Tom Cole

Mr. Speaker, as the longest serving Native American in the United States House of Representatives, and a member of the Chickasaw Nation, I rise today to recognize the day of September 30, 2026, as National Orange Shirt Day or, National Day of Remembrance, to honor those who were forced to attend Indian boarding schools, and to recognize the experience of Indian boarding school victims and survivors.

Today, I am proud to stand in support with Indian boarding school survivors, descendants, and Tribal nations to remember the children that never made it home and to honor the week of remembrance for the Indian boarding school era.

As the lead sponsor of HR. 7325, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act, I support formal investigation, documentation, and reporting on the histories of boarding schools, their policies, and long-term effects those schools and policies have had on Native American peoples. My democratic co-lead, Representative Sharice Davids, and I are dedicated to finding solutions for survivors, descendants, and Tribal communities.

According to research from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, the Federal government funded boarding schools for Native Americans from 1819 through the 1960s that forced the removal of hundreds of thousands of American Indian and Alaska Native children as young as 3 years old, relocating them from their traditional homelands to 1 of at least 526 known Indian boarding schools, of which 125 remain open today, across 38 States.

In my state of Oklahoma, there were 98 Federal boarding schools that were often overflowed to intentionally mix more than 30 different tribes to unsettle relations and prevent children from speaking common languages among each other.

Many of the children who were taken to Indian boarding schools never returned home to their families or their communities. Many did not survive. The impact of this is still felt today.

In closing, I call upon my colleagues to stand with me in Remembrance Day and support the passage of H.R 7325.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my very good friend, Chairman Westerman, for yielding me the time and for bringing this important piece of legislation to the floor. I also thank Congresswoman Betty McCollum of Minnesota for her collaboration, and Secretary Markwayne Mullin for his work on this legislation during his time in the Senate.

I rise today, Mr. Speaker, in strong support of S. 550, the companion legislation to my bill, H.R. 2827. The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma have been waiting more than 10 years for this legislation to pass, and today is finally that day.

Mr. Speaker, that would not be possible without Chairman Westerman's help and support, and I am very appreciative.

Resolving this land claim will remedy a mistake made by the Federal Government roughly two centuries ago. In 1805, the Miami Tribe, Eel River Band, and Wea, signed the Treaty of Grouseland, which, under Article IV, reserved all lands within the Wabash River watershed and land located west of the Wabash River, which is in present-day Illinois. From 1805 to 1840, the United States transferred 2.6 million acres of this land to non-Native settlers without having acquired title from the Tribes. As a result, title to that land is still held by the Miami Tribe's superior claim to title, and the Tribe never consented to that land being purchased.

S. 550 will allow the Miami Tribe to have their rightful day in court and extinguish all claims to this land in Illinois. This straightforward, bipartisan piece of legislation will not only provide finality for the Miami Tribe, but also certainty to the landowners and farmers in Illinois who have been living on this land for generations.

As a Tribal member myself, it is an honor to help a fellow Tribal nation and be a voice here in Washington. Today is a testament of Congress upholding its trust and treaty responsibility, and I would like to thank Chairman Westerman again for his support. Chairman Hurd, Ranking Member Huffman, and Ranking Member Leger Fernandez were also instrumental, and I appreciate the efforts of their staff and their support and efforts on this important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of S. 550.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendments to the bill (H.R. 6500) to extend duty-free treatment provided with respect to imports from certain countries in Africa under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, to extend customs user fees, and for other purposes.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Senate amendments to H.R. 6500, the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2027.

Mr. Speaker, today is the first day of September. At this time of year, some people think of fall. Some people, like me, think of football, but on the Appropriations Committee, our focus is on the end of the fiscal year.

September 30 marks the end of the fiscal year 2026, and that means both the House and the Senate must act to fund the government for the coming fiscal year.

The Constitution entrusts Congress with a solemn duty to fund the government. This is a responsibility I have never viewed as optional and one I have remained committed to honoring through regular order.

I am extremely pleased that the House Appropriations Committee largely fulfilled its responsibilities earlier this year. By the middle of June, the Appropriations Committee reported out all 12 of our fiscal year 2027 appropriations bills, the earliest we have done so since fiscal year 2020.

The full House has also passed three of these bills. I had hoped that the House's quick actions would lead to sending a series of appropriations measures to the President's desk before the end of the fiscal year.

Unfortunately, time is running short. Though the House acted expeditiously, our colleagues across the rotunda have not approached this problem with the same sense of urgency. Indeed, the Senate has yet to report a single bill out of the Senate Appropriations Committee, much less across the Senate floor.

Like it or not, the Constitution entrusts Congress, both the House and the Senate, with the responsibility of funding the government. The fact remains that this House cannot act solely on its own.

The hard reality before us is straightforward: The fiscal year deadline is outpacing the work that remains. Recognizing that this was a possibility in July, the House proactively passed H.R. 9770, a continuing resolution to fund the government through December 4. I am glad to say the example we set helped paved the way for action in the other Chamber. The Senate built on our plan and before leaving for recess, our colleagues passed an amended version of that bill. We now have an opportunity to take this measure up and send it to the President for his approval.

This clean, short-term continuing resolution simply keeps the government open, protects the progress we have made, and preserves the path to full-year appropriations. If enacted, the bill before us today will fund the government through December 11. This will allow Congress time to get past the November elections and allow us time to assess and move forward with further appropriations measures in November and December.

Let me be very clear, Mr. Speaker, about what this bill does and does not do: The bill funds the government and keeps it open through December 11, ensuring our constituents will continue to get the services they need. The bill protects our national security, providing funding for our Armed Forces and security agencies as well as crucial authorities for core research and development programs to ensure our military remains the best armed and equipped services in the world.

The bill contains no poison pills and no partisan riders. It doesn't mean I agree with everything in it, but I think the time to act is now.

The bill has the support of the White House and notably the bill preserves the House's progress and the ability to pass full-year funding bills after the November elections.

Over and over, I hear from my constituents that they want Congress to work together and do the right thing for the American people. That is precisely what we are doing in taking up today's bill.

The bill before us is a clean, narrowly tailored continuing resolution that keeps the government open and operating, nothing more, nothing less.

It gives the Nation and our constituents certainty: certainty that the government will remain open, certainty that our servicemembers will be paid, certainty that the TSA will remain operating, certainty that Social Security checks will go out on time, certainty that home buyers will be able to secure mortgages, certainty that the Nation will be protected from foreign threats, certainty that Americans will be able to access nutrition assistance and disaster relief, certainty that roads will be repaired and critical infrastructure projects will continue, and certainty that our elections will be secure.

The choice is clear.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in voting for this responsible measure, and I look forward to continuing the FY 2027 appropriations process in the months ahead.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Alford), my good friend and a distinguished member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Smith), my good friend and the distinguished chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, as always, for working with us in this matter cooperatively.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased, honestly, with the progress of the House Appropriations Committee this year. Again, all 12 bills were reported out of committee in the fastest time since fiscal year 2020.

I know those bills aren't in their final form, and so does my friend. We still need to sit down and bargain together and bargain with the Senate. Out of that, I believe we will emerge with a bipartisan compromise that both sides can be proud of and that we can send to the President for his approval.

For that to occur, the United States Senate has to begin to act. They have to produce bills. For us to go an entire fiscal year almost--we are about 30 days short of it--without a single Senate bill is just unprecedented. I do not blame that on my Republican colleagues. Frankly, they have the filibuster over there. They have to get to 60. They have not been able to do that, and that is going to mean that we are going to have an extraordinarily short time.

I am pleased, however, that the Senate acted. When we passed our continuing resolution over here, we knew it would change when it got to the Senate. Some of those changes, I actually agree with. Some of them, I don't. They don't really change the substance or the fact that we bought the time that we need to get through the election cycle and, hopefully, the time that we need to get down to serious bargaining on the other side of it.

For that to work, again, every person has to be at the table. Every point of view has to be represented, and we have to find common ground.

We were able to do that last year by working together on almost everything--not quite, but almost--and I think we can do that again this year. It is important for the country that we do.

Mr. Speaker, again, I thank my good friend, the ranking member of the full committee, for always being an honest and direct negotiating partner. I know that is going to continue. I know we have the same goal of trying to get all of these bills done by the end of the calendar year, if not the fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker, I invite the United States Senate, as a body, to join us in that and produce some product, post some numbers, do something so that we have some idea of what they are thinking about in terms of long-term appropriations. Then, we will sit down, appropriately, and we will bargain with them and hopefully come to a common conclusion.

The last thing this country needs is a full-year continuing resolution. We need negotiated, bipartisan bills that achieve the common objectives that, despite the partisan rhetoric of an election year, I know we have together. We have worked together before to defend the country, to advance biomedical research, to take care of early childhood, to help first-time college students, to do all of the things that the United States Government ought to be engaged in and do it in a bipartisan way. I think we can do that again. This bill is a step in that direction.

Again, I thank my friend for supporting the legislation. I hope our Senate colleagues recognize that we are trying to move along. We didn't want to fight over things, even the couple of things that we disagreed with. We wanted to bring this to the floor and begin a bipartisan process. Again, I think that is what we will accomplish today if we pass these bills.

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

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