a magic 1 minute, so I have some things to say.

I was on the Appropriations Committee for 23 years. I came here in 1981. Between 1981 and 1995, we had 10 shutdowns. Those 10 shutdowns averaged 1.9 days a shutdown. The longest one was 3 days. They were because of differences, not because of a strategy.

In 1995, Newt Gingrich adopted shutting down government as a strategy, as a taking hostage not only of Federal employees, but taking hostage of the American Government and taking hostage of everyone who is served on a daily basis by the Federal Government. The reason I know it is a strategy is because it has happened a number of times.

The next one, long-term, was in 2013, when Ted Cruz, a United States Senator, came over here and talked to a number of Members and said: Unless the President will repeal the Affordable Care Act, we are not going to fund the government. In other words, unless the President didn't take healthcare away from Americans, the Republicans would take government services away from Americans and hold hostage the Government of the United States.

And now, just a few years later, ladies and gentlemen, the Republicans have again taken hostage not only 800,000 people who work for the Federal Government, expecting them to work for no pay to protect our borders, to protect our seas, to protect our food, and so they have taken hostage the Government of the United States one more time.

So we have a crisis, but the crisis is not at the border. There is a challenge at the border, and we need to make our border secure. We are for that.

The proposal the President made in a campaign speech which got a lot of roars all the times he gave it was: We need a wall, a big wall, a wall along the whole border, a wall that the Mexican Government will pay for. It was total campaign rhetoric and demagoguery. It was not a policy.

And I agree with my friend from Idaho. Mr. Simpson is the former speaker of the Idaho House. The far right in his party ran a candidate against him a few elections ago and they got beaten badly. Thank heavens for that; thanks to the judgment of voters in Idaho.

I agree with my friend, Tom Cole, in part. But if he were here-- unfortunately, he has left the floor--but I would say to Tom Cole: Mr. Cole, as you ended the Congress with your side in charge, you rejected a bill from the United States Senate, passed with unanimous consent, that would have opened up all of government.

And you rejected that bill because the President told you to put $5.6 billion in the bill, which you knew--and I am sorry, Tom Cole is not on the floor because he says, you know, this bill is not going to pass--which you knew would not pass the United States Senate, but you sent it anyway. Why? Because the President of the United States told you to do so.

Let me remind all of us that we are a coequal branch of government. We are the Article I branch of government. We are the policymakers of government, not to sit as stooges and be told

by the President of the United States: If you don't do what I want, what I tell you to do, I won't sign the bill.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday night, the President went on television and tried to argue that the American people should continue to endure a painful government shutdown until Democrats give in on funding for a border wall that has bipartisan opposition. Democrats and Republicans alike--not all--oppose this $5.7 billion waste of money on a physical wall along the border.

Representative Will Hurd--now, who is Will Hurd? He is a Republican Member of the Congress of the United States. He is a Member of the Congress of the United States from Texas. He represents a district which has more border than any other district in America. What does he say?

Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective

way to secure the border.

But the President of the United States says: You don't do that, I am not playing. And because he is not playing, none of you are playing.

I say to my Republican friends: How sad. You were not elected by your constituents to do what Donald Trump tells you to do. You were elected by your constituents to do what is best for them and their country.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a friend of the President, a Republican, and a Senator from South Carolina said this:

The border wall is probably not a smart investment.

But the President has told Lindsey Graham: You are not for my wall, I am not for your bill, and I won't sign it. And I am going to shut down government.

One person is responsible for shutting down government. Donald Trump. Most of the people he shut down and is not paying, they don't have a dad they can go to and say: Give me some money, dad. Maybe he doesn't know that experience.

Opposing a new barrier, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney--listen to me, my Republican friends--said in 2015:

You go under. You go around. You go through. What they need

is more manpower, more technology, and more willingness to

enforce the law as it exists today.

He said that in 2015. Not a wall. More manpower, more technology, more willingness. That is essentially what Will Hurd said.

Senator Ron Johnson, one of the most conservative Senators in the United States Senate said he always thought that the President's wall was a ``metaphor.''

Now, if it is a metaphor for security, we are in, because we Democrats want a border that is secure; that does not allow people who are not authorized to come into the United States. We want to be sure that the people, the criminals that bring drugs into the United States are caught and prevented from doing so, and that people who traffic in human lives are caught and stopped. We are for that.

When the President was at the border he said that Democrats don't care about crime. They don't care about human trafficking. That is baloney. It is a lie. It is unworthy of a President of the United States to make such an assertion.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas said:

I don't think we are just going to be able to solve border

security with a physical barrier, because people can come

under, around it, and through it.

That is why so many Republicans said the wall is not the answer. Ranking Member Michael McCaul--now he is the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I tell my Republican friends, Mr. Speaker-- but he was chairman of the Homeland Security Committee when he said this:

A 30-foot concrete wall is a very expensive proposition and

there are a lot of other things we can be doing technology-

wise to make it a smarter border that is more effective and

more cost efficient.

So don't accuse the Democrats because they are against the wall of being against border security. Your Republican leaders don't believe that, so they ought to stop saying it.

They are among the Republicans and Democrats who believe we need a smarter, more comprehensive strategy to improve border security; not just building a physical wall with taxpayer money.

President Trump said over, and over, and over, and over, and over again that Mexico was going to pay for this wall. God knows how any American voters believed that. Now, of course, not surprisingly, he admits that is not going to happen.

So let's discuss border security, which is important to Democrats and Republicans alike. Let's sit down and figure out how best to do it. That is a debate on policy.

But, by the way, my Republican colleagues did not bring the homeland security and the border security issue to the floor until December 20, 11\2/3\ months after they took control--or they were in control, because it was the last of the session. So they waited 11 months and 20 days to bring this critical issue to the floor. My, my, my.

Now they shut down the government if we don't do it their way. This is a debate on policy, not politics. That is why I quoted so many Republicans. There is no reason to maintain a dangerous and costly government shutdown while that debate occurs.

Let's end this shutdown right now and turn to the real discussion about border security without holding hostage America's workers, their families, and the people they serve, all of our constituents. Let's have a vote in the Senate which I believe would reopen government.

Leader McConnell has a responsibility to do so. Leader McConnell has a responsibility to the Senate and to his oath of office to the Constitution and to the country. He swore no oath to President Trump. None of us swear an oath to the President of the United States. We swear an oath to the Constitution, to preserve and protect and serve our people.

On August 24, 2014, Senator McConnell said this: ``I am the guy that gets us out of shutdowns. ``Shutdowns,'' he said--this is Senator McConnell--``is a failed policy.''

That is what Mr. Simpson said. That is what Mr. Cole, I know, believes. I have talked to him about it. I hope every Member here believes that. So my plea is to stop pursuing it as a strategy.

Remember, 10 shutdowns averaged 1.9 days. Your shutdowns, 21 days, 16 days, and now we are going to have the longest shutdown in history, because you have taken captive the Government of the United States. How sad that it is us who are the enemy of the Government of the United States.

Senator McConnell, I hope, will bring bills to the floor to open up the government as he did in December when he sent a bill here and you would not take it up, my Republican friends, when you were in charge. You were the leaders. You rejected that bill that would have funded government, kept government open, kept serving the American people. But, no, you took a hostage, and the government is shut down.

The Democratic-led Congress is doing its part. The first day we came here, we passed a bill that was exactly like the Senate's bill. So one could assume that the bill they had passed, when they got it back, would, in fact, pass. And the homeland security we did for a short time so we could continue negotiations in a positive way without having hostages being taken.

Last week, we passed a package of funding bills for fiscal year 2019, a continuing resolution for the Department of Homeland Security, in order to reopen government and end the Trump shutdown. The Trump shutdown. The Trump shutdown.

If Trump said to Senator McConnell: Yes, I will sign the bill; the bills would be passed by the United States Senate. No one disputes that.

If Trump said to the House Members here, Mr. Speaker, that he would sign, they would pass the bill. Trump articulated at the White House that he would not open government until we agreed to do what he wanted to do. That is not democracy. That is despotism.

Because Leader McConnell was refusing to bring up our package of appropriation bills, the very same bills written by the Republican Senate, as has so often been said--and I would prefer that they were bipartisan bills--we are now sending him each of the bills individually.

On Wednesday, we passed a bill that would, among other things, reopen the IRS so taxpayers can get their refunds. They paid in more than they owed and they ought to get it back and they

ought to get it back in a timely fashion. But the folks who process the refunds are not being allowed to come to work.

Yesterday, we passed the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act which will continue nutrition assistance for those facing hunger, and reopen programs helping farmers in rural America. Many of you represent rural farmers, and they are relying on payments from the Department of Agriculture to sustain them, and they are not getting them.

Yesterday, we also passed the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act to restore safety to air travel and keep low-income Americans from losing rental housing assistance. I don't think there is any Republican that wants to see people out on the street because they couldn't make their rent because they didn't get their payment from the Federal Government.

Today, we are bringing this Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill to the floor to reopen America's National Parks and restore services to Native Americans and Tribal communities.

I want to thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum) for the leadership that she has shown and the work that she has pursued to bring this bill to the floor. I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote on the merits of this bill, and I hope that many Republicans will join us.

If Members are for reopening government, vote ``yes.'' If you vote ``no,'' you are for continuing this Trump shutdown.

I hope Leader McConnell listens to his Senators. Senator Susan Collins said this on the House-passed bills last Thursday.

It would be great to have them signed into law because

there is not great controversy over them and at least we

would be getting those workers back to work.

Senator Cory Gardner, Republican from Colorado, added: ``We should continue to do our jobs and get the government open.''

I agree, Mr. Speaker.

Hopefully, when we vote today, we will have in mind the 800,000 people who are not getting paid, half of whom are working. Hopefully, we will have in mind all those who are looking for a tax return, all those who are looking for a supplemental nutrition payment so they can put food on their tables, all those who are looking to make sure they can settle on their house because FHA is operating, and all those who need a visa extension or something of that nature.

Hopefully, we will be thinking of them, not just the small-bore politics of: If you don't do what I say, I won't play.

Vote for this bill. Send it to the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I say to Senator McConnell to put it on the floor, pass it, and send it to President Trump.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 266, the Democratic proposal for funding the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, and related agencies for the remainder of fiscal year 2019.

This bill is almost entirely a Senate product. As such, it ignores the bipartisan priorities of the House and, perhaps even worse, it abdicates congressional responsibility under the Constitution to keep the executive branch in check.

Before I get into the details of the bill, however, I want to take a moment to congratulate my friend and colleague, Betty McCollum, for her appointment as the new chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies.

She has been a tireless advocate for programs under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee, a firm but fair overseer of agency operations, a tough negotiator and, above all, a good friend. She will be an outstanding chair. I wish her well, and I look forward to working with her in both of our new capacities.

Madam Speaker, over the past year, Ms. McCollum and I worked in collaboration to write a bill representing the needs and priorities of the House. We held nine budget oversight hearings, including four hearings with nearly 80 Tribal leaders regarding programs that honor treaty rights promised to our Native American brothers and sisters.

We wrote a bill that accommodated, in some shape or form, roughly 93 percent of all House Member requests, regardless of party. On top of that, when the bill came to the House floor, 70 amendments were debated and 50 were adopted.

And when told to begin negotiating the House-passed bill last year, we defended it against competing priorities in the Senate. We came together on numerous topics to write report language directives that maintain a check on the executive branch.

I am extremely proud of our work. We are so close to a final product. We shouldn't be throwing it all away with the bill before us today, a bill that the Senate has already said it will not consider and the President will not sign.

Let me highlight just a few of the House priorities missing in this product which concern me the most, and which are likely to concern our colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

First and foremost, the bill leaves behind all congressional report language directives. These directives are critical for keeping the executive branch in check. These directives are also the conduit through which the concerns of our constituents back home are heard directly by agency officials at the highest levels.

All of our colleagues in the House who have worked with their constituents and worked with the Appropriations Committee over the past year to craft these directives understand the effort that went into them and the impact they have on people's lives back home. The bill before us today throws that away, all that important work.

We included language to protect the California WaterFix from frivolous lawsuits in order to move forward a water supply project that is critically important to my constituents. By taking up this Senate bill, I am prevented from even fighting for my constituents.

But this isn't about my priorities; this is about all of the bipartisan priorities of the House of Representatives that are flushed away by rubber-stamping the Senate bill.

The bill provides $12 million less than last year's House-passed bill for the U.S. Geological Survey's natural hazards research and early warning system, the earthquake system, and $21 million less for the Forest Service and Department of the Interior to clear dead and dying trees from our forests in order to prevent more catastrophic wildfires like the kind we experienced in my own State of California.

These ounce-of-prevention programs save lives and save money. With so many fires, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other natural disasters in recent years, these programs should be a higher funding priority than they are in this bill.

Additionally, this bill provides $77 million less than the House Republican bill for EPA's WIFIA, brownfields, and Superfund remedial programs. These programs provide regulatory relief, leverage Federal dollars, improve water infrastructure, and spur economic development.

Instead, this bill increases funding for EPA regulatory programs. In many parts of the country, particularly agricultural States, EPA regulations and additional red tape are a bipartisan concern.

Even popular EPA grant programs, like the diesel emission reduction grants, DERA, and targeted airshed grants, were significantly reduced in this bill.

The DERA and targeted airshed grants are essential to my home State of California, where air quality remains one of our biggest concerns. My State and constituents rely on these grant programs to help improve air quality and public health by accelerating the replacement of older engines with new, cleaner engines.

For our National Park System, the bill before us today falls $27 million short of the House-passed level for park operations and reducing the maintenance backlog. With park visitation on the rise, this is no time to cut corners on the budget.

This bill also lacks important reforms for implementation of the Endangered Species Act, and it lacks the funding needed to prevent the sage grouse from being listed. Failure to prevent a listing will hurt local economies in 11 Western States and undermine our Nation's energy security.

This bill is almost $10 million below last year's House-passed bill in funding for historic preservation grants, including civil rights grants and grants to underserved communities.

The House felt so strongly about these programs that it added $5 million in multiple amendments on the House floor last year. Why would we give up all that funding by acceding to the Senate?

Last, but certainly not least, this bill falls $160 million short of last year's House-passed bill in funding treaty obligations to American Indians and Alaska Natives through the Department of the Interior and the Indian Health Service.

Earlier this week, USA Today was the latest news agency to run a front page article on the sad state of healthcare in Indian Country, which is funded mostly through the Indian Health Service in this bill. Funding for the Indian Health Service in this bill is $135 million below last year's House-passed level.

For an Indian health system that already is rationing the kind of healthcare that most of us take for granted, every dollar makes a difference in the quality of life of one of our fellow Americans whose ancestors paid in advance with their lives and their land to guarantee that the Federal Government would care for the health of their descendants. Properly funding this obligation is not optional.

The House heard from nearly 80 tribal leaders in hearings last year about the importance of funding these programs. Let's not turn our backs on them now, acceding to the Senate position.

Madam Speaker, for these reasons and others, I am strongly opposed to this bill, H.R. 266, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand up for their constituents' priorities and oppose the bill as well.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), the former chairman of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to point out that leaders in the Border Patrol want a barrier as a part of securing the border. Most people the majority leader mentioned are also in favor of a barrier as part of securing the border, as that is something that acts like, using a football metaphor, an offensive line. It slows people down in order for technology and people at that point to pick up people who are coming into this country illegally with drugs or otherwise illegal activity.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Joyce).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Utah (Mr. Stewart).

Mr. Speaker, I point out to my friend from the State of Washington that the earthquake warning system that we both worked on is below the House number by $9.4 million. So that is unfortunate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman).

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

Mr. Speaker, I have served on the Appropriations Committee for a long time, and I am proud of the work that we have been able to accomplish in a bipartisan and bicameral manner, which is the history of the Appropriations Committee.

Unfortunately, the Senate bill before us today forces us to choose between abdicating our constitutional obligations and underfunding important programs in a way that is unacceptable to me and my constituents. I am afraid this is a bad precedent, and I hope that this does not happen in the future: we just accept whatever the Senate determines is the proper path forward.

I am disheartened by the Democrats' closed process that throws our bipartisan House priorities and will neither

secure our borders nor reopen the government. Rather than passing bills to score political points, I urge my friends on the other side of the aisle to work with us to find a solution that reflects the will of the House, will pass in the Senate, and will be signed by the President.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

In its current form, yes.

Mr. Speaker, the bill under consideration has $21 million less for a major House priority than what was included in the fiscal year 2019 Interior and Environment bill passed in the last Congress. I am talking about doing more to prevent and stop catastrophic wildfires.

For the past 4 fiscal years, the House has prioritized funding to improve our national forests and other Federal forestland through the Department of the Interior's and the Forest Service's hazardous fuels reduction programs. These programs use methods such as thinning, prescribed burns, and removing underbrush to help unhealthy forests return to a healthy condition.

In fiscal year 2018, Congress provided $614 million for these programs. Last year, the House-passed bill increased that amount by $30 million for fiscal year 2019. The bill before us today, H.R. 266, only provides a $9 million increase. My motion to recommit will fix this major problem and save lives.

The increase is offset by a reduction in the Bureau of Land Management's deferred maintenance account and the Forest Service's capital improvement and maintenance account. These infrastructure programs received significant increases in fiscal year 2018, and they have a large carryover balance.

Mr. Speaker, my bottom line is that I cannot support a bill that does less to prevent catastrophic wildfires. My home State of California experienced deadly and record-setting wildfires last year. I was with the President; former Governor Brown and current Governor Newsom; our minority leader; and our colleague, Congressman LaMalfa, in Paradise late last year. In 2017, I also visited Santa Rosa with my colleague from the northern part of the State, Congressman Mike Thompson. The devastation I saw was indescribable and heartbreaking.

While we can and should continue to debate what more needs to be done to improve the health of our Nation's forests, I am proud that the Interior and Environment Subcommittee, on a bipartisan and bicameral basis, has led the way.

The subcommittee successfully negotiated a forest management reform package and fire-borrowing fix as part of the fiscal year 2018 omnibus appropriations bill. It allowed for more on-the-ground forest management activities. These are the activities that prevent the natural cycle of fires from exploding into terrible conditions.

It provided smarter budgeting for wildfire suppression costs. The budgeting reforms go into effect in fiscal year 2020.

I am certain that the new chair on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, my distinguished colleague and friend from Minnesota, looks forward to that. It has been a pleasure to work with her as partners on the forest management and wildland fire budgeting issues.

Yet, there is more that we need to do. Today we can start by supporting this motion. It will send a strong message to the Senate that they should focus on this issue. More importantly, it will show Californians and other Americans affected by wildfire that the House is doing something about this problem.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the motion, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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