Martha Roby

Madam Chair, I would like to use my time to raise awareness that a correctly sized and properly configured maintenance facility to support and repair F-35 aircraft coming to the 187th Fighter Wing is needed very soon at Dannelly Field in Montgomery, Alabama.

The 187th Fighter Wing was selected as a preferred location for the bed-down of the F-35, with the first aircraft to arrive in several years. Squadron operations require administrative, training, and support space as part of the aircraft organizational maintenance shop.

Currently, the existing facilities that service the F-16 Red Tails squadron are inadequate. Aircraft maintenance currently resides in three temporary facilities or trailers. Much of the space designated for these functions is less than required for effective operations. The aircraft maintenance shops are 43 percent undersized, and the required tool storage is kept in aircraft parking spaces in the hangar.

I appreciate very much the committee chairwoman and ranking member's efforts to provide our men and women in uniform adequate and acceptable working spaces so they can do their jobs accurately and effectively. It is my hope that, moving forward, we will continue to work together on this particular issue through the fiscal year 2020 appropriations process.

Again, I, too, thank the chairwoman and, certainly, the ranking member for yielding me this very important time.

Just very quickly, I just want to say please, please, please come out and support this event. Go Congress. Beat the press. Beat cancer.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer a commonsense amendment that will allow the courts, rather than the majority in the House, to decide the fate of a proposed rule set forth by the Department of Health and Human Services.

In February of this year, HHS issued a new rule that would restrict Title X family planning grants from going to entities that are not physically and financially separated from abortion providers. But a series of court injunctions have frozen these new rule changes and, as a result, hundreds of Planned Parenthood facilities nationwide are still receiving Federal tax dollars.

Americans have made it clear time and time again that they don't want their tax dollars paying for abortions.

This rule, which prevents any tax dollars from going to any abortion- providing facility, is going through the constitutional challenges of our judicial process. Unfortunately, lawmakers here in the House have chosen to tie the hands of HHS through legislation by effectively stating that the HHS Secretary may only act in accordance of ``regulations and instructions'' established before January 18, 2017, just 2 days before Donald Trump became President.

My amendment would strike that provision, allowing the U.S. courts to decide if HHS' proposed rule should stand.

We cannot handcuff the current administration to regulations of past administrations, and I ask my colleagues to support my amendment.

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

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

Mr. Chair, I have no other speakers, and I am prepared to close.

I am unapologetically pro-life, and I will continue to use this platform and every opportunity it provides to stand up for those who cannot defend themselves.

Congress must ensure that our constituents' tax dollars are not being used to end innocent lives. This is our enduring responsibility.

Mr. Chair, I ask my colleagues to please support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.