Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Reid Ribble be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 25.

Mr. Speaker, I have got a heavy heart because I feel like, in just the short time you and I have been in this body, we have seen the same story play out more than once. You would like to think that we would all learn from our mistakes in this body.

In fact, I don't fault any of my colleagues who make mistakes. I am one of the folks who is guilty of having made a mistake before, Mr. Speaker, and I am not going to put you in that same box; but, yes, I have made a mistake before. The question isn't: ``Do you make mistakes?'' The question is: ``What do you learn from your mistakes?''

As we go down this road of executive action, this conversation that the country is having today, I feel like we have been down this road before, and I want to try to connect a couple of those dots for folks tonight, Mr. Speaker.

You can't see what I have here, but it is something that is near and dear to your heart. It is article II, section 2, of the United States Constitution.

It says:

The President shall have the power to fill up all vacancies

that may happen during the recess of the Senate by granting

commissions which shall expire at the end of their session.

Now, you wonder why this is important. It is just one paragraph in a relatively lengthy and really meaty Constitution. The answer is because it defines the relationship between the article I, Congress, and the article II, White House.

It says, White House, if you want to make appointments to positions of great power, of great authority, in the United States Government, you must do so with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, that the Senate must confirm all of those individuals the President wishes to place in these positions of great power.

The President back in 2012, 2011, had some folks he wanted to appoint to positions of great responsibility. One of those was to the National Labor Relations Board. You will recall this, Mr. Speaker. The President made some nominations, and the Senate said, ``No, this isn't going to fly.''

Now, the President could have gone back and said: ``Do you know what? If you don't like these nominees, this is an important job, it is an important responsibility, I am going to appoint some different nominees. I am going to put some different names out there. I am going to work with you to try to find some folks we can agree on as the Constitution requires.''

It is not what the President did. In fact, there is a pattern of that not being what the President does.

What the President did instead of working with the Senate--what the President did instead of offering some different names--what the President did instead of trying to find common ground was he went to this article II, section 2, of the United States Constitution and said: ``I have the power to fill these spots without anybody else's advice or counsel, without anybody else's consent, as long as I do it during recess.''

He woke up one morning, and he declared the Senate in recess, and he made these appointments. Now, that would be all well and good, Mr. Speaker, if the Senate had, in fact, been in recess, but the Senate was not in recess.

I have here on a chart, Mr. Speaker, a quote from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It is November 16, 2007, when President Bush was still the President of the United States. He, too, wanted to make some nominations. The Senate then, as in 2012, disagreed with those nominations and didn't want to appoint those people.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this:

The Senate will be coming in for pro forma sessions during

the Thanksgiving holiday to prevent recess appointments. My

hope is that this will prompt the President to see that it is

in our mutual interests for the nominations process to get

back on track.

Hear that, Mr. Speaker? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said to then-President George Bush: ``I don't like the folks you are trying to nominate. I disagree with you on those nominations, so I am going to keep the Senate in, in pro forma session, to prevent you from nominating those folks during a period of recess, to prevent you from using article II, section 2. I hope that will encourage you to come and work with us together to find folks who are mutually agreeable for these positions.''

In November 2007, Harry Reid kept the Senate in session, these pro forma sessions, all through the Thanksgiving holiday.

I now bring you to December 19, 2007, later that same year. Again, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this: I could be a grinch. I could tell the President that I would not move any nominations, given his demand to make controversial recess appointments. But I am not going to do that tonight, Mr. President. I am not going to meet intransigence with intransigence. We will confirm those appointments this evening, and I will keep the Senate in pro forma session to block the President from doing an end run around the Senate and the Constitution with his other controversial nominees.

Hear that: Getting ready to head home for Christmas, Senator Harry Reid said to then-President George Bush: I will not let you do an end run around the Constitution by appointing individuals to these powerful positions across the government without the consent of the Senate. I will not let you do it, and I will prevent you from doing it by keeping the Senate in pro forma session during the holidays.

Pro forma session means you are in once every 3 days. That is how the law defines it. You come in once every 3 days. It doesn't count as a recess. Harry Reid knows this. It is the tool that he uses to prevent then-President

George Bush from doing, and I quote, an end run around the Senate and the Constitution.

I found it fairly persuasive, Mr. Speaker. In fact, President George Bush found it fairly persuasive. And this ended the argument because no President has a vested interest in making an end run around the Senate and the Constitution.

But President Obama didn't see things that same way. In January of 2012, faced with the exact same circumstances, Mr. Speaker, a Senate in pro forma session designed specifically to prevent recess appointments, the President woke up one morning in January and said: The Senate is, in fact, in recess. They say that they are not, but they are wrong. They, in fact, are. I am going to make four appointments today.

Now, you would think, having read what we read from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that the Senate would have melted down with defenders of article I standing up and saying: Mr. President, we may agree with your politics, we may agree with your policy, but we disagree with this end run that you are making around the Senate and the United States Constitution.

It is what you would have expected. It is what you would have hoped for. But it is not what you got.

Senator Tom Harkin, when asked about those appointments, said the President ``acted responsibly'' in making those appointments. He ``acted responsibly.''

This is the National Labor Relations Board we are talking about. So, of course, the AFL-CIO commented that President Richard Trumka said the President was ``exercising his constitutional authority to ensure that crucially important agencies protecting workers and consumers are not shut down.''

The Labor Secretary is one of those Members that had to be confirmed by the United States Senate. Then-Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said: ``We can't afford to not move on very important issues that affect working class people.'' We cannot afford not to move. We cannot afford to allow the Constitution to get in the way of those things that we would like to do.

This isn't sour grapes from a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker. This case went to the Supreme Court. This case went to the Supreme Court. And on that Court, of course, sit two Obama appointees; two Clinton appointees sit there. Mr. Speaker, 2\1/2\ years later, 9-0 was the ruling from the Supreme Court that what the President did was patently unconstitutional. Unconstitutional.

Now, this isn't a surprise to anyone. You will remember the words of Harry Reid when he implemented these sessions to prevent recess appointments. He said: I am not going to let the President do ``an end run around the Constitution.'' The Constitution has these requirements. Harry Reid knew it. President Bush knew it. Harry Reid knew it again in 2012. President Obama knew it in 2012, and he did it anyway, as then- Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said: because we have important things that we need to do, and we can't let things get in the way.

Quoting from that 9-0 decision, Mr. Speaker, Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion. He said: ``The recess appointments clause is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction. Friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.''

That bears repeating, Mr. Speaker. The ``clause is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction. Friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.''

I don't even know if that captures it, Mr. Speaker. It is not really an inevitable consequence. It is there by design. It is not an accident that we have this friction. It is there by design.

This isn't the ranting of a sour grapes conservative Republican. This is the unanimous decision of a Supreme Court that is as divided as any Court we have seen in my lifetime.

But they unanimously said: President Obama, your goals are not what we are litigating today. The process that you are using to achieve your goals is unconstitutional. Why? Because Congress got in your way. And instead of working with Congress, you went around Congress, and the law doesn't allow for that.

Sound familiar, Mr. Speaker? Sound familiar? It took 2\1/2\ years to litigate that case. It took 2\1/2\ years to get an answer from the Supreme Court. In those 2\1/2\ years, over 400 cases were decided by the National Labor Relations Board, now all invalidated by this Supreme Court decision, lives thrown into turmoil.

Not one Senator, not one Democratic Senator, not one Senator from the leadership spoke out to say: Mr. President, I may agree with your politics, I may agree with your policies, but the way you are getting them done is unconstitutional.

And every one of them knew it, just like the Supreme Court did, 9-0, when they ruled 2\1/2\ years later.

Now fast-forward to today, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about immigration. And we are not talking about good immigration policy, because that is what we talk about in the Judiciary Committee. We are not talking about immigration law in this country, because that is what is decided in the House and the Senate. What we are talking about is the President taking action on his own in an end run around the Senate, an end run around the House, an end run around the Constitution and implementing immigration policy all by himself.

He was asked about that in a Univision town hall, Mr. Speaker. It was March of 2011, and the question that was put to the President was: ``Mr. President, my question will be as follows: With an executive order, could you be able to stop deportations of the students?''

Fair question. Fair question. A lot of folks out there have this issue on their mind.

It was March of 2011, and this is what President Barack Obama said in answer to the question: Mr. President, can't you just stop deportations by executive order? The President said this: ``With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations with executive order, that's just not the case because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.''

The President was right on that day in March.

``I can't just do this by executive order,'' he told the questioner, ``because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.'' He says: ``Congress passes the law. The executive branch's job is to enforce and implement those laws. Then the judiciary has to interpret those laws. There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.''

Those are not my words, Mr. Speaker. Those are President Barack Obama's words. ``There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear''--very clear--``in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my responsibilities as President.''

Now, that is powerful, Mr. Speaker; but that is not even the most interesting part of that response. He went on in that question and said this:

That doesn't mean that we can't make decisions to emphasize enforcement. It doesn't mean that we can't strongly advocate and propose legislation that would change the law in order to make it fair or more just and ultimately would help young people who are here trying to do the right thing and whose talents we want to embrace in order to succeed as a country. It doesn't mean that we can't work hard to change the law. It just means that I, as President, don't have the ability to do it by myself. The Constitution requires a team effort between Congress and the White House.

Mr. Speaker, this wasn't just a one-time thing. This wasn't just a quote that I pulled out of thin air. I am not trying to mischaracterize the President's feelings.

November 2013, he is being heckled. He is giving a speech, and he is being heckled by protesters who want him to do more in terms of changing immigration law. You have just heard his last quote, where he said, I can't do this by myself. Congress has to lead in this

area. He is being heckled; and he says this:

``What you need to know, when I'm speaking as President of the United States and I come to this community, is that if, in fact, I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so.''

That is what he says to the heckler. He said: Sir, what you need to know is, if I could, I would. If I could change these laws without Congress, I would. But the Constitution doesn't allow for it.

President Obama went on to say:

``We're also a nation of laws. That's part of our tradition. And so the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws. And what I'm proposing is the harder path, which is to use our democratic processes to achieve the same goal that you want to achieve. But it won't be as easy as just shouting. It requires us lobbying and getting it done.''

Wow, Mr. Speaker. He is being heckled for his position on immigration policy, and he says to the heckler: If I could do something about it, I would, but I can't because America's tradition is a tradition of laws. He says: It is not as easy as just one man deciding that he is going to ignore the law or change the law. What it takes is hard work, working with Congress, lobbying in Congress, working through legislation and changing the laws. It is not as easy as one man deciding he doesn't like the law, because our tradition is a tradition of law.

He goes on to that heckler, Mr. Speaker, and he says to him: If you are serious about making that happen--that change happen, changing the law--if you are serious about making that happen, then I am willing to work with you, but it is going to require work.

He says: It is not simply a matter of us just saying we are going to violate the law. That is not our tradition. The great thing about this country, President Obama said, is we have this wonderful process of democracy. And sometimes it is messy, and sometimes it is hard, but ultimately, justice and truth win out. That has always been the case in this country, and that is going to continue to be the case today.

Mr. Speaker, that was a year ago. That was a year ago that President Obama said to the heckler wanting him to do unilateral immigration action, he said it is not just a matter of us saying we are going to violate the law. He said we have got this wonderful process, this crazy, crazy process called democracy, where we go to the House and we go to the Senate and we work to change the law. He says it is hard. He says it is a hard process. It is a messy process. But ultimately, truth and justice win out. And he is so right. He is so right.

Justice Breyer in that 9-0 decision, rebuking the President for violating the Constitution, said: ``Friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.''

We have been down this road before.

Mr. Speaker, I represent a community of immigrants, a vibrant, wonderful, wonderful community of immigrants, folks who have stood in line and paid their money, folks who have relatives overseas who have been waiting in line 5 years, or 10 years, or 20 years, and I welcome the opportunity to work with my colleagues to change the law to bring fairness and justice to them. Oh, Mr. Speaker, I have got folks in my district with big brains, big minds, strong work ethics, but the visas they are here under don't allow them to go to work.

The President has proposed offering 4 million new work permits to folks who have done it the wrong way. I have got folks in my district who have done it the right way, waiting in line without the ability to work.

Are there things on which we can agree? There absolutely are. But isn't the first of those things that the President cannot unilaterally change the law from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? He knew that was true in 2012. He knew that was true in 2013. What has changed about our 250- year-old Constitution today that suddenly makes it okay? The silence in this town is deafening from folks who know the right way, who know the right way to pass a law, to change a law, to implement a law, and to enforce a law in the America that you and I love, the America that we inherited from patriots before us.

The President says it is sometimes messy and it is sometimes hard, but the great thing about this country is we have this wonderful process called democracy. Justice Breyer says, ``Mr. President you might have forgotten a little bit about that democracy.'' And 9-0 the Supreme Court says the Constitution was thrown by the wayside in the President's zeal to implement his policies, in the President's zeal to do, as Harry Reid described it, an end run around the Senate, and the President's zeal to do, as Mr. Reid described it, an end run around the Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, I welcome a policy debate with the President. I welcome a partnership with the President to fix a muddled immigration process that we have in this country today. We are a land of immigrants. We always have been, and we always will be. And I thrive on that. I celebrate that. But we are also a land of laws, a sentiment the President has acknowledged and celebrated in years past and a sentiment that just days after the last election the President threw out the window in the spirit of the ends justifying the means.

I don't think the American people are going to let that stand, Mr. Speaker. And I call on folks from the left and the right to be a part of that chorus of voices. We are not having a debate tonight. We are not having a debate tomorrow about policies of immigration reform. The discussion we are having is about process. The discussion we are having is about whether or not the Constitution matters. The discussion we are having is, who writes the laws? Does Congress craft the laws and the President signs them? Or does the President craft the laws and the President signs them?

``It is not simply a matter of our saying we are going to violate the law,'' the President said. ``The easy way is to yell and scream and pretend that I can do something by violating our laws, but the better path is the harder path,'' the President says. ``With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportation through executive order, that is just not the case because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed,'' the President says. ``There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President,'' President Obama says.

Nine to zero in defense of the Constitution the last time the President decided he was going to go it alone, an end run around the Senate, as Harry Reid says, an end run around the Congress, as Harry Reid says. But it took 2\1/2\ years for the Supreme Court to sort that out.

I think America deserves better, I think those trying to immigrate to this country deserve better, I think those fighting for work back home deserve better, and perhaps worst, Mr. Speaker, I think the President knows better and has chosen the path he has chosen anyway. There is still time to turn back on that decision, Mr. Speaker.

There is still time to engage in that partnership, to engage in that messy, that hard, but that oh so rewarding process as the President has described it that is the Constitution-defined democracy that we live in today.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Illinois yielding to me.

If Phil Crane were sitting here on the front row tonight, he wouldn't have any idea who I am, but when you do great things, you don't ever know who those efforts, who that toiling, that sweating, that genuine effort that goes into what you do, you never know who that is going to affect.

You have heard it here tonight. It was 1973. Folks were talking about how it is that we could bring conservatism to the United States Congress. It is Paul Weyrich, it is Phil Crane, and the RSC, the Republican Study Committee, is born.

At that time, they thought the Republican leadership was a little too liberal in the House. They thought we needed another voice to kind of balance that leadership out. Imagine that, the audacity that a young Congressman--he had been on the Hill about 4 years at that time, won in a special election in 1969--the audacity that Phil Crane had, as a young Congressman, was to say, ``Maybe we need some balance in the discussion. Maybe we need a place to debate.''

Now, that is 1973. Fast forward, it is 2014, and if you go and visit with colleagues today who are members of that Republican Study Committee that has survived and grown under Phil Crane's leadership and others, they will tell you that when it comes to healthy debate, that may be the single best location in the entire United States House of Representatives. I want you to think about that.

Again, if Phil Crane were sitting here on the front row, he would not remember the times that we have met because I was a minor blip on his radar, but what he dreamed has become the single largest and most productive forum for the discussion of ideas that exists in the people's House in the United States of America.

I always wonder about the dreams that we don't hear about, those dreams that had they materialized would have affected dozens of lives, hundreds of lives, thousands of lives, but because the dreamer did not press on and the dream was never materialized, we will never know.

Phil Crane was not just a dreamer. Phil Crane was a doer, and because of the work, the sweat, the toil that he invested, not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of Members of Congress who have followed have had an opportunity to be among their colleagues and grapple with the pathway forward.

So much of what we do here on the House floor seems so scripted today. What Phil Crane wanted was an opportunity for us to discuss, an opportunity for us to challenge one another, an opportunity for us to make each other better.

For all the things that Phil accomplished, for all the impact he had on his family and his friends, this may seem minor, but if you are a young Member in the U.S. House of Representatives, the legacy that Phil Crane left behind isn't something; in many cases, it is everything.

I cannot imagine what this institution would be today without the groundwork that he laid those many years ago and continued groundwork he continued to lay until the day he left this institution. It is a proud legacy from the great State of Illinois, and I am grateful to my friend for allowing me to come down and talk about that tonight.

I thank my friend from Nebraska. We are all Bulldogs in Georgia, even those folks who went to the trade school in downtown Atlanta known as Georgia Tech. We are Bulldogs at heart.

I want to thank you for leading this hour tonight because, so often, when folks think about what we do here, they are thinking about Republican this, Democrat that, partisan this, partisan that. Folks get mired down in philosophical debates.

What you have done here tonight is get into the core of what I think we all, as Americans, care about. We are talking about energy security. We are talking about an all-of-the-above energy strategy that lowers energy prices, puts more money in the pockets of every single family through lower prices, and creates job opportunities not just in your State or my State, but all across this country, and, Madam Speaker, that provides us with energy security.

I grew up in the seventies. I remember the gas lines. I remember sitting outside. That was our great President from the State of Georgia that was presiding in those days, and I will never forget President Reagan's first inaugural address.

He was talking about the challenges that we were facing as Americans. He was talking about the big dreams that it was going to take to overcome those challenges. He conceded that they were big dreams, but he said, ``Why shouldn't we dream those dreams?'' Because, after all, we are Americans, we are Americans.

What my friend from Nebraska said about the oil exploration in Canada really struck me. We have this debate about whether or not we should build a pipeline to bring Canadian energy down into America to provide American jobs, American construction, American manufacturing, and there are those who say, ``Well, no, don't do it because it would be better if that oil stayed in the ground.''

That is not a choice. That is not an option that is anywhere in this House or that is anywhere within our jurisdiction. The gentleman pointed out exactly the truth of the matter which is, if we don't do it, somebody else will. If we don't do it, somebody else will.

There is not a nation on the planet that is going to burn that oil more responsibly than we will, and I love that about us. Madam Speaker, I love that about us, that no one will do it better than we will.

This bill is H.R. 2. We reserve those numbers for the most important things that we do. I don't know if folks know that, Madam Speaker.

Those top 10 numbers in the bill calendar are reserved for the biggest and best thing that we do, but, because people think this is such a partisan institution, they might think we save those numbers for the ``Republicans are the Greatest Act.'' They might think we save those numbers for the ``It's Our Way or the Highway Act.'' Nonsense. We save those numbers for the things that matter to everyone.

My friend from Nebraska can correct me if I am wrong, but we have packaged together a collection of bills that have passed this House. We put them together in H.R. 2, and every single bill in that package passed with a bipartisan vote.

Madam Speaker, I want you to hear that. We had a chance here. Republicans run this show. If we wanted to just jam something through, we could, but, when we talk about energy independence, we are not talking about Republicans and Democrats. We are talking about Americans.

We are talking about every family in this country. And what the gentleman from Nebraska has done is put together those commonsense ideas that have been agreed upon by both sides of the aisle--bipartisan votes, every one--and said let's not let this year expire without doing those things that we can do, agreeing on those things on which we can agree.

You may not know, Madam Speaker, but my friend from Nebraska is the author of the Northern Route Approval Act. It is one of those bills that passed here with a bipartisan majority, and it is in this package. It is in this underlying package.

We talk about this as if it is an energy bill. Because it is H.R. 2, it is the energy bill. But that very same language that my friend has authored and led through this House of Representatives is included in the Study Committee package known as the JOBS bill, JOBS Act, that collection of bills that will put Americans back to work, that will grow the economy, that will do those things that are on the minds of every single American family.

Too often we talk about energy issues as if they are separate from those issues; and what my friend knows and what he has been leading in this hour tonight, Madam Speaker, is that energy issues are jobs issues. Energy issues are family issues. Energy issues are issues to every single American citizen.

Never before in my lifetime have I had the hope that we would get the hands that have been around the American neck by those who supply us with energy. We have that opportunity.

I was listening to my friend from Indiana talk about coal. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal in America, the Saudi

Arabia of coal. And the administration is trying to singlehandedly tie the hands of the energy industry not to exploit--and I mean ``exploit'' in the best possible sense of the word; I mean ``exploit'' in the utilize, in the harness, in the grow sense of the word--taking that off the table. That is not an environmental decision. That is a jobs decision, and we feel that in each and every one of our districts.

Madam Speaker, there are a lot of ways to run this institution. You can run this institution with the iron fist that says ``my way or the highway,'' or you can run this institution with those commonsense ideas that speak to every single American family.

Folks think this is an election year, I say to my friend from Nebraska, and they think that that brings out the worst in this body. What I want to say to you, under your leadership, these bills that we see here tonight, these bills that were packaged in H.R. 2, that most preeminent number in priority here at the House of Representatives, what you are leading is that language, that bill, that opportunity that puts America first and being a Republican or a Democrat way, way down the list.

I think that is what folks are looking for. I think good policy is good politics. I think doing the right thing for the right reason is better than having the right commercial at the right time.

It matters, and it matters to me that we have leaders like you who carry that message. I am grateful to you for leading the hour tonight. I am grateful to you for including me in it, and I am grateful to you for yielding me the time.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the recognition. I appreciate you staying with me into the evening tonight.

I wish I could tell you I was bringing you good news, but I am bringing you some bad news. It is bad news that you have already heard. I have the most recent Tax Foundation rankings of international tax competitiveness.

We talk so much about jobs and the economy. We talk about how to make a difference in the lives of middle class families. We talk about jobs that are moving overseas. We talk about whether or not we are going to grow this economy. This is the ranking of the most competitive Tax Codes in this country.

I want you to think about, Madam Speaker, what those things are that we can do to be more competitive in this country.

We could lower everyone's wages. That would make it cheaper to build things in this country. I think that is an awful idea.

We could ignore environmental regulations. That would make things easier and cheaper to build in this country. That is an awful idea.

One of the things we could do, though, is deal with our tax system, a tax system that, so says the Tax Foundation, is the 32nd worst tax system of the 34 OECD countries--32nd worst in tax competitiveness.

Now, they are looking at everything. They are looking at individual taxes. They are looking at corporate taxes. You go way over here on the end, Madam Speaker, you get to the international tax rules rank. That is how well we work with the rest of the world with our tax system. America ranks dead last.

Why do I bring that up, Madam Speaker? I bring it up because I am reading from our Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, his comments at the Urban Institute last week. He's talking about American corporations moving their headquarters overseas. Not moving a factory overseas, but moving their international headquarters overseas. And he says this:

This practice allows the corporation to avoid their civic

responsibilities while continuing to benefit from everything

that makes America the best place in the world to do

business.

Worst place in the world to do business, that is what the Tax Foundation tells us.

I read on from Jack Lew's speech. He said:

The best place in the world to do business: our rule of

law, our intellectual property rights, our support for

research and development, our universities, our innovative

and entrepreneurial culture, our skilled workforce.

Again, speaking about the practice of moving your headquarters overseas, he says:

This may be legal, but it is wrong, and our laws should

change. By effectively renouncing their citizenship, these

companies are eroding America's corporate tax base.

That means all other taxpayers will have to shoulder their responsibility.

I go again to a Tax Foundation chart, Madam Speaker. It is a chart of what the rate is. And you can't see what the individual corporate tax rates are, but what you can see is the green lines here. That is the average corporate tax rate. Around the world, it is 25 percent.

You see another green line, that is the weighted average by the size of the economy. That of course gives more weight to the larger economies on the planet. That goes up to 29 percent.

And at the bottom of this chart, Madam Speaker, you see in red the United States of America, with the absolute highest corporate tax rate in the world. By our own design--and I say ``our own.'' I have not gotten to vote on a corporate Tax Code, Madam Speaker, since I have been in this Chamber for 3\1/2\ years, but by our design as a nation we have created the absolute worst place to do business on the entire planet.

Our Treasury Secretary calls companies who observe that and make changes because of that so that our grandmothers and our grandfathers and our pension programs and everyone who relies on the success of those companies in order to meet their fixed income demands so that those companies can succeed, he calls that a shirking of civic responsibility.

I am on the floor tonight, Madam Speaker, to suggest that it is not those companies that observed that America is the worst on the planet and move elsewhere that are shirking their responsibilities. It is those of us in this Chamber, those of us on Capitol Hill, those of us in Washington, D.C., who are responsible for this corporate tax road, it is we who are shirking our civic responsibilities because we can do better.

I know it is getting late, Madam Speaker, and I hate to take you

through the math, but when we talk about tax codes and why they are so bad, it is the math that matters. This is the tax liability for a corporation doing business in the United States of America.

Let's say you earned $1,000. You are going to pay a 35 percent rate. You are going to add State taxes to that rate as well. It is going to be about 39.1 percent, on average, about $391 out of every $1,000. So at the end of the day, you are going to be able to take home $609 to pay your salaries, to invest in your business, to grow your company-- $609. That is an American company doing business in America.

How about a Canadian company doing business in Canada? Same $1,000 worth of income. They are paying a 15 percent tax rate at the national level. They are also having a provincial tax rate added to that, totals to about 26.5 percent, $265. They are taking home $735.

You earn $1,000 worth of income as an American company doing business in America, you take home $609. You earn $1,000 in income in a Canadian company doing business in Canada, you take home $735.

I know what you are thinking, Madam Speaker. You are thinking that's apples to oranges. One is doing business in America; one is doing business in Canada. Let's look further.

Let's say we take those same two companies, that one American company, that one Canadian company, and let's say they are both doing business in the United States of America. They earn $1,000. They pay $391 in taxes. They are at the highest corporate tax rate in the world. That American company takes home $609.

Go to the Canadian company doing business in America. They earn that same $1,000. They pay that same highest corporate tax rate that America has, the highest in the world. They take home $609. Whether you are the U.S. company or the Canadian company, you do business in America, you pay the same tax.

I know what you are thinking, Madam Speaker. You are saying, Well, what is the argument here? What is the issue that we have to come together and solve? It is this issue right here, Madam Speaker.

Let's say you are not doing business in America. Let's say you are doing business in Canada. We are going to take that same American company, we are going to take that same Canadian company, and we are going to look at what happens when they are doing business in Canada.

That American company earns $1,000. It pays the Canadian Government $265. The Canadian company raises $1,000, and they pay the Canadian Government $265. But it is what happens next that makes America one of the worst tax codes in the world.

When you try to bring that $735 you have left over back to America, you pay American taxes on top of what you have already paid Canada.

So the U.S. corporation doing business in Canada earns $1,000; they end up with $650 at the end of the day. The Canadian company doing $1,000 worth of business in Canada pays their taxes, ends up with $735 at the end of the day. That is why companies are moving overseas. They do exactly the same business in exactly the same place as all of their international competitors, but simply because their headquarters is based in America, they pay more.

The power to tax is the power to destroy. And because of the way we have chosen to tax our companies, a methodology that has been rejected by most of the rest of the world, we punish every single company that chooses to stay in America employing Americans.

We have been talking about it in terms of Burger King and Tim Hortons. I don't know if you are a Burger King fan, Madam Speaker. I don't know if you are a Tim Hortons fan. I love them both. I love them both. And the suggestion has been made that when Burger King and Tim Hortons are going to get together and the headquarters is going to be located in Canada instead of America, that that is somehow an unpatriotic decision being made by Burger King.

I want you to see the revenue by category that this new Burger King- Tim Hortons merger is going to have. This acquisition by Burger King is going to have about 20 percent of the revenue coming from America, about 67 percent of the revenue coming from Canada, about 13 percent coming internationally.

I go back to this chart, Madam Speaker, where I said, What if you are doing business in Canada? If you are an American company, you take home less, not a little less, but more than 10 percent less. If you are a Canadian company, you take home more. Same amount of business, same country of business location, but because your headquarters is somewhere different, you take home less money.

Well, if you are Burger King and you are in this Tim Hortons acquisition, you are making most of your money in Canada, so what are you supposed to do?

If I ask the White House, they would tell me I am supposed to stay in America and put up with the absolute worst Tax Code the country has ever seen, this country has ever seen, but also the worst tax code anywhere on the planet.

This is America for Pete's sakes. We can do better.

It is not that Burger King is choosing to leave America; it is that America is running Burger King out. And that, that responsibility lies with us here in this Chamber.

It is an arcane issue called a worldwide tax system versus a territorial tax system. When you are in a worldwide tax system--and there are only seven countries left in the world that do this--you double-tax your companies. You charge them a tax based on the country in which they earned the money, and then if they bring that money back to America, you charge them another tax on top of that.

Most nations on this planet, most nations with First World economies, they use what is called a territorial tax system. That means whatever country you raise the money in, you pay the tax in; and when you bring that money back to your home country, you are not double-taxed one more time.

This is the issue we ought to be talking about. We shouldn't be talking about patriotism. We should be talking about common sense as it relates to having America compete in a global economy.

I ask you, Madam Speaker, if we have the absolute worst tax code in the world, if we have the absolute highest corporate tax rate in the would, if we have the least competitive international tax system in the world, what do you think is going to happen to international businesses when they make their decision about whether or not to locate in America? They decide no. They decide no.

Madam Speaker, I want to talk just a little bit about what President Obama has said. It is called corporate inversion. When you move your headquarters from America, you acquire a different company overseas, you make that your international headquarters, it is called a corporate inversion. You may have seen that in the news. Here is what President Obama's has had to say about it:

Even as corporate profits are higher than ever, there is a

small but growing rube of big corporations that are fleeing

the country to get out of paying taxes.

Fleeing the country to get out of paying taxes.

President Obama goes on. He says,

I say ``fleeing the country,'' but they are not actually

doing that. They are not going anywhere. They are keeping

their business here, but they are moving their headquarters.

They don't want to give up the best universities, the best

military, the advantages. They just don't want to pay for

it, so they are technically renouncing their U.S.

citizenship.

Well, that sounds very similar to what I read from Jack Lew a little bit earlier. That is the party line coming out of the White House.

I go on. President Obama says:

These businesses are playing by the rules, but these

companies are cherry-picking the rules and it damages our

Nation's finances. It makes it harder to invest in things

like job training.

He says:

I am not interested in punishing these companies, but I am

interested in economic patriotism.

As a government, we have crafted the most punishing tax code on the face of this Earth. We have created the longest list of disincentives to locate your business in our country that is available anywhere on the planet today. And the question the President is asking is: I don't want to punish these companies, but where is their economic patriotism?

Madam Speaker, where is our economic patriotism? The Tax Code is something we created. Do you believe for a moment if the 435 of us in this Chamber got together to write the Tax Code today we would write the absolute worst tax code available anywhere on planet Earth? I don't think so. If we designed this Tax Code from scratch, we would have done something very different, but this is where we would have ended up.

I will close with this from the President:

Now, the problem is this loophole. They are using it in our

tax laws, but it is actually legal. My attitude is I don't

care if it is legal; it is wrong.

I don't care if it's the law of the land, I don't care if it's the law, they shouldn't do it anyway.

When I think about the law, Madam Speaker, I don't know where you go, but I go to the courts for answers. And it is interesting that this idea of economic patriotism--this isn't the first time we have heard it--it has been argued in court time and time again.

I quote from the Second Circuit, affirmed by the Supreme Court:

Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be

as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern

which best pays the Treasury. There is not even a patriotic

duty to increase one's taxes.

We have had the suggestion: economic patriotism, you should pay more, you should pay more. It is not our fault, it is the Congress; it is not our fault, it is the government; it is your fault as the job creator out in America, you should be doing something different.

We saw this again, another Second Circuit case:

Over and over again the courts have said that there is

nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep

taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor

alike, and all do right. For nobody owes any public duty to

pay more than the law demands. Taxes are enforced

extractions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in

the name of morals is mere cant. Taxes are extractions, not

voluntary contributions.

Madam Speaker, I want to say to all of my colleagues, everybody in the administration: If you don't believe you are paying enough in taxes, we can give you an address to the Treasury Department where you can mail your check. Taxes are extractions. If you are interested in a voluntary contribution, I can tell you where to mail your check.

Tax law exists to provide certainty, not just certainty to employers, but also to investors, also to entrepreneurs, also to families, also to employees, to those folks who show up to work day in and day out. The law provides us with certainty.

We, as a government, have created the worst tax environment on the planet in which to do business, and the leader of our government wants to blame the companies that have stuck with us day in and day out for the last 50 years. The wonder isn't that companies are leaving us today, Madam Speaker; the wonder is that companies didn't leave us long ago. It is a punishing environment to do business in America.

So what is the solution? Because, Madam Speaker, you know I am not going to come down here and identify a problem and not talk to you about how to solve it. But before I get to my solutions, I want to talk to you about President Obama, whom I have quoted tonight; what Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew, whom I quoted tonight, what they have to say about the solution, and it is this: the best way to level the playing field is through tax reform that lowers the corporate tax rate, closes wasteful loopholes, and simplifies the Tax Code for everybody. I am with him 100 percent--with him 100 percent. What the President has said here, I support 100 percent.

That is not what he is saying on the campaign trail. On the campaign trail he is saying: any business that tries to do what is best for its employees, what is best for its shareholders, and what is best for its customers is unpatriotic. If they choose to try to improve the lot of their customers, their shareholders, and their employees that somehow there is an obligation to subject yourself to what this Congress and this White House, this country, has created, a monstrosity of a tax code.

Maybe Jack Lew had a different idea as Treasury Secretary. He says:

Only tax reform can solve the problems in our Tax Code that

lead to inversions.

I know what you are thinking, Madam Speaker. You are wondering if I brought the wrong slides to the floor tonight. You are wondering if I made some sort of terrible mistake. Because I have been talking about how President Obama said it was unpatriotic, how he said it was their fault, how he said they ought to fix it, they ought to stay. And Jack Lew said it is their fault, they have a duty, they ought to fix it, and they ought to stay.

No. These are the very same men saying something entirely different. Because they know, not on the campaign trail, but in the serious rooms where they are talking about serious policy, that the only way to take America into this next century, the only way to make us the most competitive Nation on the planet, the only way to get those jobs back in America, back from overseas, is fundamental Tax Code reform.

Burger King can't do fundamental Tax Code reform, only the Congress can. Tim Hortons can't do fundamental Tax Code reform, only the Congress can. Warren Buffett can't do fundamental tax reform, only this Congress can. We can and we should. In fact, our Ways and Means chairman, Dave Camp, Madam Speaker, has tried.

Let me go on and just get the other side of the issue from folks here on Capitol Hill. I quoted folks in the White House and the administration. House Speaker John Boehner says this, talking about all these statements about unpatriotic behavior:

Instead of dividing people for political advantage, the

President can endorse our push for comprehensive tax reform

or convince Senate Democrats to act. Let's solve the real

problem here.

Because it is the real problem here: the worst tax code on the planet. We have done this to ourselves.

House Ways and Means chairman, Dave Camp:

Everyone agrees that tax reform is the only solution that

will both keep companies from moving their headquarters out

of the United States and, more importantly, encourage more

businesses to grow, hire, and increase wages for American

workers.

Folks, that is what it is about: grow, hire, increase wages for American workers. It is not about passing a mandatory minimum wage. That is going to kill jobs. It is going to increase some people's salaries at the expense of others. It is not about doing away with environmental protections. We support environmental protections.

Obviously, there are some regulations that make no sense, but those regulations that protect us, we need those. It is not going back to the time when rivers were on fire and our environment was at risk. The answer is in fundamental Tax Code reform so that we can grow, so that we can hire, so that we can increase American wages.

And over on the Senate side, Chairman Ron Wyden, Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, says this:

America should not be part of a race to the bottom. It is

clear that America must establish a more efficient and

competitive corporate tax rate.

People wonder why it is we can't get things done here, Madam Speaker. You and I wonder why it is we can't get more done. It is because when folks are on the campaign trail, they tell one story. They tell a story that divides us. They tell a story that tells us who to blame. They tell a story about the big corporations who happen to provide a lot of jobs to a lot of American families. But that is not the story they tell. They tell the story of greed and perversion in the Tax Code.

But when they get down to serious policy conversations, when they get off the campaign trail and start talking about what really makes a difference, they all agree fundamental tax reform makes the difference.

Now, how are we going to get there? We have seen the shenanigans that go on that prevent us from going there, we have seen the desperate need that requires that we get there. How are we going to get there?

Well, Madam Speaker, the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness has been clear on this topic. This is President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness:

We have to view our corporate tax rates as part of our

national package for attracting job-creating investment.

I will give you a hint, Madam Speaker. If you want your corporate tax rates to be part of a package for attracting jobs in national investment, you don't want them to be the worst in the world, you want them to be the best in the world. The President's Council knows this.

Our system of corporate taxation hurts business competitiveness and American workers and it cries out for reforms. The President's Council says our corporate Tax Code hurts American workers and business competitiveness. They don't conclude that businesses are evil and greedy and out to stick it to American taxpayers. They conclude that businesses are struggling and trying, but it is our Tax Code that is the albatross around their neck:

A growing body of research also shows that in a world of

mobile capital, workers bear a rising share of the burden of

the corporate income tax in the form of reduced employment

opportunities and lower wages.

Madam Speaker, I am going to read that again, because we don't have that conversation enough. These are not my words, these are the words of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness:

A growing body of research also shows that in a world of

mobile capital, workers bear a rising share of the burden of

the corporate income tax in the form of reduced employment

opportunities and lower wages.

The United States of America, worst international competitiveness anywhere on the planet, worst international tax code anywhere on the planet. The United States of America, highest corporate tax rate anywhere on the planet, largest disincentive to do business anywhere on the planet.

The President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness:

These giant corporate tax rates don't punish corporations,

they punish American workers.

My friends, Madam Speaker, we don't have corporations that pay taxes, we have corporations that raise prices. We don't have corporations that pay taxes, we have corporations that lower wages. We don't have corporations that pay taxes, we have corporations that lower return on capital. Corporations don't pay taxes, they collect taxes. They collect them from the people who buy their products, they collect them from their employees in those lower wages, they collect them in lower returns to capital--their shareholders, our seniors on those fixed incomes. High corporate tax rates don't punish corporations, they don't punish employers, they punish employees, they punish middle class American families.

Madam Speaker, the President's Council recommended a move to that territorial tax system I talk about. They recommended eliminating this vestige of an older time where capital was not so mobile, a vestige only seven countries in the world still use. We are the largest economy to still use it. It disadvantages us more than it does anybody else. The President's Council recommends eliminating that territorial tax system, not double-taxing. It says:

The current worldwide system makes investing . . . in the

United States more expensive from a tax point of view than

reinvesting them abroad, where they are not subject to

additional corporate income tax.

Think about the lunacy of that, Madam Speaker. In the name of so- called ``helping the American economy'' by bringing in more revenue through higher tax rates, what we do to American companies is discourage them from bringing money home and investing it here, and instead encourage them to keep the money overseas and invest there.

I don't know what you are thinking of when you are thinking of investment. I am thinking of building a new factory, I am thinking of expanding productivity of your workers, I am thinking of those things that grow economies.

The President's Council says our Tax Code encourages those things to happen for other people's citizens. I want to encourage those things to happen for our citizens. Corporate tax reform is the answer.

Madam Speaker, I am going to close in a place that makes me happy. I told you I had bad news when I got down here to start. I did have bad news. The bad news is we have tied one arm of the American economy behind America's back. We have burdened ourselves with the worst Tax Code the world has ever seen, and we are demanding that American companies follow our disastrous model or else face the accusation that they are somehow unpatriotic. That has been the White House's solution to a slow economy and rapid job deterioration.

Madam Speaker, what you can't see on this poster is Ronald Reagan's solution to some of those very same challenges. Because when he was elected in 1980, he faced some of those very same economic challenges that we are facing here today. And Ronald Reagan came together with the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Democrats, and passed fundamental tax reform for the last time it was passed in this country--1986--last large tax reform that we had in this country. They said he couldn't do it. They said he couldn't do it, Madam Speaker. They said it was too big.

He did two things that this White House, this administration, has not done, and that I implore them to do, Madam Speaker--two things.

Number one, he didn't just talk about it, he released a proposal of his own. He didn't just release one proposal, his Treasury Department released two proposals. Our Treasury Department giving speeches on why it is a corporation's fault, Ronald Reagan's Treasury Department offering solutions; two entire fundamental tax reform proposals for the Congress to examine, improve, and pass.

Ronald Reagan said this, Madam Speaker. He said:

Just as sure as Ruth could hit home runs and Rose can break

records, during this session of the Congress, America's tax

plan will become law. But it's going to take all of us and

all of you letting the folks in Washington know you that you

want this change made.

He led, Madam Speaker. I thank you for your leadership, I ask my colleagues for their leadership, and, together, we can make sure that American jobs come first and the American economy is first in the world.

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

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 30 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, September 19, 2014, at noon.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague on the Rules Committee, my friend from Oklahoma, for yielding.

I am not sure what it is that is happening here on this floor right now because the bill that is before us that everyone is rising to object to is the bill that allows us to bring up the same day, just as soon as we find a solution that can bring this House together, bring a bill immediately to the floor to solve a crisis. I just want to make that clear. The bill that is before us today is the only piece of legislation in this town that allows us to move immediately to solve a crisis. I am not talking about a crisis that is imagined by Republicans or imagined by Democrats.

I have in my hand here a letter from Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Speaker. In an open letter to families all across the world he says:

So, let me be clear: there is no path to deferred action or

citizenship, or one being contemplated by Congress, for a

child who crosses our border illegally today.

I have heard the hearts of my friends on the other side of the aisle, I have heard the hearts. But we are a Nation of laws, as well as hearts, and you know that the law of the land does not allow for that, as the Secretary of Homeland Security said. Yet, down here on the floor today, if I was watching this from my home in Guatemala or Honduras or El Salvador, I would be led to believe there is.

We are better than that, and we have to be better than that because this is, in fact, a crisis. It is not an imagined crisis. It is a real crisis.

Folks thought this House was going to go home yesterday, they thought this House was going to go home yesterday, just like the Senate did, without providing a response. That is not the House I ran to be a part of.

We are still here, we are still here working, and, by golly, I believe we are going to have a solution on the floor. I believe we are going to have a solution on the floor before the Sun goes down today, and I am so proud, I am so proud that we are here to do that. But I tell you this, we cannot do it if this bill does not pass. This rule today gives us a pathway to success. In its absence, that pathway will be delayed.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate you being down with me here tonight. It took me awhile to get my materials over here because the topic I have tonight is the topic of what this House has been doing to make a difference in the life of families across this country. That is the good news. I have to confess, I am here with good news/bad news tonight.

This is the stack of bills that this House has passed, again, to make a difference in the lives of families, to makes a difference in small businesses, to grow the economy, to create jobs, the bills this House has passed collaboratively that sit collecting dust in the United States Senate. That is the bad news part of tonight.

It is fair enough if folks think this process is broken. It is fair enough if folks think there is too much partisanship in Washington, but what we have here are the successes. What we have here are not the hypothetical ``if only'' bills. What we have here are the bills that have actually left this House and sit in the United States Senate. It is 356 bills, Mr. Speaker, 356 bills that have left this House that sit collecting dust in the Senate. We did a hashtag, Mr. Speaker: #StuckInTheSenate. We all remember, ``I am just a bill sitting on Capitol Hill,'' that Saturday morning cartoon. This is not a dictatorship. We had that conversation a little bit earlier this afternoon. It is not a dictatorship. It is a collaborative effort, and the House has collaborated to pass over 356 bills that have gone to the Senate to do nothing.

Now, again, it is good news/bad news day. Let me start with something that is good news, because if folks don't believe there is opportunity for success, I could imagine how folks would give up, not just folks here in this Chamber, but folks across the country, families across the country.

This, Mr. Speaker, you may remember it, H.R. 803, the Workplace Innovation and Opportunity Act. This passed the House. It passed the Senate. It was signed by the President. This has become law. This was a bill to consolidate a variety of workplace training programs. We talk so much about a trained workforce, how it is we get Americans who may be transitioning in their life, are transitioning home from Iraq or Afghanistan, transitioning from an industry that is in decline to an industry that is growing, how do we get those folks trained.

I credit Dr. Virginia Foxx with this. She is one of my colleagues here in the House. I serve with her on the Rules Committee, but she also serves on the Education and the Workforce Committee. She has been working to try to consolidate programs, take money from programs that were not effective and move the money to programs that were effective. Imagine that. Imagine that. Here she is, a conservative Republican, and what she was trying to do was take money from places that weren't working and put it into places where it would make a difference for moms and dads and kids. And she did it. She did it.

Now, what we passed out of the House was strong, Mr. Speaker. We went out and we found every single program that was failing in America and we brought them together and put them into a single pot and sent it over to the Senate. The Senate said: No, we don't think all of those programs are failing. We don't want to move that big of a package. We want to do something smaller. They ended up consolidating about half of what we consolidated in the House.

But guess what. When you elect Rob Woodall dictator, then I get to have it my way every day. Until then, this is a collaborative effort here: the House, the Senate, and the President.

So we worked with the Senate, and we worked out our differences. We found that package of consolidation that we could all live with, and we sent it to the President and we got a signature. That is what the American people expect. That is what my constituents expect. They expect us to work together to get things done, not sacrificing principle, not compromising on values, but finding consensus because we all agree that American workers need help. We all agree that moms and dads in transition need to find a better way to feed their families.

We can spend tax dollars better. We found a way to do that here. I call it common sense, Mr. Speaker. It is not supposed to take a rocket scientist to sort some of these issues out. It is supposed to be common sense.

Did I mention #StuckInTheSenate, Mr. Speaker? If I didn't, I want to mention it right now because here is one that really gets me.

We were just talking about hiring more moms and dads. It is called the Hire More Heroes Act. Do you remember it, Mr. Speaker? We passed it out of this House with over 400 votes. Now, young high school students, middle school students, they might not know how many Members there are in the House. There are 435 Members in this House, and more than 400 of them said we should pass the Hire More Heroes bill, but it is stuck in the Senate. Over 400 folks voted ``yes,'' only one voted ``no,'' so I don't want to hear about bipartisanship in the House. I don't want to hear about Republican this and Democratic that.

Mr. Speaker, 400-plus folks said let's pass this bill. I will tell you what it does. The Hire More Heroes Act says one of the highest rates of unemployment we have in this country are men and women in uniform coming home from overseas. It says that we have small employers in this country, and as you know, Mr. Speaker, most of the employment in this country is not driven by the big guys. It is driven by small employers. We heard from small employers in this country who said: I want to hire those veterans, but I am worried about that 50-employee threshold that throws me into this brand-new round of ObamaCare regulations.

Guess what this House did, Mr. Speaker. More than 400 out of 435 got together and they said, if you are a small business owner in America and you want to put unemployed veterans to work but you don't because you are worried about some Federal Government regulation dealing with ObamaCare, we will waive that regulation for you. Hire all of the veterans you want to, and be not afraid of Federal Government regulation.

Think about that. Think about that. It is what I think about. It is why I ran

for Congress. It is why my friends on the other side of the aisle ran for Congress. We came to make a difference--to make a difference. Who among us doesn't want to see unemployed veterans get a job? Who among us doesn't want to see small businesses succeed? We came together, more than 400 of us, to pass the Hire More Heroes Act, but it is stuck in the Senate.

Why? Why? Over 400 of us, almost every Democrat--we lost one--but every Republican, almost every one of us voted ``yes'' to make a difference for small businesses, get them the labor that they need and make a difference for veterans looking for a job.

That was a good bill, Mr. Speaker, and still is, and it is stuck in the Senate. It is not stuck because we can't come to agreement on it, Mr. Speaker. It is not stuck because Republicans are intransigent. It is stuck because the Senate can't get these bills moving.

Mr. Speaker, I am not asking folks to just come together and do what I want them to do. What I am talking about are things that we are celebrating in this institution. I am not talking about things that squeaked through by the skin of their teeth. I am not talking about Republican proposals that we jammed through with the might of the majority. I am talking about commonsense proposals that make a difference in people's lives.

I will give you another one. How about H.R. 4414, Mr. Speaker? It is the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014. That doesn't sound very exciting, does it? And you know what, it is not very exciting for about 99 percent of Americans. But for Americans who have to work overseas and who have seen their health insurance policies canceled, quadrupled in price, folks who have struggled to find coverage, what this says is, if you don't live in America but you are working for an American company, really, you can sort out your insurance needs on your own over there. If you don't live in America, you don't have to comply with all these needs because--guess what--if you are doing business in London, the health care system is different in England.

If you are doing business in Paris, the health care system is different in France. If you are doing business in Moscow, the health care system is different in Russia. The rules we passed here won't work in those places. It is commonsense.

Had we not jammed that bill through Congress, that Affordable Care Act, maybe we would have gotten to that, but I don't know. It is a small group of people.

We passed a solution--let's look--269-150. I dare say those folks who voted ``no'' wouldn't say they opposed the policy, they would say they just thought it was a symbol of undermining ObamaCare in some way, they didn't want to undermine the President. I say nonsense about undermining the President. I want to make a difference in the lives of families.

Ninety-two days, Mr. Speaker, 92 days this bill has been sitting in the Senate.

Now, that is a minor piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, that could make a big impact, but for a small number of people. What about things that make a big impact for a large number of people? What about those things?

The REINS Act, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 367, the REINS Act says--and it is a crazy bill, I will confess--it says before you pass a regulation, you need to consider the economic impact of that regulation. Now, while that is commonsense back home in Atlanta, it may seem crazy here in Washington, D.C.

Before you pass a regulation, weigh the pros and the cons to see if it is a good idea or not, weigh those pros and the cons. It is a REINS Act because we are just out of control here with regulation and we need to have a thoughtful conversation about it.

H.R. 1105, the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act. Trying to find ways for our small businesses to get access to the capital they need in what have been incredibly tight credit markets.

H.R. 2374, the Retail Investor Protection Act.

Time and time again, Mr. Speaker, we are passing bills--they are all here, they are all sitting on Harry Reid's desk over in the Senate-- passing bills in an effort to make a difference in people's lives. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be interested in doing it. I don't have a bill in this stack that is about making a political statement. I don't have a bill in this stack that is about trying to be one up on the other guy, trying to embarrass somebody, trying to call somebody out. What I have in this stack--did I mention there are 356 bills in this stack?--what I have in this stack are bills that could make a difference to a struggling economy today--today. I say today. These bills passed a week ago, a month ago, a year ago or more. They could make a difference. They are #StuckInTheSenate--356 bills.

I have got the great honor tonight, Mr. Speaker--I am not alone in this endeavor, haven't been alone in passing 356 bills. It has been a team sport from day one, team sport from day one--Republicans, Democrats, folks from the North, folks from the South, folks representing families from across the country.

Tonight, I have got Mr. Rothfus here, an 18-month Member of this institution, who came, I wager, not to make a point, but to make a difference, and has been doing that every day he has been in this Chamber.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Will the gentleman yield?

I may have misunderstood what you said, because what my constituents believe is that it is partisanship that has shut this down. That it is Republicans fighting with Democrats and Democrats fighting with Republicans.

We are talking about over 350 bills that are sitting in the Senate that have passed this House, that we have come together on this House, you are saying 60 of those were introduced by Democrats?

I thank the gentleman.

I would like to ask the gentleman if he would stay just 1 more minute. I see you are down here with three lovely young women from the next generation of Americans. When they grow up, they are going to be the leaders of this country.

You mentioned energy in your presentation. I have got to be honest with you, I didn't come to deal with those big issues that are sometimes amorphous. I came to deal with the issues that make a difference in families' lives today, tomorrow, and in the next generation.

We talk about energy, we talk about streamlining production, we talk about the Keystone pipeline, but I live in Georgia. We are not drilling any wells in Georgia. I can't tell much of a difference at the price of the pump. I don't have that many families who say: This is going to make a difference in my pocketbook, this is going to make a difference for a job right here in Atlanta, Georgia. But you come from a different part of the country.

Can you see the difference that these bills make, not from a Republican/Democrat partisan perspective, but from a real world difference, real dollars in families' pockets back home?

I am looking at the Northern Route Approval Act poster you have got behind you, and I am

looking at the ``days in the Senate'' column. It says it has been 434 days that that bill has been in the Senate.

You are a new Member in this body. I have only had a voting card for 3 years. I know it is a collaborative process, but as I look at that 434 days in the Senate, does it mean that we have sent over a proposal to expand energy production to make those family-providing jobs that you mention and the Senate didn't like our idea, and so they sent us back a different proposal, and we have dropped the ball? Is that a possibility?

The gentleman said it so well. This isn't about one person. This isn't about one Chamber. This isn't about one part of the government. We are all in this together. Families in western Pennsylvania and families in north Georgia are in this together. We will rise or fall as a Nation together.

I go back to what you said when you first took the well. There are so many awful stories about Washington, D.C., and the way that we work together. Some of them are true, and many of them are just lore, but I believe you said--and my staff handed it to me after you said it--that about 254 of the 356 bills that are stuck in the Senate passed this House either unanimously or with more than two-thirds of the Members voting in favor of them.

I don't know everything about western Pennsylvania, but I know you don't get elected to Congress there because you are interested in propounding wild views that make no difference to people. You get elected there because you care about people and you want to do the things that matter. You know who the boss is, and it is those folks back home.

When I think that about this stack of bills, it would be so easy for people to dismiss it as: well, those are those crazy Republican ideas, and this is just some sort of political stunt.

How many times have we heard that it is a political stunt? Why are those guys talking about those bills? It is because of what you said. Sixty of these bills introduced by Democrats passed this Chamber, and 254 of these bills stuck in the Senate passed with two-thirds of us coming together--or more--to send them over to the Senate.

We have an obligation to work together. The answer to the question is that, after 434 days, the Senate hasn't said no. The Senate hasn't said: we have a better idea, so we will send this back to you. The Senate didn't say: you are focused on the wrong pathway; let's look at a different route approval.

The Senate did nothing.

I think about those seven appropriations bills you talked about. I want to remember the numbers. We have gotten 12 out of committee. We passed seven on the floor of the House. We have sent those over to the Senate.

Again, I don't know if the Senate is going to take our ideas or reject our

ideas or come up with their own ideas, but they have done none of those things. They haven't taken our ideas, they haven't rejected our ideas, and they promulgated absolutely no ideas of their own.

I don't enjoy being down here. This is not #kickthesenate. This is #StuckInTheSenate. It is not that there is not a way forward. You have described the way forward. It is not all my way. It is not all your way. It is not all anyone's way. It is a negotiated pathway forward.

When I ran for Congress, that is what I expected. When my constituents sent me here, that is what they expected.

I thank my friend for focusing on those commonsense points.

Again, when I open up the newspaper, what I hear is it is about partisan nonsense and it is about election-year politics. When we are talking about over 350 bills and we are talking about 60 of those bills being introduced by Democrats, but passed with Democrat and Republican support here in the House, when we are talking about 250 of those bills being passed with more than a two-thirds vote--many of those unanimously--what it tells me is we are not in the business of trying to make a point.

We are in the business of trying to make a difference, and if we had a willing partner in the Senate, we could absolutely make that difference.

I yield to my friend from Indiana, a former secretary of State, which has you in the executive side of things. You actually had to be responsible for getting things done. I guess that is my frustration with the Senate.

I just need somebody to stand up and be a partner and take responsibility for moving a few of these things forward, trying to make a difference in people's lives.

I would just like to ask my friend because, in serving on the committee, you have an insight that most of us don't have.

I am looking at those numbers, at 360 Members of this House voting ``yes.''

That is more than you need to pass a constitutional amendment, for Pete's sakes.

That is about as close to unanimous as we generally get. I am looking, and it hasn't been at the Senate for 1 week or 2 weeks. It has been there for almost 3 months so far.

What have they said? Have they said, We have got a better idea, and they have sent back an alternative to the committee? What have you heard?

These are not partisan issues. Education is not a partisan issue. Children are not partisan issues. We have votes with 360 Members of this body. Again, this is the hyperpartisan House--so the news tells me--and two bills right there in front of you are making a difference in people's lives. They could make that difference today, and yet the Senate does nothing.

I have been preaching the ``Stuck in the Senate'' hashtag message, I will say to my friend, because I still believe. I told folks when we started this hour tonight that this is a good news/bad news hour. The good news is I am sitting on top of a stack of 356 bills that this House has passed in a bipartisan way, and the bad news is that they are stuck in the Senate.

I believe that perhaps you and I, as young Congressmen, can't move the Senate, but I believe the American people still can move the Senate.

It is a ``we'' question. I thank my friend. There are folks who get wrapped up in the partisan issues of the day, and there are those folks who have committed themselves to finding willing partners wherever those partners may be.

What I have seen of you in our 3 years of working together is that you came here to do things that mattered, and whoever you have to partner with and however late you have to work and however early you have to get up--whatever you have to do--if this job is worth doing, it is because it is making a difference in people's lives, and I am grateful to you for that.

It may be a Midwestern values night. I have got the gentleman from Indiana, and I have been joined by a gentleman from Illinois, who has also been a true champion, Mr. Speaker. You didn't have the great pleasure of coming in with this big freshman class of 2010, but what was so neat about it to me was that, in showing up to freshman orientation, I met these two guys for the very first time, and I met my new Democratic colleagues for the very first time.

Truthfully, when we talked about why we came here, I couldn't tell the difference between the two because the American people sent a crowd of folks here to do the things that mattered, and we have partnered to do those.

The gentleman from Illinois is one of those great partners, and I would be happy to yield.

I thank my friend. It is exactly that commitment to working together to make a difference that I think folks long for in this place. And it is exactly what you have there, H.R. 803, the Workplace Innovation Act. It is true. That is one of our success stories.

But you first came to the floor to support that in March of 2013. The reason we are able to call this a success is because the Senate finally got around to dealing with it in June of 2014--over a year. It could have been making a difference in people's lives.

I am thrilled that now we are making that difference, but we wasted a year. And the family that you talked about, a family struggling to try to decide what tomorrow is going to look like, doesn't have a year to wait.

The Internet Tax Freedom bill you discussed just came out of this body this summer. That is something the Senate could take up immediately. As you said, it came out of here with wild bipartisan support. It could begin to make a difference tomorrow--tomorrow.

I am happy to yield to my friend.

I thank my friend. He is such a great leader. Bringing voices together is that skill set that sometimes this institution lacks, and he has it in spades.

As I close tonight, Mr. Speaker, I just want to make it clear, this isn't a partisan stunt. This isn't Republican machinations. 356 bills sit in the Senate right now that, if the Senate moved them, could begin to make a difference in the lives of American families.

I want to tell you about those bills: 98 percent of them passed with a bipartisan vote. 98 percent of these bills passed with a bipartisan vote. 254 of these bills passed with either no opposition or two-thirds support. Almost 200, no opposition at all; 60 introduced by my Democratic colleagues.

Making a difference for America is not a partisan exercise, Mr. Speaker, but it is a sacred trust. I am so proud of this House for moving forward on these bills to make a difference. I know that we can work together to encourage Harry Reid to do the same. I know our friends across the country, the bosses of the United States Senate, can encourage the Senate to do the same.

This country is thirsty for leadership. I am proud of my colleagues on both sides of the House for providing it. I look forward to partnering with the Senate and the President to move these bills into that difference-making position for those families across this country.

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

Mr. Speaker, thank you for yielding me the time and for being down here with me today.

I hate that you can't see my charts today. They are not particularly colorful or exciting, but they are important in that they are going to tell the story of something that we have gotten done together.

Now, I don't want you to think I am just making something up down here on the floor of the House, Mr. Speaker. I know you are probably thinking about 326 bills that we have passed here in the House that are still sitting over there in the Senate gathering dust, having received no action whatsoever.

You might be thinking about the work going on in the Rules Committee, where we are suing the President for his failure to implement the law as he crafted it, drafted it, and signed it. You might be thinking about the border crisis that is happening right now that has been marked by so much inaction.

I don't mean to say that there are not lots of things that need to be worked on in this body. There are.

I wanted to take just a few minutes this afternoon to talk about some of the rare successes that we have had, and it is a success that is a long time coming.

I represent Metro Atlanta, Mr. Speaker, kind of the northeastern suburbs there in Metro Atlanta, and right down I-75 and then down I-16, you get to the great and historic city of Savannah. Folks think about Savannah for all sorts of different things. Whether it is Oglethorpe and his arrival, whether it is dyeing the river green on St. Patrick's Day, or whether it is the birth of the Girl Scouts in Savannah, lots of things do bring it to mind. But folks don't often think about the economic driver that the Port of Savannah is for the entire southeastern United States.

So often we talk about constituent interests on the floor, Mr. Speaker, what is good for this one district in Alabama or this one district in New York. What I want to talk about is the impact of the Port of Savannah on the economy of the entire southeastern United States.

You might not know, Mr. Speaker, from your part of the world, that it is the fourth largest container terminal in the Nation, and the largest single terminal operation in all of North America, the single terminal, one long dock there in Savannah. It handles 3 million container equivalents absolutely every cycle. Volume is up 7 percent this year alone.

When we talk about the number of folks it impacts, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 21,000 companies from across the United States of America bring their commerce in and out of the Port of Savannah. Here is what is so important about our ports, Mr. Speaker. I don't know if everyone internalizes their values. Savannah is a great example. Forty- eight percent of the container traffic in that port are imports coming into America, goods and services that American consumers want to buy, but 52 percent of the traffic coming in and out of that port are exports. Forty-eight percent are things that we are buying from folks overseas, but 52 are goods that were manufactured with American hands, putting paychecks into Americans' pockets and shipping those goods right back out overseas--48 percent imports, 52 percent exports.

Now, why am I talking about that? We have got an exciting opportunity going on in this hemisphere, Mr. Speaker. You may have heard the term Panamax ships. The new Panama Canal--and you won't be able to see these numbers, Mr. Speaker, so I will just go through them briefly. The new Panama Canal is going to accommodate ships that carry not twice the number of containers that ships carry today, not three times the containers, but almost 3\1/2\ times more containers than ships carry.

What does that mean? That means if you are the fourth largest container port in the country, as Savannah is, if you are the fastest growing container port in the country, as Savannah is, you had better get to work making sure that your equipment--your port, your docks, and your channel--can accommodate the newer, larger ships.

Today, the draft on the ships coming through the Panama Canal, Mr. Speaker, is just under 40 feet. The new drafts of these Panamax ships are going to be 50 feet--10 feet more, 25 percent more. It requires major changes and renovations in our ports. And guess what. When the State of Georgia recognizes that we have a critical economic engine driving our economy, a critical economic engine to the entire Southeastern United States, we can't just get together as the State of Georgia and decide we are going to do some dredging and make sure that our port is ready for these newer, modern, larger ships. We are not allowed to.

Why? Well, it has a lot to do with this building, the one down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and a couple over in southwest D.C. at the EPA and our friends over at the Corps of Engineers. There is Federal law after Federal law after Federal law that says to the State of Georgia, no, you cannot expand your port without our permission.

Now, that would be a source of great difference of agreement in this body about whether we ought to have the kind of Federal regulatory burden that we do in order to make those decisions, but, in fact, that is the law of the land today and so we must deal with it.

We are talking about deeper channels, and we are talking about wider docking berths. We are talking about trying to move, again, not twice as many, not three times as many, but three-and-a-half times as many containers tomorrow as we were moving yesterday. And we have been battling as Georgians--as folks from the Southeast United States, as people trying to grow the economy--we have been battling the Federal red tape machine not for a week, not for a month, not for year, but almost a decade.

I say ``almost a decade.'' It has really been more than a decade, Mr. Speaker. But it has been going on for a decade in earnest, and we have finally gotten to the finish line. We have finally gotten to a place where the paperwork has been signed and the checks are being written, where we are going to be able to do the kind of dredging and modernization that is necessary to continue the economic engine here in the country.

What we are going to do is deepen our port from 42 feet to 47. Now, I mentioned to you the draft of these ships is 50 feet. We couldn't get permission to dredge deep enough to actually handle the 50-foot depth there. If we can't handle that draft, then these boats are going to have to unload some of their cargo either in Charleston or down in Jacksonville, and they are going to have to come into Savannah light.

I couldn't make it happen that we could organize our port to actually handle the fully loaded ships in the new Panamax model, but we are going to deepen to 47 at a cost of about $700 million. Now, that is real money. It is real money, and it is real money that is coming in a cost share agreement. The State of Georgia is picking up more than $200 million of that. The Federal Government is also picking up a share, recognizing the importance of economic development across the region.

Cost shares are important, Mr. Speaker. I have been talking to some of our colleagues, and you may have had the same conversation. There is really no limit to the number of folks who are willing to take free money. If you offer free money, if there is a grant proposal

that is just going to give you something, folks are willing to raise their hand and say: Yes, give it to me.

If you ask people to put some skin in the game, then it creates a completely different dynamic for who is on board and who is thinking they want to opt out this time around.

Georgia is on board to the tune of $200 million because it is important. When things are important, we ought to be able to come together and get those things done. Again, this Port of Savannah, this Corps of Engineers project, this bit of the WRDA bill authorized in the WRDA bill, the Water Resources Development Act, a rare episode of folks coming together and getting things done.

When we talk about what this means, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 11,000 jobs nationwide--11,000 jobs nationwide. I say ``nationwide,'' Mr. Speaker. Only about 2,400 of those jobs are going to be local jobs there around the port. But we can't get wrapped up in what is good for me and what is good for my community to the exclusion of what is good for us. We are all in this together.

Is Savannah going to have a disproportionate benefit for the investment in this port? Of course it is. They are also going to be disproportionately burdened. Their streets are going to be more crowded, and their housing prices are going be to affected. Everything is affected. But this is not a local concern. This is a national concern.

Mr. Speaker, the world is changing. The world is a dynamic place. Again, it doesn't take much to see that what was the amazing engineering marvel that was the Panama Canal has been set aside now as being too old, too antiquated, and too small to handle modern needs. We are now talking about this Panamax canal that is going to bring ships the size of which you and I have never seen, Mr. Speaker, to American ports in record time, saving fuel, making a difference to the energy economy, and making a difference to price for American consumers.

I am a conservative Republican from the Deep South, Mr. Speaker. I have a vision of what this country ought to look like, and it is a vision of a country where every man or woman can follow his or her own hopes and dreams, wherever those hopes and dreams may take them. It is a vision where the government doesn't put its foot on the throat of those young Americans who want to pursue those dreams.

But it doesn't mean that there is no role for government at all. When it comes to big infrastructure projects, the interstate highway system, for example, that transportation bill that just passed this House 2 short weeks ago, when it comes to our ports, when it comes to those big issues of infrastructure that matter to us all that aren't just about jobs in our local area but about jobs across this country, we have to come together to make a difference in those ways.

For those of us in Georgia, for those of us in the Southeast, this brought Democrats and Republicans together, Mr. Speaker. This brought State legislators together with the executive branch. This brought folks together from Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and more. We can do those big things that matter. They are not easy. Sometimes they take a year or 2 or 3. But in my 3 years of service in this institution, Mr. Speaker, I have never seen anything get done that was worth doing that didn't involve someone working awfully hard to make it happen. And more times than not, it wasn't one person working awfully hard, it was two of us or three of us or ten of us or 100 of us who got together to make these things happen.

I am grateful to my colleagues for working with me to make sure the Port of Savannah is a success--again, not just a success for the city of Savannah, not just a success for the State of Georgia, but a success for the United States of America. It is an example of the kinds of partnerships that we can create and the kinds of differences we can make in the pocketbooks of families back home.

There are going to be families who receive paychecks that would not have received those paychecks otherwise because of our cooperation and success. There are going to be consumers who are saving money at the cash register each and every day because we were able to come together and build this much-needed infrastructure project.

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

I thank my friend from Oklahoma for yielding me the time.

Madam Speaker, the Rules Committee has a tough job, but it is interesting to hear folks down here talking about both their agreement on tax reform and deficits and their agreement about what a rule ought to look like.

I have kind of gotten a little bit of both of their passions with me today, Madam Speaker, because Ways and Means bills do have to come to the floor under a closed rule.

The way the rules work, if you have an open rule, anything that is relevant to the underlying bill, you can discuss, so when you bring a tax bill to the floor, suddenly, the entire Tax Code becomes available for amendment, and you can imagine what a brouhaha that would be. I would enjoy that debate. I would thoroughly enjoy that debate, but it would never, ever end.

That is not so with our spending bills. When our spending bills come to the floor, they come under a completely open process, so that we can examine the underlying spending.

Just to take folks through the Rules Committee process a little bit, Madam Speaker, what we did here is we waived the CutGo provision in the rules. There are a lot of focus groups going on around the Chamber right now about how we should change the rules to make the system work better.

Sometimes, in the Rules Committee, we end up waiving some of the rules to make the system work better. Some folks think it makes it work better, some folks think it makes it worse, but we should have that conversation as a body.

We had to waive CutGo in this rule, Madam Speaker, because it increases mandatory spending. I have a bill beside me--and it really drives this point home. In fact, I think it was the gentleman from Colorado who was making this point.

We voted on the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill this year. It was a $3 billion spending bill. We had eight amendments on the floor of the House. It passed. We voted on the Financial Services spending bill. It was a $21 billion spending bill. We had 51 amendments on that bill. We passed it out of the House.

We voted on the Energy and Water spending bill, a $34 billion spending bill, with 78 amendments on the floor of the House. We voted on the Commerce-Justice-Science bill, a $51 billion bill, with 84 amendments on the floor of the House. It goes on: Transportation, $52 billion, with 68 amendments; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, $71 billion, with 24 amendments.

It brings us to one of the underlying bills today, a bill that I think touches the heart of absolutely every man or woman in this Chamber, our constituents back home, trying to help our children access the higher education services that they need, but in this case, it is going to increase mandatory spending by $73 billion--more than any of the appropriations bills we passed this year, except for our Defense Department Appropriations bill--and it is not going to be able to allow a single amendment on the floor of the House.

Now, that is just the process. That is the process that we have when we are dealing with tax bills, but my question for my colleagues is: Does mandatory spending deserve some additional scrutiny, the kind of scrutiny that we give to appropriated spending, to discretionary spending? I will tell you that it does. I am so proud of what this House does on discretionary spending.

My friend from Oklahoma happens to be an appropriator. He is an appropriations cardinal, in fact, which means he has leadership responsibilities over there. This committee comes to the Rules Committee--and my friend from Colorado recognizes this--they come to the Rules Committee, and they ask for an open rule every single time.

They say: We have done the best we can do to give the House our proudest work, but if anybody else has ideas about how to improve it, come to us. We want this to be a collaborative product.

We can't do that with this bill before us today, and it increases mandatory spending by $73.7 billion. I cannot count the number of times I have heard my colleagues in this body say it is not the appropriations spending that is the problem. It is the mandatory spending that is the problem.

We are moving awfully fast in the body this week to appropriate $73.7 billion in new mandatory spending. I know people's hearts and heads are with these young people that we are trying to help get ahead, that we are trying to help access higher education, but there is only one place we are going to find this $73.7 billion, and that is in the pocketbooks of those very same young men and women when we borrow this money today to spend it on them and ask them to pay it back, with interest in the future.

I caution my colleagues today, spending is a constitutional responsibility that we have. It is a constitutional responsibility that we have placed in the Appropriations Committee, where things are scrutinized line by line by line.

Never before this year has so much money gone out the door in so little amount of time, with so little input from the very capable Members on both sides of the aisle.

With that, again, I encourage my colleagues to read this rule. You will support this rule, but examine the underlying legislation carefully.

Mr. Speaker, I have a festival of charts with me, not because they are pretty, not because they are attractive, but because I have something very important I want to talk about today, and I just can't do it without the direct quotes. I want to talk about the separation of powers.

If you will remember the conversation that the gentleman from Massachusetts had--he was down here on the floor with the gentleman from North Carolina--they were talking about constitutional powers. They were talking about what we need to do in this body to fulfill our constitutional powers. It is hard. I don't envy them at all, Mr. Speaker. I come down here, and folks at home always ask about this time at the end of the day.

They say, What goes on in that time?

I say, Well, they yield time for long periods, about an hour at a time. They will yield Members time to come down here and debate the issues of their choice, but your job of sitting there as the impartial observer while anybody says ``goodness knows what'' down here on the House floor is a hard, hard job--a hard job.

I didn't want to come down here today and try to come up with something that was divisive, that would try to get you out of your chair, that would try to bring your gavel down on me. I wanted to come up with something today that would be something that we could agree on as a people.

Now think about that.

I don't know what your understanding is, Mr. Speaker, of who we are

as a people. I was just visiting with some young constituents out in the hallway--ages 6, ages 8, ages 10. What does it mean to be an American? It is a set of ideas. It is a set of values. It is a set of principles. Now, most of those principles, I would argue, are contained in our United States Constitution. It is a pretty simple document. It lays out a vision, a vision that has governed this country well for over 200 years.

Sadly--and I mean, sincerely, I do think it is sad--we have crafted a resolution up in the Rules Committee--and we just had a hearing on it this week--where we are suing the President of the United States over his adherence to the Constitution. Now, I take absolutely no pleasure in that. To be fair, as folks back in their offices know, Mr. Speaker, I am a hardcore Republican from the State of Georgia, but I take no pleasure in suing the President of the United States.

I take no pleasure in it because I represent the article I United States Congress. It is not my power that is in my voting card. It is the power of 650,000 constituents back home in Georgia. It is the people's power that is represented in my voting card. I will tell you that, not just during the time you have been here in Congress, Mr. Speaker, and not just during the 3 years that I have been here in Congress, but for a long period of time, the people's power that is represented here in this institution has been slipping and sliding right down Pennsylvania Avenue, behind me, and accumulating in the United States White House. Administrations, both Republicans and Democrats, have been taking one fiber of freedom--one fiber of power at a time--from the people, taking it from the Congress and amassing it down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The reason I say I take no pleasure in the lawsuit, Mr. Speaker, is that I don't want to have to go across the street to the Supreme Court and ask a coequal branch of government--those article III courts--to return to me the people's power that I lost. I should have never lost it to begin with. Now, I wasn't here in Congress when so much of that was going on, Mr. Speaker. You know it has only been 3 years that I have had a voting card, but I feel responsible. Here is what the resolution says:

Resolve: that the Speaker--the Speaker of the House--may

initiate or intervene in one or more civil actions on behalf

of the U.S. House of Representatives in Federal court.

It is saying that we have experienced institutional harm in article I. In article I in the House, we have experienced institutional harm. It authorizes the Speaker to file suit not on his behalf but on our behalf. He is not the Speaker of the Republicans. He is not the Speaker of the Democrats. He is the Speaker of the whole House. It is to file suit on our behalf, and it is a suit on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

I know what you are thinking, Mr. Speaker. If you have not had a chance to see this resolution, you are thinking, Oh, boy. Here go those Republicans again. They are just filing one more lawsuit to try to stop the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Not true. Not true. This is a lawsuit to require the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

I want you to think about that. That is why we are in this constitutional crisis.

I didn't want the Affordable Care Act. I wasn't here at the time. I didn't have a chance to vote for it. I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep my doctor. I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep my insurance policy. I knew that, if we wanted to take care of the needs of the uninsured, there were better ways, but I didn't get a chance to vote. I wasn't here. The Senate passed it. It got jammed through the House. The President signed it. It turns out it didn't quite work the way the President wanted it to.

So what does he do? He started to implement some of it, and decided not to implement other parts of it.

You don't get to do that.

We have an article I Congress. We pass the law. The President gets to sign it or veto it. The courts decide whether or not it is constitutional. Presidents don't get to decide which laws they like, which laws they don't like, which lines they want to implement, which lines they don't. So this is a lawsuit to require the President to follow the law that he signed.

I wish we would repeal the law. It turns out--and it has been said many times by leaders in this country--that the best way to do away with a bad law is to require its aggressive enforcement. I want you to think about that. The best way to end a bad law is to require its strict enforcement because then the people will make that decision.

I don't mean to pick on the President. Again, the President has a hard job. I was with my mom on Mother's Day at church, Mr. Speaker.

Someone came up, and said, Oh, Ms. Woodall, we just love your son. We hope he will think about running for the White House one day.

My mom looked him in the eye, and said, That is a terrible thing to say about my son.

And it is. It is just awful. It is an awful job, and I am glad we have men and women who are willing to pursue it, but it must be pursued, not as an all powerful executive, but as a caretaker of the constitutional responsibilities invested in that position by article II of our Constitution. Not more than 30 days ago the Supreme Court ruled on that.

This is what I want you to understand, Mr. Speaker. I know you followed the Noel Canning decision, but what the Supreme Court said in a case called Noel Canning v. NLRB not more than 30 days ago--and just to digress for a moment, Mr. Speaker, you have looked at that Court, haven't you? I mean, there are some hardcore, rock-ribbed conservatives on that Court, and there are some fringe liberals on that Court, too. I suppose, if I were in the other category, I would say there were fringe conservatives and some rock-ribbed liberals. Yet what I am saying is that they don't agree on much in that Chamber. You see it over and over and over again the decisions that come out of there. It is that five of them believe this and that four of them believe that. It is a divided Court, a divided opinion, but not so when it comes to the United States Constitution in this Noel Canning case.

In the Noel Canning case, the Court ruled 9-0--the Court ruled unanimously, Mr. Speaker--that the President of the United States exceeded his constitutional authority in making appointments to positions without consulting the United States Senate. The President made appointments to positions that the Constitution requires that the Senate approve, that the Democratic Senate approve. He made those appointments without Senate approval. He said he thought he could do it. He said it was the right thing to do. He said the ends justified the means. The Supreme Court said, 9-0, no, he can't do it. The Constitution doesn't allow it.

But that is not the point, Mr. Speaker.

The point is that that happened 2 years ago. The President made these appointments 2 years ago, and you have not heard one peep out of that United States Senate. This wasn't a lawsuit that the Senate brought to say, Wait a minute, Mr. President. You are stealing the power of the people out from under article I on Capitol Hill. This wasn't a Senate lawsuit. This was a private sector lawsuit. This was just some company out there across America that said, I have been disadvantaged because the Constitution has been breached, and I am seeking relief from the United States Supreme Court. The Senate did not stand up when the President stole their power.

The only way our system of government works, Mr. Speaker, is when we stand up for the people to preserve their power here in this institution.

This is what the Court said, and I just so identify with this. They said the Recess Appointments Clause--that is what we are talking about.

That was where the President said: I am going to make these appointments because the Senate is not in session. The Senate said: yes, I am in session. The President said: no, you are not, you are mistaken, I am going to make these appointments.

Anyway, the Supreme Court said the Recess Appointments Clause is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction. It simply provides a subsidiary method for appointing officials when the Senate is away during a recess.

Here is the money line, Mr. Speaker: ``Here, as in other contexts, friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.''

I happen to have a copy of the Constitution right here, Mr. Speaker. Friction, the Supreme Court says, is ``an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.'' If you don't like friction, you need to rewrite your Constitution because the Constitution creates this friction to create that balance between the article I Congress, the article II executive, the article III courts.

This is not news to the President of the United States, Mr. Speaker. In fact, it is not news to the country at all.

This is George Washington's farewell address. It was 1796, Mr. Speaker, 1796. This is our unwilling President. President Washington didn't want to be our first President. He was drafted to do the job.

Turns out, some of the best Presidents are the ones who don't want the job, but who have it thrust upon them by the circumstances of history.

President Washington says this--farewell address, 1796, he said:

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a

free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with

its administration, to confine themselves within their

respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise

of the powers of one department to encroach upon another.

President George Washington, having fought that Revolutionary War, having given us the benefit that no other nation on the planet had, of self-governance, having been drafted into service after the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to serve as the first President of the United States--in his parting words, in the final wisdom that he tries to pass on to preserve this fledgling Nation that he pledged his life and his fortune to create, he said, it is important, in the habits of thinking in a free country, that those habits should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres.

I want you to think about that, Mr. Speaker, where we are today, where the Supreme Court is ruling unanimously that this President of the United States has overstepped his constitutional bounds, where the House of Representatives is considering a lawsuit against the President of the United States for even more overreaching of his constitutional authority.

From the very beginning of this Nation, our leaders knew that the Nation's success depended on confining each branch of government to its respective constitutional sphere.

Now, I know what you are thinking, Mr. Speaker. You are thinking that was 1797, things change.

Well, let's take a look and see. Here is a quote from Senator Barack Obama, 2007. Senator Barack Obama, 2007, says this--he says: I was a constitutional law professor, which means, unlike the current President, I actually respect the Constitution.

That is pretty powerful. Now, in fairness, there were Presidential campaigns beginning then. People sometimes say inflammatory things during campaigns that they later regret saying, but then-Senator Barack Obama said: This current President, George Bush, he doesn't respect the Constitution. Maybe he doesn't understand it; but I, President Obama, said--then-Senator Obama said: I am a constitutional professor. I understand it. I get it, and I respect it.

Not so, says the Supreme Court this summer, 9-0, that the President overstepped his constitutional bounds. I know what you are thinking, Mr. Speaker. You are saying you have been around this town for a short period of time, and you know how people game these quotes. They go out and they pull the most awful quote out, and they pretend that that represents someone's entire body of thought.

Well, I have gone much further. Here, again, Senator Barack Obama, 2007: These last few years, we have seen an unacceptable abuse of power here at home in America.

He said: We have paid a heavy price for having a President whose priority is expanding his own power. The constitution is treated like a nuisance.

I want to think about that, Mr. Speaker, because I want to come back to that.

Then-Senator Barack Obama, observing what happened in the Bush administration, says: We have paid a heavy price for having a President whose priority is expanding his own power. The Constitution is treated like a nuisance.

Now, what I hope the take-home message is, Mr. Speaker, that you will share with your constituents back home, that I certainly share with mine, is we have just had a debate over constitutional responsibility on the floor of the House, where both our Democratic friend from Massachusetts and our Republican friend from North Carolina both agreed that we need to stand up more for our article I powers.

I want to associate myself with the comments of Senator Barack Obama in 2007. Had Republicans done a better job--and, again, I wasn't in Congress at the time. You weren't in Congress at the time, Mr. Speaker--had Republicans done a better job reining in the overreach of then-President Bush, we wouldn't be having so many of these conversations today.

Something very destructive is happening in this country, very destructive, where Republicans prioritize protecting Republicans in the White House more than they prioritize protecting the Constitution, where Democrats prioritize protecting the Democrats in the White House more than they prioritize protecting the Constitution.

I don't know how that happened. We had giants in this institution, Mr. Speaker, on both sides of the aisle--both sides of the aisle.

Robert Byrd from West Virginia always comes to mind. I couldn't agree with him on many policy issues, but, boy, did I love his affection for the United States of America. Man alive, did I admire his commitment to the Constitution.

The thing of it is, Mr. Speaker, if we don't stand up for it, no one else will. President Obama said he was going to stand up for it. He said we had paid a heavy price under President Bush for treating the Constitution as a nuisance.

Let me go a little more current. President Obama, at a press conference, August 13 of 2013, he is talking about the Affordable Care Act. He is talking about that bill on which the House is getting ready to file a lawsuit.

This is exactly what he said: In a normal political environment-- President Obama said--it would have been easier for me to simply call up the Speaker and say, you know what? This is a tweak that doesn't go to the essence of the law.

He is talking about delaying the employer mandate. He is talking about taking that part of the law that says this must happen by this date and deciding it is not going to happen by that date. In fact, it might not happen at all, but it is certainly not going to happen this year.

He says, ordinarily, he would have just called up the Speaker and said, We need to tweak this. He says, Let's make a technical change to the law, would be what he would ordinarily tell the Speaker. He said that would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do, but we are not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to ObamaCare.

We had the executive authority to do what we did, and so we did so.

Our President who, as a Senator, recognized the erosion of power from article I, our President who, as a Senator, wanted to rein in what George Bush was doing--in fact, accused George Bush of considering the Constitution a nuisance, our President, when then a Senator, said he was a constitutional law professor, he understood the nuances of the Constitution.

When he became President, Mr. Speaker, he said: you know what? I understand that what is supposed to happen is that I am supposed to go to Capitol Hill, I am supposed to talk to the Speaker, and I am supposed to get the law changed--but these aren't ordinary times. These aren't times like last year or 2 years ago or 10 years ago or 200 years ago. These are special times, and in these special times, I am just going to do it myself from the White House.

Incredibly dangerous, incredibly dangerous--he could be right, he could be 100 percent right about what he wants to do, but the way he wants to do it is 100 percent wrong.

Don't believe me, listen to the Supreme Court, which said, 9-0, unanimously, the President has overstepped his bounds.

Then-Senator Barack Obama, Mr. Speaker: I taught constitutional law for 10 years, I take the Constitution very seriously.

This is 2008. There is a war ongoing. The economy is collapsing, America is in crisis, and this is what then-Senator Barack Obama says: The biggest problems that we are facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all.

I want you to think about that, Mr. Speaker. 2008, in the midst of crisis in this country, a Presidential election year, where candidates are telling the American people who they are, what they believe, and what the American people can count on them to do if elected to office.

Looking at that landscape of crisis in this country, President Obama--then-Senator Obama says: The biggest problem that we are facing right now has to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all.

Here is the money line, Mr. Speaker: That is what I intend to reverse when I am President of the United States of America.

This body is getting ready to file a lawsuit, unprecedented, against the President of the United States for failure to stay within his constitutional lane.

The lawsuits filed by the private sector are coming back from the Supreme Court, 9-0, that the President has exceeded his constitutional lane. He ran on a platform of Presidents are exceeding their constitutional lanes and it is destroying the country. It is among the biggest problems the Nation faces. He pledges to reform it.

I would argue, Mr. Speaker, in the 40 years that I have been watching the governance of this Nation, I have never seen it any worse, but to be clear, I have seen it bad. I have seen it bad, and I have seen the failure of this House to stop it. I have seen the failure of the Senate to stop it.

There is plenty of blame to go around. I am not interested in who to blame for it, I am interested in how to solve it, because here is the question that I think all the board of directors of America has to answer.

Now, I gesture to this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, as if the board of directors live here. They do not. The board of directors of the United States of America lives at home in Peachtree Corners, Georgia; in Lawrenceville, Georgia; they live in Poughkeepsie; they live in L.A.; they live in New York; they live in Sioux City; they live in New Orleans; they live all across this land.

The board of directors are those people with voter registration cards in their pocket. They are the ones who run this country. They are the ones to whom we are accountable.

The President knows--he knew it when he was in the Senate, he knew when he began his campaign for office, he knew what George Washington told us in his farewell address, which was only a reverence for the division of powers crafted by the Constitution will allow our country to be strong.

He knew it, he campaigned on it, and the pressures of the job--the pressures of this horrible, horrible job, I will tell you, that is President of the United States, have caused him to lose sight of that constitutional mooring; and we, the board of directors, must bring him back.

Now, we are going to try to do it through a lawsuit here in the U.S. House. The private sector has already done it through multiple lawsuits, through the Supreme Court.

The American people need to do it--not at the ballot box because this President will never seek election again. They need to do it through the court of public opinion.

Getting our goals accomplished is important. How we get those goals accomplished may be even more.

Senator Barack Obama in 2008: One of the most important jobs of the Supreme Court is to guard against the encroachment of the executive branch on the power of the other branches. And I think the Chief Justice has been a little bit too willing and eager to give the administration--then the Bush administration--whether it's mine or George Bush's, more power than I think the Constitution originally intended.

Think about that, Mr. Speaker. Again, this is an election year. This is 2008. The President is running to be the President of the United States. He is being asked about what that separation of powers means. He is being asked whether or not the Constitution matters. He is being asked, how do we continue this great experiment in self-governance that is the United States of America? And he says: One of the most important jobs of the Supreme Court is to guard against the encroachment of the executive branch on the power of the other branches.

Mr. Speaker, I want you to listen to what is coming out of this White House when we talk about this lawsuit the House is considering filing. Is this what you hear? Is what you hear from President Barack Obama in 2014 the same thing you heard from him as candidate-for-President Barack Obama in 2008?

The most important job of the Supreme Court is to guard against the encroachment of the executive branch?

That is all this House is asking the Court to decide.

And we didn't choose a controversial issue, one that we might disagree with the President on, on whether or not it should be implemented. We chose his own health care bill to say: Mr. President, I know you are proud of this health care bill, and so let's do it. Let's implement it. Let's not pick and choose. Let's do the whole thing exactly the way you signed it, exactly the way the House and Senate passed it. Let's do it that way. You don't get to make those decisions on your own.

The President knew that as a Senator. In fact, he criticizes the Supreme Court. In the same way that today, what I hear coming out of the White House is a criticism of the U.S. House for even going to the Court to try to chasten the President, when he was a Senator, he goes the other direction. He says: I think the Chief Justice has been a little bit too willing and eager to give the administration, whether it's mine or George Bush's, more power than I think the Constitution originally intended.

There is a lot of pressure to get your agenda accomplished. It is not just a Capitol Hill thing. It is not a White House thing. It is a life thing. We have been talking about that since we were kids, Mr. Speaker.

Do the ends justify the means? Does the process matter? I will tell you, if you have a broken process, you are going to end up with a broken product.

We have an opportunity in this Chamber to do exactly what then- Senator Obama asked us to do, which is to stand up for this division of power.

Then-Senator Barack Obama, Mr. Speaker, on May 19, 2008, he says this about the division of power. He does understand it. At least in 2008, he got it. This is what he said. He said: Everybody's got their own role. Congress' job is to pass legislation, and the President can veto it or sign it. But what George Bush has been doing, as a part of his effort to accumulate more power in the Presidency, is he has been saying, Well, I can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter that says I don't agree with this part or that part. He says: What President Bush is doing is saying, I am going to choose to interpret it this way or that way.

But then-Senator Barack Obama goes on to say that is not part of the President's power. He says: This is part of the whole theory of George Bush, that he can make up the law as he goes along. Then-Senator Barack Obama says: I disagree with that.

Mr. Speaker, it does not matter whether you are the most liberal Democrat in this country or the most conservative Republican or anybody in between. There is no question that there is picking and choosing going on in the implementation of laws in this country: I am going to enforce this law because I like it; I am going to ignore this law because I don't like it; I am going to change this law because I would like it better if only it had this instead of that.

The lawsuit this institution is proposing is not to settle any kind of policy dispute; it is to settle a process dispute. It is to say, whatever you think about the Affordable Care Act, it passed the Senate; whatever you think about the Affordable Care Act, it passed the House; whatever you think about the Affordable Care Act, it was

signed into law by the President of the United States and upheld by the Supreme Court; so let's enforce it. Let's enforce it. Let's do what it says. If it says these policies should be outlawed, let's outlaw them. You don't get to choose which ones you think should and shouldn't be outlawed. The law, itself, says outlaw them. No policy shall be sold after this date.

If you believe that the protections of the Affordable Care Act--I don't call them protections. They have done more to destroy health insurance in my district than to protect the uninsured in my district. But if you believe those protections are important for America, implement those. Implement those.

You saw the chaos that was caused in the individual market when that one set was implemented. No more deadlines have been implemented since that time.

The President said: You know what? That wasn't quite what I had intended. It wasn't supposed to work out that way. He says: In ordinary times, I would have gone to the U.S. House of Representatives. I would have called the Speaker. I would have said let's work together to change the law. But these are not ordinary times, so I am going to change it myself, as the Executive of the United States.

You won't find those powers in this Constitution, Mr. Speaker. You won't find them here. You will find a long history of Senators and House Members saying: Mr. President, you can't do that; you will find a long history of the Supreme Court saying: You can't do that; and you will find, in the case of this President in particular, because he had decades as a constitutional scholar, you will find speech after speech, you will find quote after quote, you will find article after article that say to the then-President of the United States, George Bush: Stay in your constitutional lane. Obey that simple document that is our United States Constitution. If you want something done, go to the Congress to get it done. Do not do it by yourself in the White House. Don't pick up your pen. Don't pick up your phone. Get in your car and drive down to the United States Congress.

And every single time then-Senator Barack Obama said that, he was right. And there were far too few Republicans in this Chamber, far too few Republicans in the Senate who stood up and agreed with him.

As Republicans, we had a war on our hands. The Nation was in crisis, a national security crisis. Terrorism was on our shores like we had never seen before. And we thought, you know what--and again, I wasn't here then. I can only imagine what was going on in this body. I can only imagine what those with voting cards were thinking. But I imagine they were thinking: I would hate to criticize my own President in these tough times for America. Maybe it would be better if I looked the other way. Maybe it would be better if I just turned my head just this once, irrespective of what the constitutional guidance requires.

If that was the thought of any man or woman in this Chamber, if that was the thought of any man or woman in the United States Senate, they were 100 percent wrong. I get it. I get how they could feel that way, but they were 100 percent wrong. And if any man or woman in this Chamber or in the United States Senate is thinking today, I must protect my President from the strictures of the Constitution, they are wrong.

The Constitution does not exist to protect the President. The Constitution exists to protect the people. The Constitution is not a document to make sure that government power is preserved. The Constitution is a document to make sure the people's power isn't abrogated. It is not easy.

I hope folks liked to see the gentleman from Massachusetts and the gentleman from North Carolina, gentlemen who disagree on so much about policy in this Chamber, gentlemen from different parts of the country, gentlemen from different parties down here agreeing on the constitutional role of this House when it comes to sending our young men and women into harm's way. They were exactly right.

We have to come together to do this, Mr. Speaker. And if we could come together to do this, a lawsuit wouldn't even be necessary.

Again, we used to have giants. We used to have giants in this institution who put the country first and the party a distant, distant second or third or fourth. We have got to bring those traditions back.

President Barack Obama, August 2013, an incredibly popular President sat for reelection, reelected to a second term by the American people. A constitutional scholar, having forewarned the American people for over a decade about the dangers of too much power involved in the executive branch, having warned the American people about the importance of including Congress, having told the Bush White House how absolute power cannot reside there, must have ideas originating from the U.S. House, says: In a normal political environment, it would have been easier for me to call the Speaker and say, You know what, let's tweak this legislation. That would be the normal thing, and that is what I would prefer to do, but I am not going to do it. We are not in a normal atmosphere around here, he says. I have executive authority, and I used it.

The funny thing about the Constitution, Mr. Speaker, folks always talk about their constitutional rights. They always talk about their constitutional rights. Sometimes the rights they are talking about really are constitutional; sometimes they are not. But the funny thing about this Constitution is it allows the President to do anything he or she wants to do until somebody stands up and says no.

The powers are in the Congress. The powers are in the courts. The Executive's role is to implement those rules, to implement those laws. But if no one stands up and says no, the largest branch in the country is the executive branch, and they continue to operate unfettered.

We don't have an opportunity to say no. We have an obligation to say no. Not to say no to this President, but to say no to the Office of the President. When these powers slip away, these powers that don't belong to this Chamber but belong to the American people, when they slip away, they are hard to get back.

We didn't have a revolution in this country because the executive wasn't powerful enough. We had a revolution in this country because the executive was all powerful, and we thought there was a better way.

The President, speech after speech, article after article, thought there was a better way. But the power of that office, perhaps the burdens of that office, the responsibility of that office, have brought a 180-degree change in the President's view of the Constitution. We are back to where he identified George Bush as being 8 years ago, where the Constitution is treated as a nuisance.

The Constitution is not a nuisance. The Constitution is the only thing standing between the American people and a complete seizure of their freedoms. This is that document.

I am going to end where I began, Mr. Speaker, with the Noel Canning decision, 9-0. The Supreme Court says President Barack Obama had no constitutional authority to do what he did--no constitutional authority. And what the Court observes is friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional form of government.

We can absolutely do away with the friction. We can absolutely get things done. We can absolutely move all the obstacles out of the way. But that would not be America. That would not be our constitutional form of government.

You cannot eliminate the friction without eliminating the Constitution. There is not a constituent in my district back home that would make that choice. We have to embrace the friction. We have to embrace the battles of ideas that is America, and we have to commit ourselves--even when it is inconvenient--to playing by the rules of the United States Constitution. It has protected our freedoms as a self- governing people for 200 years, and it can do it for another 200 years if we don't lose track of our obligation to protect it today.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for being down here with me today, and with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 3 o'clock and 16 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, July 18, 2014, at 11 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time, and I appreciate your being down here with me. I think about the just a couple of years that you and I have served in this Congress, and I think back, and I hope ``Schoolhouse Rock'' was on TV when you were coming along.

The thing I did when the Internet came out--yes, I was old enough to remember when the Internet came out--was I looked up the ``Schoolhouse Rock'' video, and I looked up ``I'm just a bill sitting here on Capitol Hill'' because it tells the tale--and we learned that before we learned all of our times tables, we learned about how a bill becomes a law.

We learned about what this great experiment in self-governance is, and it is the United States of America. It makes me sad that it comes on less on Saturday mornings than it used to, and now, parents are down on watching as much TV on Saturday mornings.

I hope ``Schoolhouse Rock'' is still required viewing in every family in America because the whole process of how a bill becomes a law is critically important to who we are as a people--as a people.

I know it happens to you, Mr. Speaker, like it happens to me. I go back home, and I am the Congressman. I am the Congressman. I am holding the townhall meeting. I am standing up in front of the room. Maybe I am up on the stage, I have got a big microphone.

There are all these folks sitting out there in the audience, and it dawns on me that I am the servant, and all the bosses are sitting out there. That is what is so wonderful about what goes on here. You and I have the great privilege of representing a small slice of America; and, in my case, it is the Seventh District of Georgia--but the bosses live at home.

Mr. Speaker, if we don't do this the way ``Schoolhouse Rock'' laid it out, if

we don't go through that process each and every time for how a bill becomes a law, the loser is each one of those individuals who show up at my townhall meetings who are actually the bosses of this country.

The loser is the citizen in America who should be sitting on the board of directors, but who gets shut out of the decisionmaking process if we don't follow that simple cartoon that we all became fond of growing up.

Mr. Speaker, you know better than I do that there was a Supreme Court decision that came out last week. It was called the Noel Canning decision, and that Supreme Court--you know, we talk about it all the time, Mr. Speaker.

I wish I had a microphone that went out to the folks back in their offices who were watching this on TV. We could do a quick telephone poll of who folks think the liberal Justices are and who folks think the conservative Justices are and who folks think the middle is, but that Court is divided.

Oh, Mr. Speaker, you know there are some hardcore conservatives sitting on the Supreme Court today, and there are some hardcore liberals sitting on that very same bench.

Nine of those folks sitting up there on the bench--and I read the decisions when they come out, Mr. Speaker, and it is 5-4 this, 6-3 that. It is these starkly divided opinions about what the direction of America ought to be, and I get that. We are a sharply divided country. We see that in Presidential elections, and we see that in congressional elections.

This decision that came out last week, Mr. Speaker, this Noel Canning decision was decided 9-0 by the Supreme Court--9-0. It did not matter how hardcore conservative the Justice was, and it did not matter how hardcore liberal the Justice was. Every single Justice agreed.

What they agreed on--and it gives me no pleasure to talk about it-- what they agreed on is that the President of the United States exceeded the authority granted to him by this United States Constitution and that the United States Congress did absolutely nothing to rein that in; and so the Supreme Court, 2 years later, had to make the decision that it was wrong.

Now, I get the balance of powers, Mr. Speaker. I get it. I get that the Congress is here as article I, and we make decisions; and then our bills have to be signed by the President there in article II.

I get it that, if we pass the wrong kind of legislation and it is unconstitutional, the courts, in article III, get to make that decision--but, dadgum it, we have that responsibility as the 435 Members who serve in this Chamber who are not the bosses of this country, but who are the servants of the true bosses of this country back home, we have the responsibility to maintain the authority on Capitol Hill that the Constitution provides.

Last week, the Court said, unanimously, 9-0, that the President can't just decide what the law is and what the law isn't, that the law exists independent of the President, and his job is to follow those laws.

Now, that is pretty clear here. You get into article II--in fact, we all take that oath when we get elected. We swear to uphold and defend the Constitution. The executive power shall be vested in the President of the United States, the legislative power vested here, and so the Supreme Court said, unanimously, that the President had overstepped his bound and that what he did was unconstitutional.

I have a quote that they used--and it is important to me, Mr. Speaker, as I suspect you hear the same thing from your constituents back home. Folks say: Why can't you get something done? Why can't you get something done in Washington? What are you guys arguing about? Why don't you get something done? Aren't there some things out there that you can do to make a difference in people's lives?

I am proud to say that you and I have collaborated on a number of those things, but folks feel the friction in this town, the friction of people who believe different things about what the future of this country ought to look like.

Here is what the Supreme Court said--and I love it in its simplicity, Mr. Speaker. The Supreme Court said last week that regardless--the Recess Appointments Clause was the clause that was being debated, this is the exceeding of his constitutional authority that the President embarked upon.

``Regardless, the Recess Appointments Clause is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction.''

It ``is not designed to overcome serious institutional friction. It simply provides a subsidiary method for appointing officials when the Senate is away during a recess.''

Here, as in other contexts, friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure. The friction that you hear about back home, Mr. Speaker, the frustration that our constituents express about why folks can't get something done, why can't you agree, why is there a big argument going on, that friction, the Supreme Court says, is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.

The concern then, Mr. Speaker, is in the name of avoiding that friction, some folks want to throw out parts of this Constitution, and my question--not just for Members in this body, Mr. Speaker, but for every single constituent who votes in our national elections--what is more important? Is it more important to get something done? Is it the ends that are the most important, or is it the means?

The means that were provided to us were provided to us in 1787, that great summer in Philadelphia, where the best minds of our land came together and laid out a structure that has successfully protected the power of the people for over 200 years.

Is it the ends, or is it the means? I tell you--and I don't attribute any bad motives to the President, Mr. Speaker, I don't. I don't want to attribute bad motives to the President.

I will tell you that, in making the recess appointments that led to this unanimous decision that what the President did was unconstitutional, the President prioritized the ends.

He knew who he wanted in these job positions. He knew the Senate would never approve these people for these job positions, and so he said: Who cares what the Senate thinks? I am going to put them in anyway.

The Supreme Court said: No, you are not. No, you are not.

Now, the great shame for us, Mr. Speaker, is that it should have been the Congress that said that. It should have been the Congress that said that.

More specifically, it should have been the Senate right across this Chamber that said that, Mr. Speaker. It should have been the Senate that stood up for the power that is not their power, but is the power of the American people to engage in this great balance that is our form of government, this great balance that has inevitable friction.

We have got to decide for ourselves, Mr. Speaker, in this Chamber and across the country: Are we Republicans and Democrats? Or are we Americans? Are we Green Party folks and Independent folks? Or are we Americans? Is this about which party wins and which party loses? Or is this about America?

America is not a place on a map, Mr. Speaker. You know this better than most. America is not a place on the map. America is an idea. America is a set of values.

There is so much more that unites us in this country than divides us. My challenge to my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, is that we rise to the occasion to protect and defend this document.

No matter how small, no matter how simple, and no matter how much it gets in the way of getting something done, this U.S. Constitution is designed to protect those freedoms, to protect those common goals, and to protect that which makes us who we are as Americans.

I am not trying to figure out who to blame, Mr. Speaker. I am trying to figure out how to solve it. When the Supreme Court--again, if you have watched the Supreme Court, these folks, they can't agree on what time to meet, Mr. Speaker. They disagree about so, so much--5-4 decision after 5-4 decision.

This divided Court--it is almost a term, Mr. Speaker, it is not the ``Court,'' it is the ``divided Court,'' that is the way it always shows up in the newspaper, the ``divided Court''--9-0 said this Congress and the American people have abdicated their responsibility to rein in this executive branch and ensure that the law was followed.

And here is the thing, Mr. Speaker, and you know what I am talking about:

I signed up to be on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that is the committee that is responsible for going in and making sure the laws are followed and faithfully executed. And I joined that committee, Mr. Speaker, and you may think it foolish, but I joined that committee because I thought Mitt Romney was going to be the next President of the United States. And for too long, I had seen Republicans in Congress protect Republican Presidents and Democrats in Congress protect Democratic Presidents, and I haven't seen enough folks protecting the Constitution, protecting article I, protecting the power that the Constitution vests in each and every one of our constituents back home, and so I said I am going to sign up for this Oversight and Government Reform Committee because I am a hardcore Republican and I want to be the hardcore Republican who rides herd over the Romney administration, because you don't get a free pass because we are from the same party. You don't get a free pass because the Constitution doesn't give you a free pass. You don't get a free pass because my obligation is not to you as a fellow Republican, my obligation is to my constituents and to my country as an American.

I wanted to bring back that idea that we as a Congress, not we as Republicans and Democrats in Congress, but we as a Congress, not we as the House, but we as the House and the Senate, we as the Congress have a common goal and a common responsibility when it comes to the future of this country.

Now, sitting over there on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, folks just think I am a political hack. I try to give advice and counsel to the administration about what they are doing wrong. Folks say, he is just a Republican, that is why he doesn't like what is going on. Nonsense; 9-0, the entire United States Supreme Court said what is going on in the administration is wrong; not wrong as in a mistake, but wrong as in the Constitution prohibits it. Wrong as in it is not allowed by that most powerful law that governs this land, the United States Constitution, and everybody in this town knew it. They knew it the day that the President took that action. And yet, too many in this town were silent.

We have got to do better, Mr. Speaker. We have got to do better. There is still more that unites us than divides us. Love of this Constitution that protects our freedoms is one of those things.

So where can we start, Mr. Speaker? Where can we start? I have one recommendation, and it is a small one. I have had the experience in my 3\1/2\ years in Congress, Mr. Speaker, and you may have had the same experience, that if you can begin to agree on the little things, then the bigger things get a little easier to agree upon. You sort out those things that you have agreement on first, you lock those in as part of the final deal, and then you go out and you tackle the bigger things. So you start small, and you build. That is true. It is true of exercise, it is true of almost anything. Start small and build.

I am thinking about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mr. Speaker. You may think, Rob, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for Pete's sake, that is just some little-bitty agency over there under the Federal Reserve. Well, it is not. It is a big agency. It is a growing agency. But the most important part is what I said finally in that sentence, it is under the Federal Reserve. This is what happened.

The year was 2010, and this body, this body, led by the Financial Services Committee chairman at that time, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, passed what has come to be known as the Dodd-Frank Act, named after Chairman Frank on this side and Chairman Dodd over on the Senate side, and it went after Wall Street. It went after Wall Street, and this was in the aftermath of bank failures. This was in the environment when folks were concerned about what the economic future of America would be, much like they still are today, and this purported to solve so many of these challenges through more regulation.

Now, we can argue about whether or not that was a good plan or was a bad plan. I think it was a bad plan. I think it is costing us economic growth, not helping us with economic growth, but that is not my point here today. My point here today is, as a body, as a U.S. House of Representatives, when we passed that Dodd-Frank bill, which went over to the Senate and was passed, and which went to the President's desk and was signed and is now the law of the land, we created an agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and we specifically and exclusively decided that this agency would not be accountable to the Congress in any way, shape or form.

I want you to think about that, Mr. Speaker. Here we are, we have been charged individually and collectively with protecting the United States Constitution, which divvies up power in this country. And what is so unique about this country is that the power does not come from government and is given to the people; the power comes from the people and is lent to government for a short period of time. The power belongs to the people, and it is lent to the government for a short period of time.

Yet in our collective wisdom, and I certainly use that term loosely, we decided to create a brand new Federal agency, capable of spending hundreds of millions of dollars per year, capable of implementing hundreds of billions of dollars in regulations on America's small businesses, that we would create this agency out of the air. It had never before existed, and that we would create this brand new agency and we would place it somewhere beyond the oversight of this body. That we would bestow it with powers to crush businesses, to enable businesses, give it these powers and place it somewhere beyond the control of this institution.

It is unique, Mr. Speaker, as you know, in that its funding stream comes directly from the Federal Reserve. That would be the guys who print the money. It turns out when you can print the money and lend the money, you end up making a lot of money. So accountability over that money is almost nonexistent.

There is a renovation going on at the CFPB right now. This is an agency that has been around for 3 years, and it has a renovation going on. The most recent inspector general's report tells us they are spending $215 million to renovate their building, almost a quarter of a billion dollars, just to renovate, just to renovate a building.

Now, when I try to evaluate building space, I try to do it on a square-foot basis. What is it costing per square foot to renovate, because you do have to renovate. That is a fair business decision. According to the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, this amounts to a $590 per square foot renovation cost, $590 per square foot. Well, if you are in the real estate business, your jaw has already dropped. But if you are not in the real estate business, let me give you that comparatively.

I don't know if you have ever been to Trump World Tower in New York, Mr. Speaker, but $334 per square foot is its cost. The most expensive city in the country, $334 per square foot, compared to $590 with what the CFPB is doing.

I don't know if you have ever been out to Las Vegas, Mr. Speaker, but you have probably seen Ocean's Eleven a time or two, and the big Bellagio hotel and casino with all those big fountains out front. It is the backdrop of so many movies Hollywood puts out these days, and it is really kind of the definition of decadence in that part of the world-- $330 per square foot versus $590 at the CFPB. Now, why do I bring that up? Maybe $590 is the right answer. Maybe it is. Maybe whatever is going on over at the CFPB is so important that it has to cost twice as much to build their offices as any of the most luxurious office spaces or hotel spaces in the country. Maybe that is true, but I can't tell because I'm not allowed, as a Representative here in this body, to do oversight over that institution. Why? Because its funding comes directly from the Federal Reserve, not from this Congress.

How does all of this come together, Mr. Speaker? Well, the answer is still in this little old book, still in these little pages. From the summer of 1787, there is a fabulous painting right outside these Chamber doors, Mr. Speaker, of that summer in 1787. George Washington is presiding, Ben Franklin is

seated there. All of the Constitutional Convention delegates are there as they craft this document. And what they decided was, we were going to have to have an executive to execute the laws. You can't execute the laws by committee. It was going to be too complicated, you need an executive to execute the laws. But an all-powerful executive is what those constitutional delegates had been fleeing in England. That is what the revolution was all about, so they were suspicious of an all- powerful executive, so they created the Congress first, article I, and said the power of the purse, the power of the purse, spending of the money, will reside here. Because if you cut off the money to that executive who has run amok, he won't be able to run amok any longer. That was the theory. That was the plan.

And yet this body is creating institutions--and by ``this body,'' I mean before you and I arrived here, Mr. Speaker, not on our watch--but just 4 short years ago, this body began to create government agencies and institutions that were beyond the reach of our oversight, beyond our ability to defund and beyond our ability to control.

It may be the best agency on the planet, but it shouldn't be beyond the control of the people.

Mr. Speaker, I will end where I began. Are we Republicans and Democrats first, or are we Americans first? Are we northerners and southerners, are we Independents and Green Party? Are we MoveOn and Tea Party? Who are we first? And the answer for me has always been I am a citizen first. I am an American first. This great country that I have inherited--I didn't build it, I didn't sign my name to the Declaration of Independence pledging my life and my fortune to success, no. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what it took in a time of great uncertainty when the die had not been cast for freedom to stand up and say, My name is Rob Woodall and I pledge my life and my fortune that freedom will come to this land?

No, Mr. Speaker, that is what I have inherited. That is what you have inherited. That is what every single child born on these sacred shores inherits, what every immigrant who travels from far and takes that oath, what they inherit, and it is our responsibility to preserve it.

When we concern ourselves with the end and believe the end justifies the means, we will trample this Constitution at every occasion--at every occasion. And you need to look no further than the Supreme Court decision last week, Mr. Speaker, where unanimously these men and women entrusted with upholding this Constitution said friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure. I dare say an intentional consequence of our constitutional structure.

I know there is a lot of pressure on folks, Mr. Speaker, from their constituents back home to get something done, but implicit in that is to get something done the right way--to get something done the right way.

There are serious men and women on both sides of this Chamber, Mr. Speaker; there are serious men and women on both sides of this Capitol; there are serious men and women working in the administration who all love this country and want it to be better tomorrow than it was yesterday. We cannot allow our zeal for results to trample the document that has enabled the results that we have had so far.

And so I challenge my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, whether you are the most conservative Republican or the most liberal Democrat, or anywhere in between, I challenge each and every one of us to decide that if we have a bad process, we are going to end up with a bad product. But that our Constitution, no matter how cumbersome, our Constitution, no matter how deliberate, our Constitution provides that framework where, whether we win or lose on a particular policy, our principles of freedom and opportunity will forever be preserved.

I want to get good policy out of this Chamber, too. I want to get policy out of this town. I want to make a difference in the lives of people back home, but not at the expense of the birthright that I have inherited, which is this great country and the experiment in self- government. I believe we are worthy of that birthright. I believe we can rise to that occasion, but it is not going to happen by accident, and it is not going to happen just inside the four walls of this building. It has got to happen in the hearts and the minds of every single family in this country, who are the true leaders of this Nation, and I hope those will be their instructions to us each and every day.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time.

I don't know if you have seen the headlines yet, Mr. Speaker, you have been busy with votes all day long, but the Supreme Court, in a 9-0 decision, today struck down the National Labor Relations Board so- called recess appointments that the President made there over the Christmas season in 2011-2012--9-0.

I hear a lot about the Supreme Court being a divided body, Mr. Speaker. 9-0, the Supreme Court said that the President of the United States had absolutely no constitutional authority to name members of the National Labor Relations Board without Senate approval.

They said that the recess appointment power that is provided the President in the Constitution of the United States is not there, so that the President of the United States can avoid Senate approval.

It is there, so that the Nation can continue to run in the absence of the Senate being in session, in order to give its approval.

Mr. Speaker, the reason I bring that up is because that was yet another decision--in a long line of decisions the President has made-- to ignore this body, to ignore the United States Senate, and, in fact, to ignore all of article 1 of the Constitution; and that is not just a Republican from the State of Georgia saying that, Mr. Speaker.

That is nine Supreme Court justices. Every single Supreme Court justice--the most liberal of the Supreme Court justices--said the President vastly overstepped his authority and his actions were unconstitutional.

Now, that is not news to anybody who has been following that case, Mr. Speaker. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals made that same decision and said that the President overstepped those bounds, and that was way back in 2012.

I have a quote here from President George Washington's farewell address in 1796, Mr. Speaker. George Washington said:

It is important that the habits of thinking in a free

country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its

administration.

That is us, Mr. Speaker. That is representatives in government. That is the White House, that is the courts, and that is the Congress.

Should inspire caution in those entrusted with its

administration, to confine themselves within their respective

constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the

powers of one department to encroach upon another.

In his farewell address, George Washington said:

In order for this country to succeed, these individual

branches of government, the checks and balances created in

the Constitution, the men and women entrusted with those

responsibilities must resist encroaching on one another.

Against that backdrop, Mr. Speaker, against the backdrop of our Nation's first President and against the backdrop of--well, he is standing right out in a painting out here in the hallway, Mr. Speaker, George Washington presiding over the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787--this man entrusted with the birthing of our country, with the understanding of the consent of the governed and how we can preserve our freedoms while administering our governmental responsibilities said:

Resist the opportunity to encroach on the powers of

competing branches of government.

What I have on this sheet, and you can't see it, Mr. Speaker, but it is

quotes from President Barack Obama, and not quotes from 20 years ago and not quotes from 10 years ago, but quotes from just the 3 years that I have been serving here in this body, just the 3 years that I have been entrusted with some responsibilities. Here on article I the President says that, and this was at a speech at North Carolina State in January of this year, he said:

Where I can act on my own without Congress, I am going to

do so.

The President says, if I can do it without these other branches of government, I am just going to do it. I am just going to do it. President Washington says avoid encroaching on one another. The Supreme Court says, Mr. President, when you step outside of your lane, 9-0 we are going to declare your actions unconstitutional. Those were actions taken back in 2012, Mr. Speaker. Even this year, the President continues down that path.

At the State of the Union Address this year, Mr. Speaker, the President said:

America does not stand still, and neither will I. So

whenever I can take steps without legislation, that is what I

am going to do.

There is no confusion at the White House, Mr. Speaker. It is not an accident at the White House. When the President made those recess appointments that today the Supreme Court said in a unanimous decision were entirely unconstitutional, he wasn't confused about what he was doing. He didn't misunderstand what the Constitution said. He wasn't confused about what state the Senate was in. He knew they were not in recess. He decided that he would define what recess was. He decided that he would do it anyway. He decided he did not care if he encroached on the Senate's lane, that article II came and trumped article I.

In the February, 2013, State of the Union Address, the President said:

I urge this Congress to get together and pursue a

bipartisan, market-based solution to carbon change. But if

Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I

will.

Climate change. I can't go into a high school in my district, Mr. Speaker, without young people wanting to talk to me about the environment, wanting to talk to me about climate change. This is an issue of national concern. This isn't just the President's concern; it is an issue of national concern, and obviously, international concern. But the President in his State of the Union Address doesn't say, I am going to take this concern and I am going to win the hearts and minds of the American people, and I am going to move legislation through Congress to enact my goals. He says, I hope Congress does what I want them to do; but if they don't, I am going to do it anyway. That is exactly what he said with his recess appointments, Mr. Speaker, which today the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 was an unconstitutional action by this White House.

Mr. Speaker, August of 2013, we were in the midst of the President proposing changes to ObamaCare. During that summer, he said in a normal political environment, it would have been easier for me to simply call the Speaker, John Boehner, and say, You know what? This is a tweak that doesn't go to the essence of the law. It has nothing to do with--for example, where we are able to simplify the attestation of employers who are already providing health insurance, it looks like there might be some better ways to do this. Let's make a technical change.

The President says, ordinarily what I would do is I would call the Speaker of the House. Ordinarily, I would call the Congress and I would say, Hey, I have got this little bitty idea, this little bitty tweak that I would like to make. Would you all work with me on legislation to do so? That would be the normal thing, the President says, that I would prefer to do. But we are not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to ObamaCare. We have executive authority to do so, and we did so.

So here is what the President said: He said, I know what the right thing to do is. I know that what the Constitution requires is, if I have an idea, that I contact the Congress, that Congress moves that idea through, that I put my signature on it, and it becomes the law of the land. I know that is the ordinary course of events, but these are not ordinary times, so I am going to ignore those constitutional mandates and I am just going to do it myself.

He said that about the enforcement of ObamaCare. He said that about his actions on climate change. He said that about his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. And the Supreme Court said, as did the district courts, that is unconstitutional; you can't do that.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we all have an agenda we would like to pursue. I would like to believe we are all focused on the improvement of this country, we are all interested in opportunity for all American citizens. I would like to believe we are all interested in growing jobs and the economy and in protecting freedom. And the debate we have is about how to get to that place, and when the one branch of government, Mr. Speaker, decides they are going to ignore the others and do it their way, the entire system breaks down. The court today spoke directly to that.

Now, I want to contrast that, Mr. Speaker, because you might just think hey, Congressman Woodall, you are a relatively new Member from the great State of Georgia, and you are just bitter because you are a Republican and there is a Democrat in the White House. Well, that is nonsense. That is nonsense.

Mr. Speaker, I want to take you back to what previous Presidents have said. You have heard what this President has said, and that is not what previous Presidents have said. Bill Clinton, December 1994--and remember back, Mr. Speaker, December 1994. Republicans had just taken over the U.S. House for the first time in 60 years. For the first time in 60 years, we had a Republican majority in the House. President Clinton is only 2 years into his term, and he is looking at this brand new Congress, and he says, not if Congress doesn't do what I tell them to do, I am just going to roll over top of them; not if Congress doesn't do what I tell them, I am just going to do it my way; not I have a pen and I have a phone, but he says this:

I hope and believe we can cooperate with this new Congress.

He goes on, and he is talking about the same environmental issues that President Obama is talking about, and he says:

The most significant environmental gains in the last 30

years were made under a Democratic Congress and a Republican

President, Richard Nixon. We can work together again.

And we did, Mr. Speaker: the biggest tax reform bill in my life time, 1997, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich; the biggest welfare reform bill in my lifetime, 1996, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich; biggest Medicare reforms in my lifetime, 1997, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. That is what this country does, Mr. Speaker. We work together. We all have common goals, and we have different ways of getting there, but we work together.

Our Founders feared an all-powerful Executive, Mr. Speaker, who would roll over the Congress and roll over the will of the people; feared it, and set up the Constitution to prevent it. Other Presidents have understood that. Ronald Reagan, he wasn't working with a friendly Congress, he was working with a Congress of the other party, and he said this:

There were also pessimistic predictions about the

relationship between our administration and this Congress. It

was said that we could never work together. Well, those

predictions were wrong. Together, we not only cut the

increase in government spending nearly in half, we brought

about the largest tax reductions and the most sweeping

changes in our tax structure since the beginning of this

century.

That was Ronald Reagan's State of the Union Address in 1982. He had been in office just over a year. And he worked with a Democratic Congress, a Republican President, and he did some of the most sweeping changes that this Nation has seen in the past century. That is what we do. That is who we are as a people.

President Kennedy, 1961:

The answers are by no means clear. All of us together, this

administration, this Congress, this Nation, must forge those

answers. Members of the Congress, the Constitution makes us

not rivals for power but partners for progress.

I want you to hear the tone of those different statements. President John F. Kennedy to the Congress:

We are not rivals, but we are partners.

President Reagan to the Congress:

They said we could never work together, but they were wrong. We brought the most sweeping changes since the beginning of this century.

President Clinton:

The most sweeping changes in the last 30 years were made with Democrats in Congress, Republicans in the White House working together.

President Barack Obama:

If Congress doesn't do what I tell them to do, I am going to do it myself.

The Supreme Court today, a 9-0 decision: What President Obama is doing is unconstitutional. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, when folks are doing things that are unconstitutional, it threatens the very fabric of the freedoms that bind this country together.

Mr. Speaker, it just so happens that the Supreme Court ruled on yet another unconstitutional action of the White House today. I hadn't actually anticipated that decision happening today. I came down to talk about the President's new environmental initiative. He wants to reduce carbon emissions, CO2 emissions, carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent. He announced this policy from the White House, and the media covered it expansively.

Here is Bloomberg:

President Obama's views addressing the problem of climate

change as a key part of his legacy.

Reuters:

Climate change is becoming a major legacy issue for Obama.

USA Today:

Obama clearly hopes to make this an important part of his

legacy.

These are all articles from the last 30 days, Mr. Speaker. The Chicago Tribune, the President's hometown newspaper:

Experts note this rule will spur the growth of the cap-and-

trade marketplace in the States. In that sense, it may be

remembered as a rare moment when Obama worked around the

opposition in Congress to implement one of his top goals.

Politico:

If finalized next year and put into place, it would be one

of Obama's largest legacy achievements.

The New York Times:

It would be the strongest action ever taken by an American

President to tackle climate change, and become one of the

defining elements of Mr. Obama's legacy.

Mr. Speaker, you may be asking, Congressman Woodall, for Pete's sake, you are talking about this being a major legacy issue. From Reuters: An important part of the legacy. From USA Today: Remembered as a rare moment of success. From the Chicago Tribune and Politico: Largest legacy achievement in Obama's administration. So you may be asking, Mr. Speaker, so where is the legislation on Capitol Hill?

The largest legacy achievement in the Obama administration, and this is the administration that brought you ObamaCare, this is the administration that brought you a complete re-regulation of the financial services industry. This administration that brought you all of these sweeping changes, the media says this next proposed change may be the largest yet, and there is not a single piece of legislation moving across this body to implement it because the President says, even though this is the biggest initiative of his career, even though this is the biggest change ever proposed, he does not need the approval of Congress to do it. He is going to do it on his own.

Mr. Speaker, that is frightening. It is frightening. And the only way that he is allowed to do these things is if we can't work together in Congress to stop him. It seems to have become the pattern in my adult lifetime that Republican Congresses protect Republican Presidents and Democratic Congresses protect Democratic Presidents, instead of article I, protecting the powers of the people, while article II tries to implement those authorities.

Again, the President is not confused about what is happening here, Mr. Speaker. This is from the White House's Director of the Office of Science and Technology just last month, regarding a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions. He says:

Clearly the President regards this as part of his legacy to

really turn the country around on climate change, and he aims

to get that done.

I want you to think about this, again, Mr. Speaker. The biggest initiative of the President's administration, his Director of the Office of Science and Technology says that the President aims to get this done. It has been covered by every media outlet in America, and there is not one piece of legislation on this floor to implement that because the President believes that the right way to do it is without winning the hearts and minds of the people, without winning the hearts and minds of Congress, but just doing it and letting the chips fall where they may. He has tried that over and over and over again. It is a pattern in this administration, a pattern that the Supreme Court unanimously finds unconstitutional.

I want to take you to part of that Supreme Court decision, Mr. Speaker. From page 40 of that decision:

The recess appointments clause is not designed to overcome

serious institutional friction, it simply provides a

subsidiary method for approving officials when the Senate is

away during a recess.

Here is another context:

Friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence

of our constitutional structure.

Hear this, Mr. Speaker: the President has announced the largest environmental initiative of his agenda, arguably the largest initiative of his entire Presidency, and he says I don't care what Congress says, I am going to do it by myself. This in the same month when the Supreme Court unanimously says, Mr. President, friction? Friction is not only natural in Congress and the White House, it is anticipated by the Constitution. And no, you cannot use your phone and your pen to avoid friction. We must work together. We must come together on an idea. We cannot operate independently.

The recess appointments clause is not designed to overcome institutional friction. Friction between the branches is an inevitable consequence of our constitutional structure.

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of shots I hear from this very same well where I gave a very similar speech almost 2 years ago where we talked about these very same issues as the President embarked on those original actions that led to this Noel Canning decision today. Mr. Speaker, those words went unheeded. Those words went unheeded.

The American people want to trust their President. The American people want to believe in their President. I want to trust my President. I want to believe in my President. But we cannot--we cannot--sacrifice constitutional principles in the name of expediency so that any one person can pursue their agenda. Working together has always been essential in the fabric of this Nation.

Mr. Speaker, 2 years from now, we cannot wake up as we did 2 years from the day that I gave this speech, where we knew the Constitution was at risk, where we knew rather than winning the hearts and minds of the American people in the Congress the President just did it his own way, where we knew that there was a better pathway forward but so many in this Chamber said nothing. So many across the hall in the Capitol in the United States Senate, Mr. Speaker, said nothing. So many, in the name of supporting their party, were complicit in undermining their Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, today is a day that we can reset that clock. We are in the midst of a major policy initiative, this 30 percent reduction in carbon, that the President owes it to all of us to go out and win the hearts and minds of the people, win the commitment of Congress to make that the law of the land.

George Washington: avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The very fabric of the Constitution, the very fabric of the beginning of our country, Mr. Speaker, who we are as a people necessitates friction between the branches and cooperation to wield the people's power.

The President said he was doing the right thing for the right reasons 2\1/2\ years ago, Mr. Speaker, when he made those recess appointments. The appellate court of the United States of America said: You are doing the wrong things; they are unconstitutional. The President said: I don't believe you; take it to the Supreme Court. I have got friends there. The Supreme Court said, 9-0: You are violating the Constitution when you use your phone and your pen to get this work done instead of seeking the approval of Congress.

We can throw our hands up, Mr. Speaker, and say the ends justify the means. We can say it is just too hard to

work together; we might as well just do our own thing. George Washington cautioned us in his farewell address that that would be where human nature would lead us, but this is an institution that is full of conscientious men and women who took an oath to serve their constituency and to serve this Nation and to serve this Constitution.

We have an opportunity today, Mr. Speaker, not a partisan opportunity, not a House or Senate opportunity, but an opportunity given to us by the Supreme Court of the United States, to reset the clock on this relationship. For those of us who have always known these actions were unconstitutional, I confess it is a bit of a validation. For those who might have been defending this dictatorial action as something that was perhaps permitted in some small way under this Constitution, they now have the certainty that they need. Not a 5-4 majority, not a 4-4-1 plurality, but a 9-0 unanimous decision that if we are to move forward in this country, we are to move forward together, with article I, Congress passing the law, and article II, the White House enforcing the law.

We can do this, Mr. Speaker, and we owe it to the American people to do exactly that.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is a big burden of responsibility being the designee of the majority leader because there are issues on which this Congress can lead.

I am not talking about issues about which this Congress can fight. I am talking about issues on which this Congress can lead, things that we can do together in order to make a difference in the lives of folks back home, and for me, one of those is energy security.

I travel from one corner of the State of Georgia to another. I go through liberal districts and conservative districts. I ask: Who is it that wants to keep sending money to people who hate us and want to kill us?

There aren't many hands that go up in the room.

I ask: Who is it who wants to see economic prosperity traded away because energy prices are crushing job creation?

Absolutely no hands go up.

I am perfectly willing, as soon as we get to energy security, Mr. Speaker, as soon as we get to a place where we are energy secure in this country, I am willing to talk about what the mix of that energy is. All folks want to.

I am trying to do my part. I drive an electric car. I have been persuaded in those ways, and those Federal tax credits don't hurt, either, but we need job creation. We are energy rich in this country, and we need to be able to use that energy in order to make a difference in people's lives.

That brings us, Mr. Speaker, to the Keystone pipeline--the Keystone XL pipeline. I am sure it is the same in your district, Mr. Speaker, as it is in mine. I can't go anywhere in my district where folks don't know about the Keystone XL pipeline.

There are dozens upon dozens upon dozens of pipelines running between America and Canada--not one, not two, not three, not four--dozens upon dozens upon dozens upon dozens. But I promise you, if we took a poll out on the steps of the U.S. Capitol this morning, Americans could not name a single pipeline that runs north and south except for Keystone XL. Why? Because we have been arguing about it for years--not days, not weeks, not months--but years.

You can't see my slides, Mr. Speaker. This one is sunshine and rainbows. It is a lot like what our life is like here on Capitol Hill. Every day it is butterflies and clover. It is absolutely beautiful. And it says this--it says: ``Should America prevent Canada's oil resources from being used?'' Because the way the Keystone XL pipeline conversation happens, it is framed as if we don't build the pipeline, that means those resources don't get used.

But that is just nonsense. That is a story of sunshine and rainbows. That is a fairytale of butterflies and clover, because if we don't do it and bring those resources to America, those resources are going to go elsewhere.

Now, I know what you are thinking, Mr. Speaker. You are thinking, for Pete's sakes, Woodall, you have only been in this House for 3 years, you are not an energy expert. How do you know?

Well, I don't have to make this stuff up, Mr. Speaker. Take your pick. Who is the media outlet that you believe? Is it Bloomberg? Because Bloomberg says: ``Obama's Keystone Denial Prompts Canada to Look to China for Sales.'' It is not a choice of, should Canada develop those resources or not? It is a choice of when Canada develops those resources, should it be used to benefit America and the American economy, or should it be shipped overseas?

Don't trust Bloomberg, Mr. Speaker? That is okay. We have got The Week here: ``Did Obama Push Canada Into China's Arms By Rejecting the Keystone Pipeline?''

Well, maybe you think these are all American sources and so they are all biased, Mr. Speaker. That is okay. I have got the BBC here. The BBC says: ``Oil Spurs Canada's PM, Stephen Harper, to Visit China.'' National Journal: ``Ambassador Rejection of Keystone Would Definitely Strain U.S.-Canada Relations.'' The Ledger says: ``Canada: Harper Looks to Asian Countries to Sell Natural Resources Bounty.''

The question that we have about the Keystone pipeline, Mr. Speaker, is not should Canada's resources be developed; the question is when Canada's resources are developed, who should benefit? Should we benefit here in America, or will those benefits flow overseas?

Well, let's find out what the American media has to say about that. Now, I am just starting with the American media because you know as well as I do that the American media is not the end all be all of common sense in this country, but occasionally they hit it right on the mark. The Washington Post, no bastion of conservatism--it is not a shill for the Republican Party; it is not out to promote some sort of a conservative agenda--The Washington Post says:

Keystone XL's continued delay is absurd.

I am not cherry picking here. This was just April of this year. They have been saying it for years. They are still saying it now:

Keystone XL's continued delay is absurd.

What about President Obama's hometown newspaper? The Chicago Tribune is not silent on this. The Chicago Tribune, also in April of this year--and why April of this year? Because that is the most recent opportunity the President had to make a difference in the lives of Americans, and he continued denial and delay. The Chicago Tribune says:

The delay is bad for Americans who would like to have a

job.

``Bad for Americans who would like to have a job.'' How many times have we come to this Chamber, packed every seat in this Chamber to talk about the importance of the economy and job creation? It is not once. It is not twice. It is daily, Mr. Speaker, that folks on both sides of the aisle say it is jobs, jobs, jobs. The President's hometown paper says his continued delay is bad for Americans who would like to have jobs.

When I think about folks who really could use some of those jobs, I think about Detroit, Mr. Speaker. Detroit has had a hard time. The people of Detroit are incredibly resilient. They are not quitters. They are not going to give up, but they have had a tough time. The Detroit News says:

Once again, politics trump Keystone XL. With environmental

risks put aside, political motives delay shovel-ready project

that could create thousands of jobs.

Those are not my words. Those are the words of the Detroit News. ``Politics trump . . . With environmental risks put aside''--solved, mitigated, dismissed--``political motives delay shovel-ready project that could create thousands of jobs.'' Mr. Speaker, delay, denial, its motivation may be political, but its impact is more personal.

Let me go on, Mr. Speaker, to what the President's own team has to say. And by ``own team,'' I mean the folks across the aisle in the United States Senate--not just folks on the other side of the Capitol, but folks on the other side of the political party, because energy security is not a partisan issue. It shouldn't be. Energy security and job creation, not a partisan issue. Bringing Canada's natural resources to the place with the toughest environmental controls on the planet, not a political issue, just good common sense.

I go to my Senate colleagues and my Senate Democratic colleagues now, Mr. Speaker. The Senator from North Dakota:

It is absolutely ridiculous that this well over 5-year-long

process is continuing for an undetermined amount of time.

Again, I didn't have to dig back into the history books for these quotes, Mr. Speaker. This comes from April of this year, the last time the President had an opportunity to move America forward with energy security, move America forward with job creation, and provide certainty to our friends to the north, Canada, as they try to utilize their natural resources. The Democratic Senator from North Dakota said ``absolutely ridiculous.''

Senator Mary Landrieu, the Senator from Louisiana, also a Democrat:

This decision is unnecessary and unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, I don't mean to trot out all of the Senators and all the Democrats, except that I happen to be a House Member and I happen to be a Republican. And so I could understand if someone were to point the finger of blame and say: The only reason you share these positions, Congressman Woodall, is because you are a conservative Republican, and this is not good for America; this is just conservative Republican mantra.

We all know that is nonsense. It is not conservative. It is not liberal. It is not Democrat. It is not Republican. It is American. It is economic. It is about security.

I will go one more, Mr. Speaker. Senator Mark Begich from Alaska:

I am, frankly, appalled at the continued foot-dragging by

this administration on the Keystone project.

North Dakota, which would be a competitor--North Dakota has lots of economic resources there, lots of choices they can make, ``absolutely ridiculous.'' Democrat from Louisiana, ``unnecessary and unacceptable.'' Democrat from Alaska, ``appalled at the continued foot- dragging.''

So why can't we move forward? I don't know what the agenda is at the White House that has caused the 5-year delay that the North Dakota Senator calls ridiculous. I don't know what it is at the White House that has caused the delay that folks call appalling and unacceptable, but we have an opportunity to come together and do this.

We focus so often in this town on issues that divide us. This is an issue that unites us, and it unites us not just across party lines, not just across Chambers back and forth, but also across the divide of politics.

I have labor unions here on the board, Mr. Speaker, because sometimes folks say, and I hear it back home from time to time, they say: Rob, it is probably some of those special interest groups. It is those special interest groups that are preventing the President from doing what he wants to do. You know, those special interest groups have so much power in Washington, D.C. They are always changing things.

Terry O'Sullivan, union president, said, ``This is once again politics at its worst,'' condemning the decision not to move forward on the Keystone XL pipeline. Again, not from 5 years ago, not 4 years ago, not 3 years ago, just this year, Mr. Speaker, folks continue to be frustrated.

Sean McGarvey, union president:

Firstly, it is unbelievable to me why this project is

allowed to linger while our Nation's economy struggles to get

back on track.

Mr. Speaker, there is no choice that says prohibit Canada from developing their resources. There is no choice that prevents Canada from developing their resources. The question is, once developed, who benefits? If you don't believe that, Mr. Speaker, I encourage you to go look at the Energy Information Agency's Web site, eia.gov. They track all of the energy use in this country, energy production and energy costs, and what you see is as the war on coal has continued at the White House, is that coal consumption in America is on a steady downward slope. You declare war on coal, you use your phone and your pen to prohibit folks from using coal, making it economically unsustainable to use coal, you can absolutely collapse coal consumption in America. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal. We have more coal than any other nation on the planet. The White House absolutely can commit itself to unilaterally disarming America when it comes to energy security, declaring a war on coal.

But if you go to the EIA Web site, the Obama administration Web site, Energy Information Agency, what you will see is, while those regulations have absolutely collapsed U.S. consumption of coal, U.S. exports of coal are going right through the roof. Mr. Speaker, you don't have to look far to find out that India and China are building new coal-fired power plants at the rate of four per week--four per week.

Now, I want you to find the absolute greenest person in your district, Mr. Speaker. I want you to find that person who bleeds green, biggest environmentalist you can find, Mr. Speaker, and I want you to ask him, when it comes to burning coal, when it comes to burning oil, when it comes to using America's fossil fuels, the world's fossil fuels, who is going to burn it cleaner, America, China, or India? Because if the discussion we are having, Mr. Speaker, is how do we protect the planet that we all share, how do we nurture the environment for which we are concerned, the answer is to make sure those resources are utilized here.

If you want to export something, export clean-burning natural gas. It will be tougher for folks to screw that up around the globe. The environment is a global environment, and if you care about doing things in the safest possible way, shipping coal to China or India for consumption is not the right answer.

Billions of dollars are invested in pollution controls on power plants across this country, Mr. Speaker. We will burn it cleaner and better than anyone else on the planet, and yet the regulatory environment is driving that consumption overseas. It is bad for the environment, not good for the environment.

The Keystone XL pipeline, Mr. Speaker, ``politics at its worst,'' say the labor unions. ``Unbelievable,'' say the labor unions. ``Absolutely ridiculous,'' says a Democratic Senator. ``Unacceptable,'' says a Democratic Senator. ``Appalled,'' says a Democratic Senator, and the list goes on and on.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know what you find in your district. My district wants us to stop figuring out who to blame for it and start figuring out how to fix it. My district wants us to focus on those things that we can do together that will make a difference in people's lives back home. My constituents believe it really is jobs, jobs, jobs, not as a political tag line but as a mission statement for how to make America's economy great once again.

The Keystone XL pipeline is supported by the left and by the right, by the House and by the Senate, by the media and by the interest groups. The only place it cannot find support is in the west wing of the United States White House.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the President will listen to the American people; I believe that the President does want to make this country strong; and I believe, if constituents in each one of our districts across this country apply their collective pressure to the White House, that it will respond. I have to believe that because that is the only way America works. It is the only way America works.

Commentator after commentator after commentator says the Keystone XL delay is politics at its worse. Commentator after commentator after commentator says delay is costing American families much-needed jobs.

We can do better for the American people, Mr. Speaker. We must do better for the American people. Working together, I think we can convince the White House of that message, but that process begins right here.

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