Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, last week on the east front outside the Capitol on the lawn, I met with a group of DREAMers. DREAMers, of course, refers to young Americans who were brought here as children without proper documentation, but who have grown up in our communities, studied in our schools, and are American in every way but on paper.

The DREAMers I met with, Mr. Speaker, were fasting--fasting to protest the President's destructive decision to end the DACA program that allowed them to register to live and work in the only country they consider to be theirs. They were fasting to encourage us in this House to take action to remedy their situation by enacting a permanent fix, as President Trump has suggested.

One of the young DREAMers, Mr. Speaker, I met was a young man named Diego. He is 28. Born in Mexico, he came here as a young child and was raised in Arkansas. He didn't make a decision to come here. He was brought here by his parents.

Thanks to DACA, he was able to get a job, a driver's license, and pay taxes to support the country he loves. Diego

is now a graduate of the University of Arkansas, and a Public Policy Fellow with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. How stupid it would be to send him to some other country that he does not know.

I also met Karen from Florida, age 22. She also was brought here from Mexico at a very young age. Now she attends college and owns a small business.

There was Fernanda from Alabama. She is 23 and graduated from a 4- year university with honors, thanks to the scholarships she could apply for once registered under DACA. How stupid it would be to say to her: Leave.

There is Brandon, age 19. He told me that he has a younger sister who was born here. He, of course, does not want to be separated from her as a result of being deported.

What kind of a judgment is it that we would divide a sister and a brother, particularly a brother who has made such a positive impact on his community?

Mr. Speaker, this issue is about real people. Real people. They are Americans in mind and in spirit because they grew up here, they love this country, and they contribute to building our communities and Nation every day. Let's not forget that.

That is why so many thousands of businesses and major business groups in America have said: Keep DACA in place. That is why the President said: Fix this, and I will sign the bill. That is why so many churches and communities and educators and medical personnel have said: Keep these folks here. They are making a positive difference for America.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the Speaker and the majority leader to bring a bill to this floor that will do what President Trump says we ought to do and put DACA in legislation. Pass the Dream Act. We are going to have an opportunity to do that at the end of this month, next month, and hopefully we will get that done.

Let's pass this bipartisan, bicameral Dream Act without delay so that Diego, Karen, Fernanda, Brandon, and so many thousands more who see America as their country, who are making a positive contribution to their country, can stay here. They know of no other home than America, and they want to be a part of building this country's future.

Mr. Speaker, immigrants have always made that contribution. It is immigrants who built this country. My father came here at the age of 32 in 1934. He came from Denmark. I am the son of an immigrant, born here in America. He served in World War II and became a citizen through his service in World War II.

I rarely quote Rush Limbaugh. He said: We are not going to send these kids home. Eighty-four percent of the American people, in that neighborhood, believe that we ought not to send these kids back to the countries of their birth, which are not their home. That is bad policy. Let's listen. Let's act. Let's make the lives of these young people more secure and more productive for America.

Will the gentleman yield?

Could the majority leader give us some idea so, when Members leave, they will have some idea of next week's schedule?

I know we are going to discuss that tomorrow as well, but it might be useful to do it tonight as well, just to give them an overview.

If the gentleman will continue to yield, I thank him for giving us an update. I also thank him for the consideration of our Members who live in the southeast and scheduling Harvey early and then no votes subsequent to that because I have had a lot of my Members talk to me about, as you point out, their desire to get home as quickly as possible with their constituents and with their families.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent, in order to carry out the Speaker's expressed intent, to bring up H.R. 3440, the DREAM Act, to protect DREAMers like Jean, who studies at the University of Maryland and is a credit to that institution, a credit to our State, and a credit to our country.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Initially, I want to say that I hope that very soon, in a bipartisan way, we will bring a DACA bill to this floor.

Let me quote what President Trump said last night. Trump tweeted that he wanted to ``legalize DACA,'' another call to action, and further muddled where the administration stood and what it would do.

He said: We need to come together and do this, and we really have no choice.

Now, I want to speak about this bill. As the chairman knows, and as the ranking member knows, I served on the Appropriations Committee for 23 years, so I have taken leave of absence because I am one of the leaders on our side of the aisle.

For most of those years, we worked in a bipartisan fashion. This is a partisan bill. It is sad, and it is not regular order at all. Regular order is doing one bill after another until you have passed the 12 bills. In fact, I don't think I have ever seen this process done in this fashion.

When I was the majority leader, the first year we passed all 12 bills individually, discretely, separately, and sent them to the Senate before the August break.

Hal Rogers, the former chairman of this committee, said of the President's budget: ``While we have a responsibility to reduce our Federal deficit, I am disappointed that many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the President's skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive.'' I think the same could be applied to the budget that is before us.

The omnibus appropriations package the House is considering this week is, as all of us here recognize--all of us recognize--the chairman, I have great respect for, and I am not going to ask him publicly whether he thinks the Senate is going to adopt any one of these bills, but I know his answer.

Mr. Chair, let me say to my colleagues, this is not the way to do it. John McCain gave a compelling speech on the floor of the United States Senate as he was challenged with a brain tumor and thinking deeply about what we ought to do. And he said: We need to act together. We need to be bipartisan. We need to do the people's work in a way they expect us to do it: together.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is not going to get a Democratic vote. That is sad. It is sad for the House; it is sad for the country; and it is sad for the people who will be shortchanged by this bill.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I urge the majority party to return to the table, as surely we will, to work in a bipartisan fashion to construct bills that we can all be proud of.

There will be compromises. We won't get all that we want, but they will be bills that the American people can be proud of and that this House can be proud of. Let us return to the bipartisan comity and respect for one another that so long prevailed in the Appropriations Committee. How sad we have fallen to this place.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate Ernest ``Ernie'' R. Grecco on being honored for his fifty-five years of service to the labor movement next Tuesday evening, August 15, in Baltimore. I have known and worked closely with Ernie, who serves as President of the Baltimore Metro AFL-CIO, for thirty years. He is one of the toughest advocates for working men and women I've ever met, who has dedicated his life and his career to achieving better pay and conditions for workers and opportunity for their families in Maryland.

Ernie has worked on behalf of labor in Maryland since 1970, when he was elected Secretary-Treasurer of what was then the Distillery Workers Local 34-D. In 1976, he became Committee on Political Education (COPE) Director for the Metropolitan Baltimore Council AFL-CIO. He went on to lead the Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO COPE from 1983-1987 before taking the helm in Baltimore. Since that time, whenever working people in the greater Baltimore area have had a challenge to overcome, Ernie's been there, leading the way and bringing to bear the forces of organized labor and its allies. Under his leadership, the Baltimore Metro AFL-CIO has expanded programs for job training, placement, and community service.

Ernie also became involved in making his community a better place by serving as the Secretary of the United Way of Maryland from 1992 until this year. He also received the Samuel Gompers Award from the American Red Cross and the Joseph Beirne Award from the United Way of America. In 1995, the International Association of Firefighters Local 734 and Local 964 established the Grecco Labor Award in Ernie's honor.

I'm proud to stand with Ernie and the hardworking men and women of labor to advocate for better wages, better conditions, and greater opportunities for all our people to make it in America. I hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating Ernie on this well deserved honor and thanking him for his service and contributions to Maryland and our country.

Mr. Speaker, it is now 7 months since the start of the 115th Congress, and 6 months since Republicans have controlled all the levers of power of our government, and all we have seen are broken promises.

Donald Trump and our Republican colleagues in Congress ran on a platform that included healthcare for everyone, massive investments in infrastructure, tax reform, and a dramatic increase in jobs.

On all four of these, there has been zero progress, zero legislation sent to the President, and zero effort to work with Democrats to achieve any of those objectives.

Donald Trump promised voters that he would be ``the greatest job President that God ever created.''

Yet neither he nor the Republican congressional leadership have put forward a comprehensive jobs bill. Instead, he and his Republican allies in the Congress have proposed budgets that would slash investments in education, infrastructure, and research, all areas that directly help our economy create jobs.

In fact, jobs that the President claimed to have saved are going overseas. Forecasters are now predicting slower economic growth, and manufacturing average weekly earnings have

only grown half as fast as earnings across the private sector as a whole over the past 6 months.

When it comes to healthcare, it hasn't just been the broken promise of insurance for everyone. It has been a nonstop roller coaster of legislative proposals, all of which would strip coverage away from tens of millions of Americans, raise costs, and deny coverage for those with preexisting conditions.

On tax reform, all we have seen is a one-page outline and a budget proposal with reconciliation instructions setting up a process for jamming a partisan tax reform bill through Congress. That is a nonstarter, because to be successful any tax reform legislation must be bipartisan, as was the 1986 tax reform under President Reagan and Speaker O'Neill.

To top it all off, we considered and are considering this week an appropriations minibus without even having had a budget on this floor some 88 days after it was due. The Republicans promised regular order. In fact, they are pursuing no order. Republicans haven't even bothered to pass a budget, which is what we are supposed to do in the House before moving to appropriations.

So, Mr. Speaker, at the 6-month mark, we have only seen gridlock, no progress, chaos, and broken promises. Even some Republican Members--and perhaps many Republican Members--are growing as frustrated as the American people their party has failed.

Representative Steve Womack from Arkansas said late last month that: ``We'd better get our act together. We're not governing right now. We are stuck.''

And Representative Tom Reed of New York said: ``The fact that we are not getting to these issues--healthcare, budget, tax reform--is frustrating. We came here to move the needle.''

So what I am saying has been said by my Republican colleagues as well. Perhaps Representative Tom Massie put it most succinctly when he tweeted about his Republican colleagues: ``They confuse activity with progress.''

Republicans, Mr. Speaker, have failed to address the challenges facing the American people, and they have done nothing to improve the lives of those working hard to make it in American.

We should be considering legislation to create jobs and grow the economy. We should be working to improve and strengthen the Affordable Care Act, not replace it. That would be consistent with some three- quarters of Americans who believe that is what we ought to be doing. We should be working in a bipartisan way to reform our Tax Code and promote competitiveness for our American businesses that are competing in world markets.

Growth, job creation, as well as fiscal sustainability, that is what we should be seeking in a tax bill. We should be investing in infrastructure that lures jobs back home from overseas. And, Mr. Speaker, we should be returning to regular order and an open process that Republicans have abandoned to the detriment of legislation and to our country. There have been more closed rules in this 7 months than have occurred in my 36 years in the Congress of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, the American people need a better deal, a better deal than they have gotten over the last 7 months. Seven months into this Congress, it is clear that House Republicans are not on the side of working people. In the words of New York Times columnist David Brooks, one of the most conservative columnists at The New York Times, last week he said this: ``Republicans offer nothing but negativity, detachment, absence, and an ax.''

Democrats, on the other hand, are offering the American people, as I said, a better deal, one focused on helping all of our people--Make It In America--better jobs, better wages, and, yes, a better future. It is what Democrats have always done when Democrats have been entrusted to lead. There is a history, a track record to back it up.

Mr. Speaker, I want to show my colleagues that rhetoric is cheap--or talk is cheap, as we say--but performance is really what we ought to look to. I want to bring some charts here to the attention of our colleagues--and, indeed, to the American people as well--to what Democrats have always done.

This chart, number one, shows that Democrats perform better on economic growth. Now, that is easy to say, but this graph shows exactly from Truman to Obama, the blue. You can see under Eisenhower, economic growth was about a third, or maybe 40 percent. Kennedy-Johnson and Johnson much greater than Nixon and Nixon-Ford. Carter, greater than either Nixon or Nixon-Ford. And Carter, to the surprise of many, had just about the same GDP growth as Reagan, of which my Republican friends proudly talk. And then what happened under Bush I? Down. Then what happened under Clinton? Up, GDP growth. Under Bush II, down; under Obama, up.

That is not campaign rhetoric. Those are the statistics that show that the economy has performed better under Democrats.

Now, Democrats perform better on the stock market, the stock market whom, Mr. Trump, likes to point to today. It is doing well. Why? Because the Obama economy, as you just saw, was doing well and the expectations were good.

If you look at this chart, things were better on the stock market under the Democrats. Truman, greater growth in the stock market, Eisenhower less. Kennedy-Johnson, Johnson up; Nixon down. Nixon-Ford-- Nixon-Ford had negative growth in the stock market, and then Carter, growth. And, yes, Reagan and Bush I had growth, but guess what. Then Clinton had better growth. And then guess what. Bush II, again, like Nixon-Ford, negative growth in the stock market.

What did that mean? That meant 401(k)s were worth less for retired people, and their security was less secure because the stock market went in the tank. And then what happened under Obama? The stock market went up.

Now, lastly, I wanted to show this statistic. And this is a stark statistic because it shows that, under Democratic Presidents, every segment, every wage level in America saw appreciation. Now, this only goes back to 1967.

So if we go to the lowest quintile, it went up higher under Democrats than Republicans in every quintile. And guess what. The highest quintile did better under Democrats, just as the lower quintile did better. But what you see is everybody did better. The only negative, of course, was under Republicans, where the second quintile went down over their years in office.

So if you compare all of these, Mr. Speaker, it is not campaign rhetoric. It is not rhetoric on this floor, but it is economic facts, economic statistics. Economic reports show that, when we promised a better deal, we delivered a better deal.

So as we look back on the past 6 months of Republicans' broken promises and failures to govern, let's remember there is, indeed, a better deal to be had. Democrats are ready to work with our Republican colleagues and with the administration to make progress.

Mr. Speaker, I have been here 36 years, and one of the things I am proudest of, my Republican colleagues, many of them say: ``Hoyer will work with us in a way to compromise and make progress for our country.'' But if our Republican colleagues continue to be unwilling to work in a bipartisan way, we are going to offer a clear and proven alternative--a proven alternative.

I hope my Republican colleagues will return from the August district work period ready to ensure that the American people get a better deal and work with us constructively to get them that better deal.

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of disorder in Washington,

Mr. Speaker, this rule ought to be rejected. It is not the regular order, it is not good policy, and it is not good for the institution of the House of Representatives or for the country.

The border wall is controversial, and many people in the Trump administration do not believe the border wall will be effective, and they believe it is a waste of money. And, of course, the President told us all the Mexicans were going to pay for the wall.

Well, this is $1.6 billion of about $20 billion that would have to come not to be paid for by the Mexicans, but to be paid for by the U.S. taxpayer for an ineffective effort to make this country more secure.

Everybody on this floor believes we ought to know who comes into this country and that people ought not to come into this country unless they are authorized to do so. We all agree on that.

I ask the majority leader: Bring this border wall to the floor; let us debate it; put it open for amendment. That is the regular order.

The Speaker went on to say: ``We will not duck the tough issues. We will take them head on.'' That is Speaker Paul Ryan, October 29, 2015.

They had an amendment offered on the authorization bill by Mrs. Hartzler of Missouri. It was controversial, and the majority party lost. So what did they do? They didn't add it to the bill as Mrs. Hartzler wanted to do, have an amendment on this floor so we could debate it again on its demerits or merits depending upon your perspective, but they went around not by regular order, not by taking issues head-on, but by having the President issue some tweet that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says he never was talked to about it.

Mr. Speaker, let us stand up for this institution. Let us stand up for regular order. Let us stand up for not ducking the tough issues. Let us reject this rule, and then let us go back to regular order and hopefully do so in a bipartisan way and do what the American public expects us to do:

make tough decisions for them, for our country, for our security, and for our children.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the United States Senate is now considering what is called a ``skinny bill'' on the Affordable Care Act.

The Senators are being told that they are voting for that bill to send it over here so it can go to conference and be perfected.

The Rules Committee has just met and a provision was offered to the martial law, which means that we can take something up right away, that what we can take up is to go to conference. That was rejected by the Rules Committee.

There is a suspicion that I have--and I see the majority leader on the floor--that there may be an intent to send the bill immediately back to the Senate and have it go to the President without 72 hours of consideration, without hearings, without scoring. I would hope the majority leader could give us assurances.

Mr. Speaker, I join in celebrating the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), legislation I was proud to introduce and shepherd to passage with bipartisan support.

Few laws have had as broad an impact as the ADA, which reshaped the very landscape of America for people with differing abilities, literally opening doors and, with them, opportunities. It has enabled millions to live with greater independence and dignity, and it continues to inspire other nations to adopt their own laws guaranteeing equal access and equal opportunity for all.

I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in both parties to build on the ADA's successes and ensure that the promise of America can be kept in full for those with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we watched as Senator John McCain returned to the Capitol after having been diagnosed with cancer and undergoing a serious operation. All of us are praying for his swift and full recovery.

In earlier days, as we all know, he faced danger with courage. He is doing the same again right now. When he spoke yesterday from the Senate floor, he talked about a time when legislators, Republicans and Democrats, despite their differences, worked together to make progress, albeit incremental, on major issues through discussion and compromise.

He lamented, as do I, the recent tendency to seek total partisan victory or nothing at all, something we see as much in the House as in the Senate.

Senator McCain said this: ``We've been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.''

He concluded in that paragraph: `` . . . we are getting nothing done.''

Instead, Senator McCain proposed legislators ought to return to regular order. Regular order, for those who aren't familiar with the day-to-day workings of Congress, simply means doing things in the proper way: drafting a bill in committee, holding open hearings, marking up with amendments, reporting it out, and then bringing it to the floor for amendment and debate before voting on it. This process, this regular order of business affords every member an opportunity, regardless of party or district, to have input and help shape the policy. That is the way it should be.

The product of such a process, as Senator McCain described it, would be ``something that will be imperfect, full of compromises, and not very pleasing to implacable partisans on either side.'' But he concluded it was one that ``might provide workable solutions to problems Americans are struggling with today.''

Mr. Speaker, that is how our system is supposed to work.

I started my career in this body in 1981. Shortly thereafter, I joined the Appropriations Committee. I like to tell people that I served on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, and there were 13 of us. The Democrats were in the majority, and there were eight Democrats and five Republicans. I used to tell people that you could take the 13 of us, throw us up in the air, have us come down in random seats, have a markup, and you would have been hard-pressed to identify which party each member represented. Today, lamentably, Mr. Speaker, it would take you about a minute to determine those differences.

Our Speaker said on October 29, 2015: ``We will advance major legislation one issue at a time.'' Mr. Speaker, we are about to consider a so-called minibus. The former chairman, my Republican friend, Mr. Rogers, is seated here in this Chamber with us. He and I both recall a time when we considered one bill at a time. We brought it to the floor, we amended it, we debated it, and we voted on it one bill at a time.

That is what Speaker Ryan was referring to when he said: ``We will advance major legislation one issue at a time.'' Apparently, Mr. Speaker, that has become inconvenient or impossible, but it is not the regular order that we are pursuing.

Speaker Ryan went on to say: ``We will not duck the tough issues. We will take them head on.'' Mr. Speaker, we will adopt a rule that will duck the issue that will preclude full debate, and it deals with President Trump's proposal to build a wall that many in his administration believe will be ineffective in accomplishing the objective that we all support, and that is keeping our country secure and making sure that those who come into this country are known to us and don't sneak into the country.

But the wall will not work and we will not be able to debate that fully because it will be included in the rule. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that is ducking the issue. It will be deemed passed. We won't vote on it. We will vote for the rule or against the rule, and the wall and $1.6 billion will be deemed passed.

Mr. Speaker, that is not how our system is supposed to work. Neither side ought to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Neither side can claim credit for all of the best ideas. That is why working together is imperative.

That was my experience when I served for 23 years on the Appropriations Committee. That is why regular order is so important. It protects the American people. It protects each Member who is here representing some 700,000 people, give or take. That is why regular order is so important. It facilitates dialogue and debate. It brings out every view and idea and provides the framework for compromise.

Compromise is the essence of democracy, and I suggest it is the essence of successful families, whether they be countries or Mom and Dad and kids. They come together and they agree, not because they get everything they want or the other side gets nothing they want, but because both sides compromise.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with Senator McCain: we need to return to regular order.

Speaker Ryan, as I have said, told us shortly after his elevation that he wants ``the House to work its will.'' Minibuses don't allow that, omnibuses don't allow that, and, frankly, CRs don't allow that.

The Speaker adopted, in principle, an open and transparent process. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, we haven't always seen that. But there is still an opportunity for the 115th Congress to reflect that vision.

That is what Senator McCain was talking about yesterday. He was appealing to the best of us, the American in us, not the partisan in us, not the confrontationalist in us, but the seeker of productive compromise in a democracy. The Congress and our country will be better if we return to regular order.

Mr. Chairman, I served actively on the Appropriations Committee for 23 years. I am still a member on leave. Never, in the 36 years that I have been here, have I seen an omnibus appropriation bill or a minibus appropriation bill brought to the floor before the August break.

Regular order is to bring each bill to the floor, debate each bill on its merit, have the opportunity to offer amendments, and debate the merits of the amendments and of that particular bill. However, the majority party has not done its job, and I do not hold accountable the members of the Appropriations Committee. I want to make that clear.

But, for whatever reasons, regular order has not been followed, and so each Member of the Congress of the United States is confronted with either voting for all of the bill with component parts, the Legislative bill, Energy and Water, MILCON-VA, Defense bill, that they may not like, but if they vote ``no,'' they will be accused of being against the security of the United States. That, my friends, is baloney.

In their pledge to America, Republicans said: ``We will advance major legislation one issue at a time.''

This belies that representation. The sponsors of this minibus package, Mr. Chair, claim it will make America more secure. I reject that argument.

Senior military leaders have said that the greatest long-term threat to our national security is the growing national debt and the impact of interest payments on the debt as they crowd out our ability to invest in defense and domestic priorities.

It is incumbent upon us, Mr. Chairman, to work together to pass a fiscally responsible budget agreement that lifts the sequester caps in a way consistent with the principle of parity between defense and nondefense spending.

Mr. Chairman, we were supposed to pass a budget on or before April 15. It is now July 26. We have passed no budget. There is no plan for overall spending. This, therefore, is a pig in a poke, and nobody on this House floor or in this country knows the ramifications of the passage of this bill on the eight domestic spending bills that remain unattended.

It is incumbent upon us, Mr. Chairman, to work together to pass a fiscally responsible budget agreement that lifts the sequester caps. We cannot simply skip to appropriations without determining what our budget priorities are first. It is as critical for our national defense as it is for our ability to support economic growth.

Moreover, this is the earliest, as I have said before, that I can ever remember that the House considered either an omnibus or minibus appropriations bill. It is an acknowledgement by the majority that the House will not be able to move these bills through under regular order, given Republicans' internal divisions over spending bills. So instead of working with Democrats to craft individual appropriations bills that can pass the House, they are resorting to legislative tactics to push them through on partisan votes.

I will remind my friends across the aisle that they have been unable to enact a single funding bill in the past 7 years without ultimately appealing to Democratic votes. So I urge my colleagues to reject this minibus package and make it clear that we first ought to negotiate a budget agreement that provides certainty and clarity to the entire Federal Government, not just a handful of agencies. And we ought to do it through an open and transparent process, with Members permitted to offer amendments that can shape a budget and appropriations bills truly reflective of the Nation's priority as a whole.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' so that we can get on with an appropriations process that is in regular order, that makes common sense, that is transparent, and that will give the American public the best product that we can produce.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Engel for yielding. And I thank Mr. Royce for his hard work on this bill.

I have said this before and I will say it again: Mr. Royce, as chairman, and Mr. Engel, as ranking member, are an example for, frankly, all of us on how to work together productively in a bipartisan fashion to reach a result that is good for our country, for our people, and indeed for international security.

I also want to thank Senators Cardin and Corker for their leadership and their involvement.

This legislation is the product of very careful and sometimes difficult negotiations on a bipartisan basis. It is a strong, tough, and appropriate response to Russia's attempts to meddle in our election process, its support for violent separatists in Ukraine, its illegal occupation of Crimea, and, yes, its unhelpful activity in Syria.

It also imposes new sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program, which threatens the United States, our Gulf allies, and Israel.

Russia's power comes from its ability to coerce other nations by its energy distribution, in many instances. This bill seeks to make it harder for Russia to use that type of coercion, and empower other nations to join us in standing up against Russian aggression. These sanctions will only be successful, however, if they are truly bipartisan and if Congress continues to play its important and necessary oversight role.

Democrats and Republicans are coming together on this bill, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that the President cannot alter sanctions toward Russia without congressional review. This is critical at a moment when our allies are uncertain about where this administration stands with respect to Russian aggression.

I remain open to additional sanctions on Russia's energy sector at a later date if the Russian leader and his associates fail to heed the message of this bill that their business as usual cannot and must not continue.

Once this bill passes the Senate, as I believe it will, Russia will know that sanctions levied because of its malevolent acts will be lifted only with the concurrence, either tacitly or expressly, of the Congress of the United States. There will be no side deals or turning a blind eye to its actions.

This legislation, Mr. Speaker, will also make it clear that Russia's interference in Ukraine comes with consequences, and it puts pressure on Iran to end its ballistic missile program.

In addition, it deters, hopefully, North Korea from pursuing its dangerous development of nuclear weapons and vehicles to deliver those weapons as close as the western part of this country.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and to send it to the Senate as quickly as possible.

Will the gentleman yield?

Frankly, all four of us--yourself and your leadership, Mr. Engel, the majority leader, and I--were privileged to work together in a way that, as I said at the beginning, was constructive and that, I think, has resulted in a very good product.

Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come, and I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the majority leader.

(Mr. McCARTHY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I thank the majority leader for the information that he has given us.

Suffice it to say there are a couple of these bills, obviously, that give us great pause. But having said that, the Appropriations Committee, over the last few weeks, has marked up, I think, all of its bills now, 12 bills. There was discussion about bringing an omnibus with all 12 bills in it. That has obviously not happened, and so we have what we refer to as a minibus.

We only have 17 legislative days left, Madam Speaker, until the end of the fiscal year on September 30. First, I would like to ask the majority leader if he can tell us the process under which the minibus will be considered. As the gentleman pointed out, there are four distinct appropriations bills that are included in the minibus.

Is this going to be an open rule?

Will all of these bills be open to amendment, or will they be considered under a rule so that our Members can prepare for the consideration of these appropriations bills?

Madam Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, the gentleman made an observation about there were more Democratic amendments. That is unusual for your bills. We usually find more Republican amendments to your bills than we do Democratic amendments. But having said that, I think the gentleman's observation is correct.

I want to make it clear to Members of the House, perhaps, who have not served here very long, the first year I was majority leader in 2007, it wasn't just consideration in committee. We passed through the House of Representatives all 12 appropriations bills and sent them to the Senate prior to the August break so that the Senate had a full month to consider them. We didn't get them all done, as you have suspected.

But in any event, I don't think I have ever seen, Mr. Leader, an omnibus passed prior to the August break. Individual bills being passed, but a minibus of this nature with, as you point out, 66 percent of the discretionary spending, which, by the way, there is no budget, and, therefore, this breaks the sequester level. It breaks the agreements that we have had in the past under Ryan-Murray for 4 years, two Congresses, and the number that is being used is a number that was simply taken out of the air. There has been no vote on the floor, no other way to have set that number.

We also believe that the amendments that are going to be offered are going to be offered in a very short space of time, and that is going to be a problem, but we will see what the rule says.

Can the gentlemen tell me, do we expect to bring the other eight bills to the floor in September?

Madam Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Now, the gentleman mentioned that the border wall was going to be fully paid for. The Homeland Security bill is not a part of the package that includes four bills. Madam Speaker, can the gentleman tell me what bill that will be included in?

I yield to my friend.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

It is an amendment made in Rules. Is that going to be an amendment that will be made in order for full consideration and debate on the floor of the House of Representatives?

Madam Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Madam Speaker, I thank the majority leader for that answer.

Given the fact that, as the gentleman has pointed out, this was made a major issue by the administration during the campaign, in light of the fact that there are many members of his own administration who believe the wall will not work and is not the most effective way to do what all of us agree ought to be done, and that is to keep our border secure and to make sure that we know who is coming into the United States of America--I think that is a unanimous position, frankly, of the Members of this House.

This border wall, as I understand it, is in none of the four bills that have been marked up by the committee. Therefore, my presumption is the Rules Committee is, in some fashion, going to add this. If they add it, frankly, to the rule and that it is adopted as a result of the adoption of the rule, that will preclude a vote on the wall.

Now, I know the gentleman doesn't like me to quote his book, but it seems to me, in the book, every issue was going to be taken on its own, discretely, and that Members of the House would be able to work their will.

If it is in the rule, that is, I think, not consistent with that ability of Members of the House to fully debate whether or not we ought to be putting billions and billions and billions of dollars into a wall and whether or not that wall would be effective to accomplish the objective.

Madam Speaker, can the gentleman assure me that it will not be simply included and assumed to be adopted by the adoption of the rule itself and will, in fact, be an amendment on which the House can engage and work its will?

Madam Speaker, I yield to my friend.

I am enthralled by it, Mr. Majority Leader.

Madam Speaker, I understand the majority leader's reticence to answer the question because he says he can't speak for the Rules Committee. I understand that. But the fact of the matter is this is an important issue. It ought to be considered by the House.

It ought to have every Member's ability to speak to the issue of whether or not we ought to build that wall, not whether we ought to have security--we all agree that we should and must have security--but whether we do it with a wall, as I said, in which many members of the current administration do not believe it will work and have been quoted as saying so in the past, and there are many Members on our side who feel that.

I would hope that the majority leader would at least make it known to the Rules Committee that we ought to have that as a freestanding amendment, not incorporate it in a rule that the vote for the rule or a vote against the rule is, of itself, a vote on the wall itself.

Lastly, Mr. Leader, I want to say that you and I are both very concerned about the Russian sanctions and Iranian sanctions bill that is pending. We have been working very hard on that, very constructively on that, and I look forward, over the next 24 hours, more or less, to see whether or not we could get that resolved.

We have introduced, as you know, the Senate bill as a House bill. We would be for that if it would be brought to the floor. But we want to make sure that we move a bill, as you do, as quickly as possible and get agreement with the Senate and move that bill to the President's desk.

I thank you for your work on that, and I look forward to working with you over the next day or two to see if we can achieve that objective together.

Madam Speaker, unless the gentleman wants further time, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I was tempted to stop at that podium. One of my Republican predecessors used to come over here a long time ago and speak to Democrats from this podium and then walk back and speak to his Republican colleagues.

This is truly something that both podiums support. It is a bipartisan effort. I was privileged to work with Congresswoman Comstock's predecessor, Frank Wolf, and we worked arm in arm, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder for a decade with Republican administrations, both the Reagan administration and with the first Bush administration, and this truly is a bipartisan effort to enhance America's subway.

I say ``America's subway'' because not only do our people use it that live in the region, but millions of Americans who come to Washington, D.C., to see their Capital use their Metro system. I am proud to be the sponsor of this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

People throughout the National Capital region depend upon Metro to get to work, reach family and friends, and access shopping and entertainment, as so many of my colleagues have already said. It is the lifeblood of the area's economy. Nobody probably knows that better than Gerry Connolly, who was the head of one of the largest subdivisions in our region and knows how critically important Metro is to our region.

Metro--I have referred to it as the ``ties that bind the Washington metropolitan area together''--is used by millions of visitors to our Nation's Capital who come from across the country. It is critical to the functioning of our Federal Government, with Federal employees making up nearly 40 percent of its ridership. They and many military personnel rely on Metro to get to their offices and duty stations on time so they can serve the American people.

As anyone who spends time in this city knows, Metro has had its share of challenges in recent years, including, of course, safety issues that have prompted an ambitious overhaul of safety procedure and infrastructure, which was absolutely necessary and too long in coming.

Safety must continue to be Metro's number one priority both for its passengers and for its employees. Our resolution, Mr. Speaker--when I refer to ``our,'' the entire metropolitan delegation--would provide congressional consent for the establishment of a Metrorail Safety Commission--Mrs. Comstock spoke of that; Mr. Raskin has spoken of that; I am sure others will as well--which will provide real enforcement teeth to our region's commitment to enhancing Metro safety. The safety commission is being launched jointly by Congress, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

I want to thank Ms. Norton, who, herself, has worked so long and so effectively on behalf of Washington's Metro system. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Norton.

The Federal Transit Administration is currently withholding approximately $8.9 million, which Mrs. Comstock referred to. This step will be a significant step in making sure that that $8.9 million is released. Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. have all given their approval already, the Virginia Legislature, the Maryland Legislature, and the D.C. legislature. Now it is up to Congress.

But today's resolution is not an end. It is an important step, but not an end. It must signal an ongoing commitment across the region to Metro and, yes, by the Congress itself.

I believe that if Metro is to become safer and more reliable, it must have a dedicated funding source. That is not the issue in this resolution, but it is the issue before Metro and before our region and before our country. That is why I will continue to push for more Federal investment in Metro and for WMATA to have every resource it needs to keep its riders and employees safe, which is to say all of the American people who use it on their visits here as well as those of us who live here.

I want to thank each of the Members of our delegation, our regional delegation, who work together on behalf of the region; and I want to thank, in particular, Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, who sponsored this legislation on the Senate side. We have all been working hard to ensure this resolution comes to the floor and to make sure all stakeholders have been at the table.

I thank my delegation, the regional delegation, and I thank Mr. Goodlatte for bringing this resolution to the floor in a timely fashion; and I thank certainly one of our newest Members but one of our most able Members, Mr. Raskin.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to inquire of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come, and I yield to my friend, Majority Leader McCarthy from California.

(Mr. McCARTHY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader for that information.

Mr. Speaker, I might say that that may be the most expensive birthday present anybody ever has gotten, when you mentioned Mr. Thornberry. The chairman has done very well, and I congratulate him on his work and on

his bipartisan working together with his committee members.

The majority leader and I have talked about this briefly, but, obviously, we now have on the schedule 2 weeks left to go to do our business. There is some discussion in the Senate, as the gentleman knows, about them meeting into August.

Obviously, one of the problems with that is for, particularly, younger Members. A lot of Members here have children who go back to school the third week in August, so the first 2 weeks are not available to them.

Can we give them some direction on whether or not we expect to be here past the scheduled adjournment date of July 31?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Members ought to plan accordingly.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, the Appropriations Committee is marking up its bills, but we have not yet adopted a budget and, therefore, have no House-approved top line for discretionary spending.

Can the majority leader give us any view as to whether or not the Budget Committee may be reporting, before we leave for the August break, a budget establishing an upper line for discretionary spending?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader for his observation.

I might say, if I can, the first year I was majority leader, which was in 2007, we passed all appropriations bills before the August break to the Senate, but I am pleased that the Appropriations Committee is moving forward, and let's hope that we can honor regular order.

Does the majority leader expect us to consider each of the bills that the gentleman refers to as having been passed through subcommittee, some through full committee? Do we expect to consider those discretely one at a time on the floor?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, in addition, one of the things, obviously, that I think both sides are concerned about, and Secretary Mnuchin has urged, and others have urged us to deal with, is the debt limit. We are not exactly sure when it will be necessary and when the administration will run out of extraordinary measures to ensure that we pay our bills.

I have told the majority leader privately and I have said publicly to the press that assuming we have a clean debt limit extension, it would be my intention to urge my Members to support such a clean debt limit extension.

Does the gentleman have any thought as to when we might be considering that?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, lastly, I would say that obviously I know the gentleman and I, and I think the overwhelming majority of Members of the House on both sides of the aisle, are very concerned that we ensure that sanctions on Iran's malevolent actions and Russia's actions, including involving itself in an American election, is an item of concern. I know the gentleman is working on it.

Can the gentleman tell me what he thinks the schedule for that bill might be?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I share that view that we want to get this done as soon as possible.

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