Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres), my good friend and not only fellow member of the Rules Committee, but fellow appropriator, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule covers one item, a continuing resolution to fund the government and keep it open and operating through February 18, 2022.

While I am grateful that we are taking steps to avoid a government shutdown, I am disappointed by the solution before us, yet another short-term funding bill with full-year funding negotiations no closer than they were a few months ago or a few weeks ago.

Mr. Speaker, today's resolution is the second continuing resolution we have had to pass to cover fiscal year 2022. Sadly, I expect it will not be the last. This state of affairs was absolutely avoidable and reflects poorly on the Democratic leadership.

I have often said that government funding is the most fundamental responsibility of Congress. Unfortunately, we are nowhere close to a full-year appropriation funding deal. We are no closer to an agreement today than the last time we passed a continuing resolution in September. The reality is that the reason we are having to consider another continuing resolution today is because of the majority's insistence on focusing on partisan priorities rather than on the critical business of governing the nation.

For months, the majority's focus has not been anywhere near where it should have been. Instead of reaching a full-year deal on government funding or even a top-line agreement on funding levels, the majority has insisted on working on other partisan matters.

Since the passage of the last stop-gap funding measure, House Democrats have focused solely on their massive reconciliation bill, month after month, focused on enshrining partisan policies into law. These efforts may satisfy their progressive base, but they fail the American people as a whole.

The majority currently controls the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, and if they can swing the votes, they can pass whatever they want into law. But with that ability also comes a grave responsibility, a responsibility to govern the country. Unfortunately, the majority has been abandoning that responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, October 1 marked the beginning of fiscal year 2022. By rights, the House and the Senate should have both passed our standard 12 appropriations bills through both Chambers of Congress and into law by that date. But since we did not, a continuing resolution was necessary.

Now we are on the second continuing resolution of this fiscal year, and in all likelihood, a probable third one is coming in February, unless my friends on the other side actually start negotiating in earnest. At this point, we are unfortunately no closer to passing these 12 bills or an omnibus spending bill than we were back on October 1.

This is truly a failure to govern. While the majority focuses on a push to make the government bigger and bigger, they are failing to fund the government which already exists today.

What happens as a result? We move from continuing resolution to continuing resolution, getting no closer to a final spending deal. Not involving Republicans until the very last minute and just expecting us to indefinitely support CR after CR is no way to govern, and frankly, the failure to have any conversations about how to come to an agreement on a full-year appropriations bill is indefensible.

While I am sure former President Trump will be pleased to know his last budget continues on almost a year after he left office, there is real work that can and should be done.

But what is perhaps the most frustrating has been the way in which the majority has bungled reaching a relatively simple deal on this particular continuing resolution. Knowing full well that this Friday's deadline was coming up, the majority instead dithered for months on their reconciliation package.

This week, finally acknowledging that real discussions needed to be had with Republicans, the majority instead continued to twiddle their thumbs. Indeed, Republicans in the House were completely shut out of this process, leaving us all in the dark about the nature of today's bill until this morning. Once again, the majority has chosen to go it alone rather than choosing to work across the aisle.

The majority is well aware that their current stance on a larger deal is dead on arrival in the Senate. As long as they continue to insist on omitting the historically bipartisan pro-life protections which have existed in law for more than 45 years, Republicans cannot and will not support bills that end these protections, and the Senate will not pass them.

But that is not the only point of disagreement. The majority has been unwilling to fund our Nation's defense at the levels agreed to by the authorizers and appropriators in the House and currently being debated in the Senate. These increased levels are necessary to ensure continued defense readiness worldwide, especially given the ongoing tensions in places like Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the Taiwan Strait.

But instead of governing and seeking to address these challenges, the majority is pandering to the most extreme elements of their Caucus, trying desperately to pass bills that lower defense spending levels and omitting key bipartisan pro-life protections from appropriations bills. And instead of governing, the majority holds the American people hostage under the threat of a government shutdown, dragging the country from one self-inflicted crisis to another.

Mr. Speaker, the sooner the majority gets serious about reaching a full-year deal, the better for the country. There are real, damaging consequences to the failure to pass full-year appropriations bills, both at home and abroad, and the sooner the majority brings its attention back to the critical business of governing the country, the better off we all will be.

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

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

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment on the rule to immediately bring up H.R. 6056, the Parents Bill of Rights Act.

Mr. Speaker, education is one of the most important issues that we face today. Determining how our children will be educated determines the future fate of our Nation.

Unfortunately, many school districts have been ignoring the wishes of parents or, worse, telling parents they cannot play a role in their child's education.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe made Democrats' position on education clear when he said: ``I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.'' I couldn't disagree with him more, and thankfully, neither could Virginia voters.

Instead, H.R. 6056, developed by Education and Labor Committee Republicans, would enshrine a list of rights into law to make clear to parents what their rights are and clear to schools what their duties to parents are.

These rights include the right to know what their children are being taught, the right of parents to be heard, and the right to protect their child's privacy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Louisiana (Ms. Letlow), the sponsor of H.R. 6056 and a member of the Education and Labor Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Owens), my good friend and ranking member of the Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee, for further explanation of the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), my very good friend and the ranking member of the Committee on Education and Labor, for further explanation on the previous question.

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

Mr. Speaker, the bill in front of us, in some ways, is a simple bill. It is a continuing resolution. It goes for a certain amount of time. Sadly, it reflects the basic failure of this institution to focus on its job.

We have had more than a year to deal with what we should be dealing with, the passage of the budget. We extended--I actually voted for the extension--the last continuing resolution to provide time.

Now, my friends knew at the beginning of this process the number of things that they had to do. They knew if they took out the Hyde language and those protections that they would never get a deal. Yet, they did that anyway.

They did that without consultation. They did it in committee. They had the votes. They had every right to do it. They also knew at the end of the day they were going to have to have bipartisanship on appropriations bills. They will not pass in the Senate because of the filibuster. There is sufficient support on both sides of the aisle.

Every single Republican in this Chamber actually supported the reinsertion of the Hyde amendment in the legislative process, telling our friends: If you take this out, we are not going to be working with you until it is restored.

So far, we have not seen any effort to do that.

Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side also put in lots of poison pills--again, lots of things that they knew Republicans would not accept. That is fine in a reconciliation package. They really don't need our votes. That is not true in an appropriations bill.

It is my understanding that both ranking members in both Chambers on the Committee on Appropriations said: Look, we are not sitting down to negotiate until the Hyde protections are back in.

They are historically bipartisan. They have been there 45 years. Most of my friends on the other side of the aisle have voted for them over and over and over again, whether they liked them or not.

Frankly, if you are going to have to get a bipartisan deal, when you put partisan pills in, you know you are going to have to take them out at some point. You might as well do it at the beginning of the session.

We also have had no engagement from either the administration or our friends on the other side about any spending limits whatsoever. What is our top-line number? Nobody has been willing to sit down and talk about that. Quite frankly, that is a problem.

Mr. Speaker, we probably ought to be looking at that, as we have done in previous years over multiple years going forward. We could also make adjustments if we are in a crisis. We have done that before. But we had a framework that we could operate under, and it has actually facilitated the appropriations. I would recommend to my friends that might be something they want to talk about with both sides.

But in the end, the deal here is not hard to see. The deal involves three simple things. There are lots of details, lots of other things to be negotiated.

First, defense spending is going to have to come up. That is not just Republicans telling you that. The Democratic-controlled House Committee on Armed Services and the Democratic-controlled Senate Committee on Armed Services both put in $25 billion more than in the President's base budget or in the bill that our friends passed out of committee but never brought to this floor because they don't have the votes to pass it. So that is one.

Number two, my friends, in the 12 bills that they have passed through the Committee on Appropriations--and I commend them for that--raised domestic spending by 17 or 18 percent. That number is going to have to come down. We can talk about how much, and we can talk about where, but it is way too much, and it is way out of balance.

And number three--and my friends were told this over and over and over again--if you take out the Hyde protections on life, there will be no Republican votes for your bill. Now, we can pass continuing resolution after continuing resolution. After all, that is Donald Trump's last negotiated budget, the budget you got when you had a Republican President, Republican Senate, and a Democratic House.

Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, many of my friends on my side of the aisle would prefer that. I would prefer a deal. I would prefer a more robust defense budget. I am willing to talk about some of my friends' domestic priorities--quite frankly, some of which I share and would support and have in the past. I am also, though, not prepared to yield on the Hyde amendment, and my friends know that.

Mr. Speaker, we know what a deal is: more defense; less domestic spending; removal of poison pills; restoration of historic, bipartisan protections on life. Do those things and we can have a deal, I think, pretty quickly. Stay where you are at and we will not have a deal, and we will be right back here in February, doing another continuing resolution.

The most basic responsibility of Congress is to fund the government. Unfortunately, we are no closer to a full-

year spending deal that we truly need. My colleagues in the majority have wasted months focusing on other matters--notably, a wildly expensive and unrealistic reconciliation spending package--rather than doing the hard and essential work of governing the Nation. I urge my friends in the majority to rethink that course.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and ``no'' on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend from Arkansas for yielding and being so generous with the time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4352. Along with my good friend, Representative McCollum of Minnesota, I am proud to cosponsor this legislation.

The legislation amends the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and reaffirms the right of the Secretary of the Interior to place land into trust for federally recognized Indian Tribes.

Madam Speaker, as I am sure most people in this House know, the history and relationship between the United States and Indian Tribes isn't something to always be proud of. Frankly, with the passage of the Dawes Act in 1887, Tribes all over the country, but particularly in my State of Oklahoma, were systematically stripped of their lands, and individual Tribal members were as well. I know this because my Tribe was one of the victims. My family was one of the losers in the process.

In 1934, the Federal Government wisely saw that it had made a bad mistake and intervened with the Indian Reorganization Act to protect the remaining Indian lands and to allow modest additions and reacquisitions of that land.

For 75 years, it worked pretty much the way it was supposed to work, whether it was a Democratic or a Republican administration. Land was protected and modestly brought back into trust--only 9 million acres so far since 1934, so it is not as if we have had a large transfer of land back. But we have protected what was there and added back to Tribal patrimony where it made sense.

All that was upset by the Carcieri v. Salazar decision in 2009. That was a really bad decision, quite frankly. It did, as my friends from New Mexico and Minnesota both pointed out, upset the balance. It created a two-tiered system and penalized Tribes that had not been federally recognized in 1934. That, by the way, wasn't just ``new Tribes.'' A lot of them--the case was based on the Narragansetts in Rhode Island--actually had been around for a long time.

The Narragansetts are in the same place they always were. They were recognized by the State of Rhode Island but for some reason weren't in the 1934 bill.

So a lot of people have been victimized by this, and frankly, a lot of interests have tried to exploit it.

We have had an opportunity on a couple of occasions to fix it. Actually, this House should be proud. In December 2010, my amendment to an appropriations bill, supported by my good friend Ms. McCollum, we got it out of the House, but it died in the Senate that same December.

As my friend from Minnesota alluded, we passed legislation in the last Congress to deal with this issue on an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote.

I would just say, for the record, I have introduced legislation on this every year since 2009. My friend, Ms. McCollum, has done pretty much the same, and we have always cosponsored one another's legislation. So I am very proud to be here and support this bill.

I urge passage of this bill. It is a matter of justice for the Tribes, but it is also a matter of equity and a matter of, frankly, legislative convenience.

Madam Speaker, I strongly support my friend's bill, H.R. 4352, and urge its passage.

Madam Speaker, in the early morning hours of Sunday, November 14, Norm Hardee entered eternal life and joined the communion of saints after a more than 30-year battle with Parkinson's disease. He was surrounded by those who loved him, including his soul mate, Jana.

Norm was born on March 14, 1948 to Donnie and Mary Hardee in Mullins, South Carolina. He was raised a poor sharecropper's son in the tobacco fields of North Carolina. Norm enlisted in the U.S. Navy January 6, 1969, which enabled him to find and marry the love of his life, Jana Nall, in 1973. Norm went on to become a commissioned officer in the Navy, serving for 20 years until his retirement in 1989. When he gave his final salute, he didn't hesitate to head west to his adopted home of Oklahoma.

Following his Naval career, he went on to become the electronics instructor at the Pontotoc County Career Tech Center in Ada, Oklahoma. Norm made a positive and lasting impact on the lives of many who served with him in the Navy as well as his students in the classroom. He was a proud father to two children, Jill and Ben, a doting Papa to five grandchildren, and one great granddaughter.

He is survived by his loving wife of 48 years, Jana; daughter, Jill Daugherty and husband Michael; son, Ben Hardee and wife Kassidy; brother, Don Hardee and wife Beth; grandchildren, Sydney Daugherty, Caleb Jones, Nathan Jones, Owen Hardee and Brendon Hardee; great granddaughter, Delilah Jones; nephews, Justin Hardee and Adam Hancock; nieces, Ashley Jasmin and husband Jamie and Amy Hornback and husband Joe; cousin, Susan Busby; his mother-in-law, Drusilla Nall; sister-in- law, Labeth Nall; and special friends, Norma Robins; Donna Blankenship, and Mary Beth Norman. He was preceded in death by his parents, brothers, Harold and Ronald Hardee and his nephew Aaron Hancock.

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

I thank the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), my friend, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Madam Speaker, today's rule covers one item, a resolution censuring Representative Paul Gosar for a video posted on his official Twitter account last week, and removing him from his seat on the Committees on Oversight and Reform and Natural Resources.

Madam Speaker, today's action, once again, tramples on the traditional norms of the House; the idea that the majority and the minority have the right to appoint their own members to committees as they see fit. It sets a dangerous and disturbing precedent that will likely change the character of the House in the years to come, and not for the better.

And the majority is doing so solely to play politics with this moment and to score a cheap political point at the expense of a Member of the minority.

But before I go into all of that, I do think it is important to lay out the sequence of events that occurred here, since I believe they are instructive.

Last week, Representative Gosar posted a video on his official Twitter account. This video was certainly provocative and, in my opinion, inappropriate.

Upon being informed of the video's existence, Leader McCarthy immediately took action and called Congressman Gosar, conveying the message that this video was inappropriate. After that conversation, Congressman Gosar took the video down and issued a statement explaining and clarifying its meaning, and stating that he certainly didn't approve of violence against any person.

Yesterday, Congressman Gosar took the additional step of appearing before the Republican Conference to further explain his actions. He described that his intention was for a depiction in the video to be symbolic of the policies he opposes, not actual people. He clarified that he did not intend it to be an endorsement of violence and, further, that he does not condone violence.

But not content with his admission to a lapse in judgment, last night the majority made the decision to convene the Rules Committee on short notice to consider a resolution censuring Representative Gosar and removing him from his committee assignments. In doing so, the majority is acting in clear contrast to the existing precedent throughout the history of this institution; a precedent the majority has taken multiple deliberate steps to weaken in this Congress.

Throughout the history of the House of Representatives, the majority and the minority have respected the right of each of their conferences to assign their respective members to committees. The decision about whether to seat a member on a committee, or to remove a member from a committee, traditionally rests with the respective conferences.

Early this year, the majority took two actions to go against that tradition. First, the majority voted to remove a Republican Member of Congress from her committee assignments.

Second, the Speaker unilaterally refused to appoint two of Leader McCarthy's choices to be Republican members on the Select Committee on the January 6 attack and, instead, appointed Republicans she wanted on the committee. Both of these actions are in stark contrast to the norms and traditions of the House of Representatives.

Today, the majority is taking a third such action. This continues to set an extremely dangerous precedent for the future of the institution. In future years, the precedent may be used to give the majority veto power over the minority's committee assignments. That is a slippery slope for the institution to go down.

But to make matters worse, in acting today, the majority is setting a standard for Members of the minority that it does not set for itself. There have been plenty of instances of Members on the majority side using intemperate language, making statements that directly or could be construed as endorsing violence or taking controversial or inappropriate actions; yet, the majority has yet to act to remove one of its own members from their committee assignments.

This is a classic case of the old adage: ``Rules for thee but not for me.'' That is deeply frustrating.

Madam Speaker, if action is truly necessary today, then there are two other options for addressing Representative Gosar's actions than what the majority is proposing. First, the majority can and should leave the matter up to Leader McCarthy and the Republican Conference. Indeed, this was the topic of discussion at yesterday's Republican Conference meeting and, historically, neither Leader McCarthy nor the Republican Conference has shied away from disciplining Members.

Second, the House also has the option of referring Representative Gosar to the Ethics Committee. This is also an appropriate course of action, particularly if the majority believes that

a violation of the Code of Ethics has occurred. Such a referral would give the bipartisan Ethics Committee the time to review the matter, allow Representative Gosar to present his arguments, and give the committee the chance to make appropriate recommendations.

But once again, the majority is rushing forward with a resolution to strip a Republican member of a committee assignment without giving either of these two appropriate venues a chance to resolve the matter. In doing so, they are playing politics in the worst way, rushing to condemn a Republican Member for actions for which he has already sought to address.

It is disturbing to note the surprise on my Democratic colleagues' faces last night at the Rules Committee when I referenced the public statement Congressman Gosar released after removing the video. They didn't seem to know about it. I think they are condemning his actions and didn't even know that he had already taken corrective action.

That goes to show, frankly, that we have not taken the appropriate care in looking at this matter, and certainly not given Representative Gosar the opportunity to address it.

Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume simply to make a couple of quick points to some of my friends' concerns.

First of all, nobody has had 2 weeks to act. This incident occurred less than 2 weeks ago, and we were in recess last week. So let's focus on the here and now.

I may be mistaken about this, but I don't think we have kept the Ethics Committee from meeting about this. Quite the opposite, we wish they had.

The chairman did say he would put in a request for an emergency meeting. The reality is, the majority moved ahead, I think, before that could happen. That process, I think, would have been the appropriate one to follow or an appropriate one to follow in this case.

So, I just simply posit those things for the record.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gaetz).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Florida.

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

Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to consider a resolution that would add a new House rule stating that any resolution proposing to remove a Member from a committee assignment shall not be in order unless offered by, or with the concurrence of, the leader of the party of the Member that is the subject of the resolution.

Madam Speaker, my amendment would reinforce the longstanding norm of basic fairness that today's resolution does not comply with. Throughout the entire history of the House of Representatives, it has been an unwritten rule, or norm of conduct, that one party does not attempt to exercise a veto over the other party's committee assignments. The reasons for this are obvious. It protects the operations of the institution and ensures that politically motivated attempts to remove Members from committees do not happen.

But the majority's actions, both today and earlier this Congress, threaten that norm and threaten to set off a new round of escalating partisan punishment anytime the majority changes hands. Establishing this as a written rule of the House would ensure that no Member ever faces this kind of partisan retribution again.

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

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

Obviously, I oppose the rule. Today's action threatens one of the key norms of this institution, the right of the majority and minority to make committee assignments for their respective Members. It threatens to set a new, dangerous precedent for this institution, allowing the majority to have a veto over the minority's assignments.

Representative Gosar has already addressed his misguided decision to post the video and has sought to rectify it.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question, ``no'' on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Madam Speaker, we have heard repeatedly from the President of the United States that this bill costs nothing. That is obviously not true, it costs lots of money.

Last night, my very good friend, the Rules Committee chairman, the distinguished Member from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), said it is fully paid for. I know he believes that. Unfortunately, he doesn't know that.

We don't have a Congressional Budget Committee score. We have had five Members of the other party say they would not vote for this bill unless they had a CBO score. I hope they hold true to that.

Madam Speaker, we should simply not proceed until we have a CBO score. We will have our differences of opinion, fair enough. But the American people and all of us in this Chamber ought to know what this bill costs before any of us are asked to cast a vote.

Madam Speaker, I would urge the support of my friend's point of order.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend for yielding, but most of all, I want to thank him for waiting here hour after hour after hour, as our friends who couldn't get their show in order, broke arms, broke knees, did whatever they had to do to bring this to the floor. Thank you for being here and making sure that things were done appropriately in a procedural way.

Madam Speaker, we have purportedly a $3 billion package in two different parts in front of us today. We are not going to talk a lot about the first part of the package, the so-called infrastructure package, but I want to talk about it because it didn't come through the Rules Committee, it didn't need to, and it is not going to be subject to much debate here, but we ought to talk about it.

Now, of the two bills that we are purportedly going to deal with, it is the better of the two. It is abominable. It is unpaid for. The CBO has told us it is $400 billion--$398 billion to be precise.

The Senate process that produced it did not go through the committee of jurisdiction. Worst of all, it is the most egregious surrender of House prerogatives I have seen in my time here. It has not come through any committee. We have not had anything to do with it. We are going to simply accept what a few Senators negotiated and went through and call it a victory and call it bipartisan. It is nothing of the sort.

Worse than that is the bill that this rule is to advance, and that is the so-called BBB bill. Now, my friends call it the Build Back Better bill. I call it the bad bad bad bill. It has been cobbled together in a convoluted process of missed deadlines, broken promises, and legislative sleight of hand. The defects are almost, Madam Speaker, too many to mention.

My friends will say it is paid for. It is not. Quite frankly, they have about $1.5 trillion of revenue as far as we can tell, and they have ``$1.75 trillion'' with expenditures. But they intend to make every program here for 1 year or 3 years or 5 years permanent. So if you add them all together, it is a minimum of $4 trillion with $1.5 trillion of revenues. So it is an outrageously unbalanced bill.

Some of my friends are going to vote for this because it has immigration in it. Really? Immigration, frankly, will not survive the Senate Parliamentarian, and everybody on your side knows it.

Some of them are going to vote for it because it has State and local tax reform, which is a nice way of saying, my gosh, tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires in blue States. That too, by

the way, will probably be changed in the United States Senate if you believe Senator Sanders and Senator Warren and look at what they have to say about this thing.

Finally, we have some people who say: Well, I am going to vote for it because it is just the right thing to do.

It is the wrong thing to do for the American people.

This bill, by the way, will not get better in the Senate.

Now, when it was sold to your side, you were told that we are not going to move ahead until we have an agreement the Senate will accept. The Senate won't accept this bill. We are going to send it over there, and a few Senators are going to write it and send it right back. If you don't like it now, you are going to like it less when it gets here.

Madam Speaker, we should defeat the rule; we should defeat the infrastructure package; and when it comes, we should defeat the bad bad bad bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to highlight important research being conducted by the University of Oklahoma, which is advancing cutting-edge developments in the areas of Air Defense Artillery, air dominance, ocean surveillance, ISR, EW, counter-UAS, GMTI, and a host of others. The developments I refer to center most directly in the budding area of all-digital radar.

New capabilities associated with all-digital radar present an extraordinary opportunity for the United States to better utilize important data for national security purposes, be it weather data, flight control data, projectile data, targeting data or any other type, to our tactical and operational advantage--land or sea.

Madam Speaker, in the area of distributed radar and 360-degree, all- digital, phased array radars, there are extraordinary leap-ahead capabilities which cannot be ignored. By bringing to bear advances in digital signal processing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to the data streams that this new technology provides, the defense of the United States can be significantly advanced, providing leapfrog capabilities which vastly exceed those of our legacy radars.

Over time, all of the services have been engaged in developing capabilities in this area, albeit at a rate that does not always achieve the leap-ahead and transformational requirements that we now require strategically as we focus on defense from potential near-peer adversaries. While we currently maintain many advantages, technology advances quickly around the globe. It is critical we maintain our edge, and, in doing so, obtain the generational leap-ahead needed to secure it.

Madam Speaker, the Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC) in Norman, Oklahoma, has conducted very significant research in this area. A component of the University of Oklahoma's research enterprise, the ARRC has generated important technological advancements to each major service component in the area of 360-degree phased array radars. In fact, to help further this contribution, I am supporting a National Defense Authorization Act proposal this year, initiated in the Senate, which encourages the Army Research Lab to collaborate with academia in the development of distributed radars and multi-function sensors. This is an area where I believe there will be plenty of bipartisan and bicameral support.

Madam Speaker, Army Research Lab in many ways has stepped forward for the Army in this area. I am confident that, as the Army's Combat Capabilities Development Command, Army Futures Command, and the ASA/ALT examine what can be accomplished in this area, they will quickly realize the high relevance of this technology to counter-UAS, Air Defense Artillery, and their EW enterprise. It has the potential to be one of the key transformational technologies that would allow the Army to leverage ground forces more effectively and to provide better defensive capabilities against airborne threats.

As the Department of Defense proceeds to develop technology in this area, we already see interest from the private sector. However, if we do not develop a joint approach to the development of this technology, it may result in it being stove-piped into systems without ever realizing the full extent of its capabilities. Furthermore, inability or unwillingness to coordinate research in this area could tax current supply chains and threaten the rate of development we are capable of in this area.

Additionally, application of this technology is not limited solely to the defense enterprise. Air traffic control, weather prediction and analysis, 5G frequency scanning dependent communications, and remote sensing could all benefit; NOAA is already engaged in related research. Therefore, over time, it may become beneficial to create a Joint Interagency Working Group on the development of distributed and all digital radar.

Madam Speaker, the future is bright for the development of these technologies in the United States. It is an area in which we can thrive. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to advance our common interests and our national defense by supporting the development of these technologies.

Madam Speaker, today, I voted in favor of H.R. 2119, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act. It is important for our Nation to address the scourge of domestic violence, which affects far too many residents of our country, and I am disappointed that the legislation before the House today could not be written, and ultimately passed, on a bipartisan basis. Domestic violence transcend politics and does not discriminate based on political preference.

There are provisions in this legislation that are important to constituencies I represent. My home state of Oklahoma is home to some of the largest Tribal populations. I am pleased that H.R. 2119 provides increased resources to Tribal nations to fully respond to domestic violence in their communities. Specifically, H.R. 2119 increases the tribal set-aside for grant funding from 10 percent to 12.5 percent. This increased set-aside will improve technical assistance to Tribes, development of domestic violence prevention strategies, and implementation of community responses to reduce risk factors for family violence. Moreover, the implementation of a new emergency hotline dedicated to serving Indians affected by domestic violence will significantly benefit the Native American population.

Yet I also recognize that the bill voted on today has some very real problems. I have

concerns with several key provisions, which is why it is my hope that if the Senate passes its own version of this legislation, these troubled provisions could be eliminated in a conference between both chambers. If not, then I reserve the right to vote no on any vote on final passage.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, as my good friend from Georgia explained, if we defeat the previous question, we will immediately move to bring up H.R. 5586. This bill is critically important to ensure there will be no expansion of Internal Revenue Service requirements for financial institutions to report the ins and outs of bank accounts.

Members may remember this issue during the debate on ObamaCare when the Democrats tried to require anyone who received a payment of more than $600 to be given a 1099. People were rightly outraged by this provision, and it was repealed before it ever went into effect. Now, with their new reconciliation bill, the Democratic majority is again looking for payfors and are willing to sacrifice the privacy of all Americans in that quest. Every threshold being discussed for inclusion will give the IRS full access to what is in the bank account of every American.

And what is the justification for that, Mr. Speaker?

It is to help the IRS to identify tax cheats. Well, I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, the Democratic proposal will make

everyone who pays rent or a mortgage a target and won't do anything to help the IRS close the tax gap.

Mr. Speaker, the Democratic plan is an astonishing breach of privacy. Giving the IRS the power to snoop around financial accounts, even with no accusation of wrongdoing, violates every protection against government overreach. Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in their personal lives, including their financial lives. Yet, if the majority has their way, the IRS will be empowered to go digging around in the bank accounts of everyday Americans in search of wrongdoing. That is simply beyond the pale.

We have seen what can happen when the IRS abuses its power. It was only a few short years ago that the IRS was targeting political and religious organizations for their beliefs, an astonishing violation of their First Amendment rights.

What the IRS needs, Mr. Speaker, is oversight and accountability, and that is why we need to bring up and pass H.R. 5586 today. Only this will ensure that the IRS is not granted unprecedented power to intervene in the lives of and invade the privacy of ordinary Americans.

Madam Speaker, on Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass, as Amended, H.R. 4369, had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 318.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my very good friend, the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, today's rule covers a standalone bill that suspends the national debt limit through the end of 2022.

Today's item does not come out of a vacuum. Just last week, the Democratic majority in the House passed a continuing resolution to fund the government through early December. Unfortunately, that bill also included this same suspension of the debt ceiling through 2022. The inclusion of this item meant that not a single Republican in the House supported last week's bill, and not a single Republican in the Senate supported it either.

But today, not content with having run headlong into a brick wall once, the majority is now seeking to do the same thing again. As baseball player and philosopher Yogi Berra once said, today is truly deja vu all over again.

Madam Speaker, I don't know how much more clear Republicans can be on this topic. So long as the Democratic majority continues to insist on spending money hand over fist, Republicans will refuse to help them lift the debt ceiling.

This year alone, the majority has rammed through one partisan spending bill through reconciliation already. That bill spent $1.9 trillion, allegedly for COVID relief, but really about a laundry list of progressive policy priorities. And I remind my friends they were offered a compromise of many hundreds of billions of dollars, but that wasn't sufficient.

Today, the majority is neck-deep in negotiations on an even bigger partisan reconciliation bill, this one supposedly $3.5 trillion but, frankly, likely to run much higher than that. If passed, this one would mean Democrats have pushed through $5\1/2\ trillion of spending in 1 year, which is almost one-and-a-half times the amount of normal Federal spending. And that all comes on top of our regular discretionary and nondiscretionary spending.

Madam Speaker, Republicans have been very clear on this for months. So long as Democrats keep pushing these bloated spending measures, and so long as they continue to ram through partisan policies like those found in the Green New Deal, Republicans will not work with them to raise the debt limit.

Since the beginning of this year, Democrats have been pushing their policy agenda despite having the bare minimum of a majority in both the House and the Senate. The results have been shocking: more Big Government socialism, more spending, and higher taxes. They have been doing all this on their own, with only Democrats voting for these measures.

To be clear, this is the choice the majority has made. They have chosen to govern in a majority-rules fashion. They are pushing through bill after bill larded up with huge spending and more and more Big Government socialism all on their own. The majority also has the power to lift the debt ceiling all on their own, using a process they are quite familiar with, reconciliation.

Since they have chosen to ram the rest of their agenda through on their own, they also have the responsibility to lift the debt ceiling on their own. If they want to keep spending the people's money like this, then they alone must act and take responsibility.

Madam Speaker, my good friend alluded to the fact that he has repeatedly voted for debt ceiling increases in his capacity as a Member. I know that to be true, and I respect my friend. I have done that myself. I have voted under both Republicans and Democrats. But I do want to address this point about the debt limit.

The point was best summed up by Speaker Pelosi in her Dear Colleague letter Sunday night. ``The debt limit is a shared responsibility, and I urge Congress to come together . . . on a bipartisan basis, as it has in the past.'' Oh, really? I think we should look at the record and clear that up.

The last five times that Congress voted on raising the debt limit when Republicans controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House, President Biden, who was then in the Senate, didn't vote to raise it a single time. Majority Leader Schumer voted to raise it once out of five times. The Democratic leadership voted to raise it once out of five times.

So to somehow pretend that both sides have not on occasion used the debt ceiling to express their concerns or that everybody has rallied to the cause simply does not square with the facts.

Madam Speaker, I will make a bold prediction. I suspect the debt ceiling will at some point get raised, and I suspect it will be before we reach a deadline. And I share my friend's point that, indeed, that needs to happen.

However, when you launch a program as expensive and as expansive as the Democrats have, and you choose to do it on a partisan line way, then don't shirk the responsibility at the end of the day. Don't try to shift it to others. I think that is what is happening here.

One last point, Madam Speaker. We talk a lot about the Trump debt. I remind my friends they were in control the last 2 years of the Trump Presidency. I remind my friends that most of the debt was actually accumulated in that time. And I do remind my friends it was a bipartisan effort. The biggest part of that debt was COVID relief, which we agreed on, on both sides of the aisle and both supported, and we raised the debt ceiling for it.

So, when we work together, we can solve these problems. My friends have chosen not to work with us, and I think now they are going to have to bear the responsibility. I am sure they are up to the task.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, just to quickly respond to my friend, I remind him, his leadership didn't vote to raise the debt ceiling. I remind him four out of the last five times we had complete control. I remind him that the majority leader in the United States, Mr. Schumer, didn't vote for it four out of five times. And I remind him that then-Senator Biden didn't vote for it once.

So please, please, let's look at the facts here before we start saying how much Democrats have always bellied up to the bar to help us out. That is just simply not the case.

Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 1897 for immediate consideration. This bill is simple: Before the Biden administration can release any illegal immigrant from custody, the person must have a negative COVID-19 test.

Madam Speaker, the Biden administration's crisis at the southern border is not only a humanitarian and a security crisis, but it is also a public health crisis.

Just last week, Secretary Mayorkas admitted that 12,000 migrants in Del Rio, Texas, who were released by the Biden administration, were not tested for COVID-19 and were not subject to any vaccination or testing mandates. This stands in stark contrast with the CDC's continuing embrace of mask mandates, even for the vaccinated.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks), my good friend and author of this bill, to further explain the amendment.

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

I am sure my friend from Massachusetts is not aware of this, but Mrs. Miller-Meeks has actually run multiple events for vaccines. She has vaccinated people herself. She has spent 24 years in public health in service to the country.

So I agree with you about the vaccine. Nobody in this body has done more to promote it and administer it than Mrs. Miller-Meeks.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Harshbarger), my very good friend, to speak more about the need to ensure illegal immigrants are tested for COVID-19 before being released.

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

Madam Speaker, to my good friend from Massachusetts, if we want to deal with urgent matters, why don't we pass a clean CR and make sure the government doesn't shut down in 48 hours. That is urgent. And hopefully we will be able to get about that business shortly.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), my very good friend and fellow Rules Committee member, classmate, member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who has been a passionate advocate on this issue and who will speak more about the previous question.

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas.

Madam Speaker, I just want to quickly inquire of my friend. I am prepared to close, if my friend is.

Madam Speaker, could I have a quick time check?

Madam Speaker, I can assure Members I won't use it all.

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

Madam Speaker, I just want to quickly point out to my friend who has cited a number of statistics on State vaccinations, and I agree with him. Everyone should be vaccinated. I spend a lot of time in my district urging people to do that. I know my good friend from Massachusetts does the same thing.

But with respect to the previous question, nobody is vaccinated that is coming across illegally. They are not tested, and they are not vaccinated. This is really a commonsense item. I am surprised, quite frankly, my friends have not accepted this in some earlier iteration. My friend, Dr. Burgess, mentioned he brought it up multiple times. This is actually something we should agree on.

Let's not just let anybody into our country that has not been tested. And if they are found unvaccinated, give them the vaccine. I think we can argue about immigration all day long. I don't know why in the world we argue about that particular issue at all. What my friend from Iowa is proposing is very much common sense.

Madam Speaker, the bill before us today is a deeply misguided bill. It makes in order one item, a standalone bill lifting the debt ceiling through the end of 2022.

Republicans have been very clear on their stance. So long as Democrats continue to spend, spend, spend on partisan reconciliation bills, Republicans will not act to help them lift the debt ceiling. The majority has been governing in a partisan manner since they took control earlier this year. That is their prerogative.

If they continue to insist on ramming their big government socialist agenda through Congress on narrow partisan votes, then it becomes their responsibility to lift the debt limit on their own.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and ``no'' on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Ross), my good friend, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin my remarks in a positive way by discussing H.R. 4350, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022. I am glad that this bill has not been poisoned by all the partisanship that has plagued the House for the past year, and that, as they have done for the past 61 years, the House Armed Services Committee came together and produced a bill that both Republicans and Democrats can support. We saw this in the overwhelming 57-2 vote to report the bill out of committee.

This outcome wasn't always assured, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, President Biden proposed a defense budget number that was woefully inadequate for America's defense needs. At a time when we are facing new and emerging threats around the globe, from the Middle East, to Afghanistan, to the South China Sea, we cannot afford to underfund our national defense.

Chronic underfunding of national defense was a hallmark of the Obama- Biden administration, and it appears that President Biden himself is determined to continue down that path. Fortunately, both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees disagreed, and the House now has before it a bill that fully funds our defense needs for the coming fiscal year.

The bill before us funds continued acquisition of ships to ensure the U.S. Navy can meet its mission. It funds the procurement and development of new weapons systems, which ensures that our military will be well-prepared to meet any new and emerging challenges in the coming years. And it provides our servicemembers with a 2.7 percent pay raise.

And perhaps most important of all, it includes many provisions designed to provide much-needed oversight of President Biden's bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan. America deserves answers about the decisions that were made and the resulting failures of leadership that occurred at all levels. Thanks to this bill, they can be assured that they will get them.

And while I do not support every provision in the NDAA, I want to applaud the good work of the House Armed Services Committee. I think their process should serve as a model for all committees in the House. In an age when so much legislation is produced by one party behind closed doors in leadership offices, the committee did the hard work and produced a bill that both parties can support. Indeed, it is truly refreshing to be considering this bill today, and I want to commend Chairman Adam Smith and Ranking Member Mike Rogers for their good work and bipartisan working relationship.

Unfortunately, the next measure I will discuss isn't nearly so positive. This bill is a continuing resolution to fund the government through December 3, 2021. But rather than advancing a clean, negotiated CR, the majority is using the bill as a vehicle to push through a suspension of the national debt limit. This is a nonstarter with Republicans, as the majority well knows and, as such, I expect all Republicans will oppose it.

Since taking control of the Presidency and the Senate in January, the majority has been on a spending spree unlike any other in our history. Earlier this year, the Democrats rammed through a partisan $1.9 trillion reconciliation bill, ostensibly about COVID relief, but really about pushing forward a laundry list of progressive policies.

Last week, 13 authorizing committees met on another partisan reconciliation bill, this one larded up with a whopping $3.5 trillion in progressive policies like those found in the Green New Deal. And sadly, even that wasn't enough for some committees, who, according to the CBO, spent more than double what the budget resolution told them to. These bloated spending measures come on top of normal Federal spending and on top of the large bipartisan COVID-19 relief packages passed last year.

The last suspension of the debt limit covered all the spending that was done in the past, along with the first 9 months of the Biden administration. But since then, the majority has opened the national checkbook. They have done so with only Democratic votes. That is their prerogative. After all, they control the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.

But since the majority is spending this money over Republican objections, and without Republican cooperation, it is up to the majority to raise the debt limit. They should not expect Republican votes to help them cover their out-of-control spending.

Mr. Speaker, it is a sad state of affairs that what should be a relatively simple measure to fund the government is being used in this manner. I urge my friends across the aisle to rethink this plan, and I hope they will come to their senses before government funding runs out nine days from now.

Our last bill covered by this rule is somehow even more partisan and controversial than the CR. This is H.R. 3755, which the majority is pitching as a simple codification of the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade. In reality, this measure goes far beyond that. It is the greatest threat to the protection of innocent, unborn life that we have seen in over 50 years.

The bill before us preempts any State law that seeks to protect life, including policies that those who identify as pro-choice support. Instead, every single State would be required to allow abortion on demand at any time up to the point of birth.

No more would States be able to protect conscience rights; no more would they be able to ban barbaric procedures like dismemberment abortions; and no more would they be able to prevent abortions targeting fetuses with Down

Syndrome, which 70 percent of the American people oppose.

I would call on all Members, Republicans and Democrats, to reject this measure.

Protecting the unborn has always been one of my highest priorities as a Member of Congress. We need only to look at the Declaration of Independence for a reminder that the right to life is one of those inalienable rights endowed upon all of us, even unborn children, by our Creator. I urge this House to remember those words, remember the unborn, and to reject this egregious attack on life.

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

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

If we defeat the previous question, Mr. Speaker, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 4828, the Border Security for America Act, for immediate consideration.

The last couple of days have made it plainly obvious that the Federal Government has lost control of our southern border. More than 15,000 migrants have set up camp under the Del Rio International Bridge. Customs and Border Patrol have been completely overwhelmed, to the point that Texas Governor Abbott had to take things into his own hands and deploy both the National Guard and Texas Rangers to stop the flow.

Rather than allowing the President to simply fiddle, we must do something in Congress to address this unprecedented crisis. H.R. 4828 will address the ongoing crisis in three ways. It would require the immediate resumption of construction of the wall at the southern border; it would provide for new investments in technology; and it would ensure an appropriate level of Customs and Border Protection officers to fulfill CBP's mandate at all ports of entry and along the border.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger), my good friend and a distinguished Member, to further explain the amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Biden administration's reckless and dangerous policies have led to a crisis on the southern border, as the illegal flow of drugs, weapons, and people continues to threaten American communities.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Spartz), my good friend and a distinguished Member, to speak more about this crisis and solutions contained in H.R. 4828.

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

Mr. Speaker, the crisis at the southern border is affecting communities across the United States, but nowhere is that more apparent than in those communities that are near the southern border.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Tony Gonzales), my good friend and a distinguished fellow member of the Appropriations Committee, to speak more about the need for the Border Security for America Act.

Mr. Speaker, it should be easy to agree that securing our southern border is vital for national security. Our next speaker will talk more about H.R. 4828 and the need for vital security improvements as part of an overall strategy to secure and protect the southern border.

I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Katko), the author of the bill, and the ranking Republican member on the Homeland Security Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), my good friend, and a fellow member of the Rules Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, and a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Jackson), my good friend, and a distinguished member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Comer), my good friend and the distinguished ranking member of the Oversight Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Jacobs), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Smith), my very good friend and the distinguished Republican ranking member of the Budget Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my good friend from North Carolina. We don't agree obviously on the rule, we don't agree on every piece of legislation, but I appreciate the civility and the quality of the debate.

Mr. Speaker, to me, as I look at both the rule and the underlying legislation, the phrase that immediately comes to my mind is the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Let's start with the good. There is no question that the National Defense Authorization Act is a product of bipartisan cooperation of the highest order on the House Armed Services Committee. Nobody got everything they wanted, but there are a lot of things in there that both sides worked together on to achieve. I particularly want to commend Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Rogers for the manner in which they approached this bill. I want to commend them for the additional $25 billion. I know that the chairman didn't support that, but obviously many Democratic Members did. I think that was an important sign that the country is united on the idea that we need to spend more on defense in these very dangerous times.

Again, the quality of the compromise and some of the legislation that is included in this is extraordinarily important. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier) mentioned the issue of sexual assault. It is addressed in this bill in a bipartisan, thoughtful way. I thank her for her tireless work on that very important subject.

I also thank those Members that worked hard to reposition our defense where we focus on our emerging threats, our near-peer threats of China and Russia while also dealing with North Korea, Iran, and the threat of global terrorism.

It is a good bill. Not everybody will support it, but I think it will get overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle, and I look forward to voting for it.

To me, the bad is H.R. 3755. I make no bones about it, Mr. Speaker. I am strongly pro-life. I have a 100 percent pro-life voting record. I respect those with a different point of view, but this is not a codification of Roe v. Wade. This is a radical abortion bill that would allow abortion-on-demand in every State under almost any circumstances that the provider of the abortion deems appropriate.

Quite frankly, it is an enormous overreach, and it will overturn dozens of State laws in many States all around the country, laws that have been constitutionally approved in the past. That is unfortunate, and I think many on our side that certainly work on women's health are not going to vote in support of abortion-on-demand.

Mr. Speaker, finally, to me, the continuing resolution unquestionably is the ugly. It is not all ugly. There are actually some good things in there. I actually commend my friends for voting to keep the government open. I would normally do that as well. No partisan debate there, at least not from me.

I also very much support the relief for those Americans who have been the victims of natural disasters, which is contained in the bill. That, too, was negotiated by the Committee on Appropriations. It is an appropriate measure.

So, too, is the money set aside to help those fleeing from the Taliban, those who worked with our forces in Afghanistan and who now come to our country and to other countries seeking refuge and support. We should honor the commitment and the sacrifice they made on our behalf.

We could have passed a bill like that in a united, bipartisan fashion. Indeed, the Committee on Appropriations had essentially negotiated the deal. Then a decision was made by Democratic leadership to interject a debt ceiling resolution without any discussion, any negotiation, any way to lower that debt or offset it or slow it down or reform the process. That is what many of my friends object to.

I voted for debt ceiling increases in the past under both Republican and Democratic Presidents. I certainly would be prepared to do so again, but not without addressing some of the drivers of the debt, and certainly not as a sign off on a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that is on top of our normal appropriations, on top of the bipartisan release given and the coronavirus crisis thus far.

That is a stretch too far. My friends know that it won't work, yet we are going to kick it over to the Senate, where we know the support is not there.

Mr. Speaker, I suspect we will be back on this floor dealing with this matter again, hopefully in a fashion where the two parties can work together and keep the government open and operational.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and ``no'' on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Madam Speaker, for vote on final passage of H.R. 4346, had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 239.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my very good friend from Pennsylvania for yielding.

I rise today in opposition to the rule, Mr. Speaker. I have two matters I wish to discuss today.

First, I want to speak to the Republican motion to recommit on H.R. 4502, on which the House will be voting in the coming days. While I have many concerns with the bills reported out of the Appropriations Committee, none is more alarming than the systematic removal of longstanding provisions to protect the lives of unborn children and preserve the conscience rights of American taxpayers. This has been done in bill after bill after bill.

If my motion to recommit passes, Republicans will restore essential pro-life protections that have been stripped from these bills.

We will restore the Hyde amendment, which prohibits Federal tax dollars

from funding abortions on demand and has been included in appropriations bills for every year for the past 45 years.

We will restore the Weldon amendment, which protects American doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals from participating in or providing an abortion if they have a moral objection to that procedure.

We will restore the Dornan amendment, which prevents District of Columbia resident taxpayer moneys from being used for abortions on demand.

We will restore the Smith amendment, which prevents the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan from subsidizing abortions on demand for Federal workers.

We will restore the Helms amendment, which prevents American taxpayers from financing abortions to foreign organizations or countries.

Regardless of one's personal views, lawmakers and Presidents of both parties have always agreed that Americans should not be forced to pay for abortions on demand with their hard-earned tax dollars.

It is not too late for Democrats to change course, abandon their radical, far-left policies, and restore these important protections before a final vote on this measure. Every Democrat who is not a freshman has voted to support this language and these amendments on this floor, and we know they must again if any of these appropriations bills are ever to become law.

All Republicans in the House stand united with the American people on this issue, and none will support appropriations bills that do not include these important pro-life protections.

We urge Democrats to accept the motion to recommit, restore these bipartisan compromises, and allow appropriations bills to move forward toward a final negotiation in good faith. Ultimately, failure to do so will result in either a continuing resolution or, even worse, a government shutdown later this year. Neither outcome should ever be acceptable to any Member on this floor.

Let me now turn, Mr. Speaker, if I may, to an issue that is more parochial but where the outlook is more promising. That is the Federal response to the so-called McGirt decision by the United States Supreme Court.

Many Members will not be aware of this, but last year, the Supreme Court decided that much of Oklahoma, for the purposes of criminal prosecution, remains Indian Country.

In Indian Country, only the Federal Government and Tribal law enforcement officials can prosecute Indians who commit crimes, again, on Indian reservations. That, obviously, in the State of Oklahoma, will now call for enormously robust Federal law enforcement and Tribal law enforcement capabilities.

I am happy to report that in one of the measures that we face today, that reality has been taken into account. Frankly, our friends, the Biden administration, asked for an additional $70 million for the Department of Justice to finance additional U.S. attorneys, additional Federal marshals, and additional FBI for Oklahoma to respond to the McGirt decision.

Sadly, our friends did not request similar funds for Tribal law enforcement officials, and none of the bills in front of us actually deal with that issue.

Last night, we placed an amendment dealing with this before this House. It was part of an en bloc amendment. I actually believe if it had come on its own, it would have passed. But it failed.

However, the appropriations process is a long process, and I think negotiations in good faith with the full committee will eventually result in additional Federal dollars for law enforcement.

Regardless, that Supreme Court decision, the McGirt decision, means the Federal Government and Tribal law enforcement officials must do more in this area. Again, one of the bills in front of us helps with regard to the Federal Government. I am hopeful, in the final negotiations, we can do more on McGirt.

My last point, Mr. Speaker, is simply to say we need to look at all of these bills collectively. Just as a piece of friendly advice to my friends, if we are going to get to a deal, three things absolutely have to happen.

The first is, the amount of money we spend on defense simply must go up. There is not enough money in the bills passed out of the Appropriations Committee to adequately fund our defense in a dangerous world.

Second, the outrageous domestic explosion of spending must come down. We simply, as my friend from Pennsylvania pointed out, can't afford a spending spree.

Finally, and most importantly, and my friends need to realize this politically, for any of these bills to pass the United States Senate and ultimately become law, all the pro-life provisions that they have systematically stripped out of these bills have to be restored. Otherwise, my friends will get Donald Trump's last negotiated budget for the second year of the Biden administration. I don't think that is what they want, but that is exactly where we are headed unless they change course and work with us to preserve these longstanding, pro-life protections that have been in these bills for, in many cases, decades.