Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, circumstances have arisen which have caused me to return home to my district early this week. However, had I been present, I would have voted: yea on Roll Call No. 258; yea on Roll Call No. 259; yea on Roll Call No. 260; yea on Roll Call No. 261; and yea on Roll Call No. 262.

Mr. Speaker, circumstances have arisen which caused me to return home to Oklahoma early. However, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 263, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 264, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 265, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 266.

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 305 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), my friend, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of two very important measures. First, the resolution provides for consideration of Senate amendments to H.R. 244, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2017.

The rule provides for 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee. In addition, the resolution provides for consideration of the FY 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act as an amendment to the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, the appropriations package in front of us is the first successful bicameral, bipartisan negotiation of the Trump administration. It has broad bipartisan support in both Houses of Congress. All Members can feel good about the work of the Appropriations Committee, especially our chairman, Mr. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, and our Ranking Member, Mrs. Lowey of New York. In the House, the work must continue today but, hopefully, will be concluded today.

The package in front of us not only keeps the government open and operating through the end of the fiscal year, but it also represents a successful completion of key member priorities on both sides of the aisle.

This bill provides for a $25.7 billion increase in defense spending, notably including an additional $7.3 billion for Department of Defense readiness and training, as well as the largest pay raise our troops have received in 6 years. These funds will help us enhance our military readiness and marks an end to the erosion of our national military strength.

Importantly, we accomplished this without a dollar-for-dollar increase in nondefense discretionary spending, a practice which was imposed upon us by the previous administration. That practice threatened to drive our national deficit even higher. I am pleased that we broke that connection, for we should never operate under such a formula in the future.

This measure also provides for an increase of $1.5 billion in funding for border security. $772 million is available for key administration priorities like border security technology enhancements and infrastructure improvements. It also increases funding for Customs and Border Patrol to improve operational effectiveness. And, I note, the President has wide authority and latitude to deploy these dollars where

they should do the most good. This is the largest increase in border security funding in almost a decade.

Domestically, this bill funds hundreds, if not thousands, of Member priorities. We reached a bipartisan agreement on opioid funding, redirecting over $500 million to combat this epidemic affecting every district in the Nation. We funded health care for miners, a key priority for many of our Members.

We secured the second consecutive $2 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health, the Nation's lead biomedical research organization and a key driver of the hope of treating new diseases, saving countless lives, and, incidentally, driving down healthcare costs.

We also secured an increase for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will help enhance our readiness to combat pandemics and respond to public health crises.

We increased funding for GEAR UP and TRIO, two essential programs that help first-generation college students actually go to college, and increased funding for Head Start by $90 million. Every Member of this House has a victory someplace in this bill, and this was done, Mr. Speaker, by cutting spending in other less essential areas and making tough choices.

In the Labor-H provisions of this bill, for instance, we actually spend $2.8 billion less than President Obama requested, and $1 billion less than we actually spent last year.

Finally, and most importantly, this bill is the product of a successful bipartisan, bicameral negotiation. This shows all of us that we have the ability for the President, the Republicans in the House and the Senate, and the Democrats in the House and the Senate to sit down and work together on important issues. I am heartened by this success, and I believe it suggests our ability to work together in the future on other crucially important pieces of legislation like tax reform and infrastructure improvements.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the rule and the underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

To respond to a few of my friend's points, Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by agreeing with my friend, actually.

As he knows, I agree with his point that this should have been done many months ago, and could have been done, in my view, many months ago. We should have done this in December. I don't think we did the country or ourselves or the President any favors by delaying that. So my friend is right about that decision, and I hope we all learn a lesson from it.

I also agree with my friend that, because we delayed, the 2018 appropriations process will be extremely difficult and truncated. It will make work harder. We may find ourselves back here in a number of months asking for

some brief extension as we continue to work through our problems. I hope not, but my friend's observation on that point I agree with.

I want to disagree with my friend pretty strongly about his observation about the 160 riders that we decided in the negotiation not to press, and I want to explain why we decided not to press them.

Frankly, we don't need to press them anymore. Almost 160 of those were designed to limit or reverse rulings of the last administration-- either rules or executive decisions. Well, Mr. Trump is now the President of the United States and he is going to have the ability to do almost all of those things on his own. He doesn't need legislative instruction from us. He will certainly get support as he works through that list with the executive branch, which he runs.

I also want to add, just to clarify, it is important to note that there is nothing in this bill that funds Planned Parenthood in any way, shape, or form. As a matter of fact, there is a family planning title and grants are awarded out of that title by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Sometimes in the past, Planned Parenthood has received money in those grants. Now there is new management at the Department of Health and Human Services, so we will see how this goes. This Congress has never appropriated money directly to Planned Parenthood and, frankly, I suspect never will.

Finally, in defense of the President, I want to point out that we are adding billions of dollars to defense of this country, which is desperately needed because, frankly, his predecessor had allowed it to erode. That is because of the President's leadership.

We are making the most substantial investments in border security in a decade. That is because of the President's leadership.

Finally, we have broken this terrible one-for-one formula that the last administration imposed on us. In other words, to defend the United States of America, we had to spend more money domestically, whether we needed to or not, whether we could afford it or not. If it weren't for President Trump, that formula would still be in existence and we would be frittering away money in places where we don't need it and denying support to our troops and our forces in the field when they desperately need it. I am very grateful to the President for making that possible. Again, with his leadership, it could not have occurred.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Byrne), my good friend, a fellow Rules Committee member, and also a distinguished member of the House Armed Services Committee.

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

Before I go to my next speaker, I want to take a moment to respond to my friends.

Mr. Speaker, I actually came here to debate the appropriations bill, which is a great bipartisan compromise, but I am always happy to engage in the healthcare debate as well, if that is what my friends choose to do. I am happy to do it because I remember the conditions under which ObamaCare was passed.

I remember the promises that we would save $2,500 a family--not true.

I remember, if you liked your plan, you could keep it--not true.

I remember, if you liked your doctor, you could keep that individual--not true.

This was sold, frankly, on a tissue of fabrications and some predictions that were outlandishly false.

Those people who say this is a good system, come to my State. We are down to a single provider--one. That provider, by the way, I always say thank God for them, because they are losing money. We are down to one. Our rates are going up 69 percent.

So anybody who thinks this is a successful system should go look at it. If it were successful, my friends would probably still be in the majority instead of the minority. It has not been successful. The American people have, in election after election, rendered a verdict that this particular system is not meeting their needs, and it badly needs to be overhauled and changed, if not rooted out completely.

Frankly, again, as, I think, through the President's actions and what my colleagues in the leadership of my party are doing, I am very glad they are working overtime right now to try and make sure that we have something better for the American people than my friends delivered on the other side of the aisle when they had the opportunity to do so. It is not working.

I hope very much we have to cancel travel plans so the next day or two we can actually vote on this. I would be ecstatic to do that. So, again, I would be happy to debate that. When the time comes, we will. But I look forward to engaging in that debate because I am absolutely convinced we can do a lot better for the American people than we

did when ObamaCare was passed, and we can implement something a lot better for the American people than we did when it was rolled out. And we certainly can avoid some of the catastrophic consequences.

As for my friend's concerns about preexisting conditions, frankly, they are not going to be reversed, but I happen to live in a State where I trust my Governor and my legislature to make smart decisions. Frankly, I trust them a lot more than I do anybody in Washington, D.C., to understand what is going on in my State. I suspect most people in here actually trust their Governors and their legislature to be more in touch with the needs of their people than anybody in Washington, D.C., happens to be, so I am happy to see a devolution of decisionmaking from Washington to other parts of the country. As I read the Constitution, we call that federalism. It has worked very well for the American people for almost 240 years.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Fourth District of Michigan (Mr. Moolenaar), my good friend in his second term, but a new member of the Committee on Appropriations. I am very glad to have him on my Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent), my very good friend and my fellow member of the Committee on Appropriations and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

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

I want to thank my good friend. It is always a pleasure, honestly, to engage in debate with him because it is going to be spirited, but it is going to be civil. So I thank my friend for that.

And, frankly, when my friend points out that he and President Trump are actually on the same side for once, I think the second coming may not be very far. So we are all in a pretty good mood here.

But I do want to echo a couple of points that my friend made, and made, as always, with great skill. There is a lot in this bill that brings us together. This was a product of genuine compromise. We have Republicans in the House and Democrats in the House, Republicans in the Senate and Democrats in the Senate, and, obviously, the administration. It is really a five-corner negotiation.

I think we ought to step back a little bit and reflect that, in the course of that, while all those parties began with very different positions, and some verbal fisticuffs, as well, they actually moved closer together over the course of discussion. And that has effectively meant that we are going to have the first bipartisan, bicameral negotiation in this administration that has been successful.

I would hope it becomes a model for some of the things that lie in front of us, things like infrastructure, and like tax reform. I recognize we won't always agree. But, to me, this agreement shows that we can work towards agreements, if we will sit in good faith and compromise with one another.

I think the President, frankly, did a lot of good things from his point of view here. I think the additional money for our men and women in uniform, the raise in pay for those we have asked so much from, and who have never let us down, is something he can be proud of.

I think the additional money on the border, where we know we have a security problem, we may debate the best way to address that. That is fair enough. But that is an achievement that he deserves credit for.

And I think, frankly, breaking this artificial linkage of domestic spending and security spending was something that is really important. Sometimes we will actually need more domestically than, perhaps, we need in defense. But we are going to have to look at those things logically, not create artificial formulas. I actually fear sometimes my side might do that in reverse by demanding cuts in exchange for military spending when those cuts are, in themselves, not wise.

Finally, I look at things where we find a lot of common purpose here. My friend, Mr. Dent, mentioned a number of those. Things like more money for the National Institutes of Health and the Center for Disease Control. Believe me, pandemics and bioterrorists don't care if you are Republican or Democrat, or Liberal or Conservative. We have to maintain this effort. It is extraordinarily important.

I think, again, and my friends pointed out, we worked together to provide additional funds for early childhood, to provide additional money through programs like GEAR UP and TRIO, to help those who have never had an opportunity to go to college and succeed. And, frankly, things like the year-round Pell grant, that, again, as speakers from both sides of the aisle pointed out, are going to help students actually succeed and help them wrestle with the financial burden. So there is a lot in here to be proud of.

Now, our vote on the rule is always a partisan exercise, so I recognize that. But I am very proud that, after that vote, we will have substantial numbers of Members from both sides of the aisle voting together on something they worked on together and achieved. It will be sent over to the Senate, and I think we will see the same result there, and eventually to the desk of the President of the United States, and I think he can sign it with a great deal of pride and a recognition that: hey, occasionally, bipartisanship and negotiation actually work.

With that, again, I want to thank my very good friend for the debate. And I want to point out in closing that this is so much better than a continuing resolution. This is real governance at work. This is us working together, exercising oversight, and appropriately funding, and compromises on occasion, important functions for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman, my good friend, for yielding me the time and for those incredibly gracious and generous remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly rise to support the rule and the underlying legislation. By the very nature of Rules debates, everything seems to be partisan because it seems to be sort of shirts and skins as it is on the rules. The reality is the legislation we are talking about has actually been requested by both parties. We had both the chairman and the ranking member in there requesting because they are working together in a bipartisan way to produce a major piece of legislation that will direct spending for the United States government in the range of about $1 trillion between now and September 30.

The important thing to note is that it is a very bipartisan negotiation between two very skillful legislators, Chairman Frelinghuysen and Ranking Member Nita Lowey. When they bring that legislation to the floor, as they will next week, it is going to have some pretty important and pretty major things on it.

We are not only going to adequately fund our military, we are going to increase that. We are going to give the President some things he has asked for in terms of supplemental money for defense to upgrade and improve our military.

We are going to give him some additional things for border security as well that, again, both parties have agreed on. I think we all want secure borders. We know there is always some debate about exactly how or what we should do, but, in this case, we have a bipartisan agreement.

We will actually give a very substantial increase to the National Institutes of Health, which, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) mentioned, great work is done on behalf of the American people in that institution. Frankly, it has been Republicans that first doubled that back in the late 1990s and early 2000s and now have reignited the biomedical research engine by putting additional resources in there. It is

something our friends support, but actually it was Republicans who took the initiative to achieve.

We will see some really important increases in some education programs that give some of our less advantaged citizens opportunities to go: TRIO, GEAR UP. Both prepare individuals for higher education and then have a chance to exploit the opportunity when it comes.

So that bill will have a lot of good things in it that will be bipartisan. My good friend from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) mentioned--and I think appropriately so--that there is a certain amount of dysfunction in the appropriations process. Where we probably disagree is--I have got to tell you, it is not new. Since we passed the Budget Control Act over 40 years ago in 1974, budgets and appropriations have been completed on time exactly four times. It didn't matter who was in charge. So maybe we ought to go back and look at that defective process that was set in motion by our friends back when they controlled both Chambers in overwhelming numbers and rethink how we do this.

I do agree with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) that it is important to focus on first things first. And while tax reform is a very important goal that, I think, this Congress will achieve and while health care is a very important goal, which I certainly hope this Conference achieves and I think we are working toward, there is no question the most important thing we do around here is fund the government every day. We make sure that our military has what it needs to protect us and that our border control officials have what they need to make sure they are secure, that we do things like look for cures for Alzheimer's and cancer at the NIH. To me, that always is the most important thing it has to do.

So, in this bill and in the bill that will follow next week, we are actually doing what we should do. We are putting first things first. Let's make sure these basics are done for the American people, and then let's get about the important business of changing their Tax Code and making sure that they have the best health care in the world.

In my view, Congress could have--and to my friend's point--could have and should have done this months ago. It is important to note that the Appropriations Committee had reported out all 12 of the bills that fund the day-to-day operation of the budget. Five of them actually moved across the floor. We did run into problems in the United States Senate where there was a lot of obstruction, but the Appropriations Committee did its job. We just have to now, as a Congress, do our job and make sure those bills get to the floor in a timely manner, and that we do the right thing so that they pass.

The Appropriations Committee can only prepare them. They don't get to schedule them on the floor. They don't get to move them across the floor. That has to be done with all sides working together for the good of the American people.

Again, it is worth noting that we can do this process. Two years in a row, we have done all 12 bills. So I would hope in the future, as we make these decisions--and my friend is right, a decision was made in November or December. It is not one I agreed with--to wait and say let's let the new administration have some input on this. Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

The new administration wants to come in, and there is a vehicle called a supplemental, where, if they want to tweak the budget, they can do that and they can bring it to the floor, and that is what we should have done. But we shouldn't ask them to write the budget for the very year in which they show up. They simply don't have their people in place. They are not ready to do that. They have got to get their Cabinet appointed. So I would hope, in the future, we remember that and do first things first.

Still, it is never too late to do the right thing, as my mom used to say. And the right thing to do today is to pass this rule, pass this bill, give our friends, the appropriators, the time that they need to negotiate a final bill. I am confident we will do that; I am confident we will do it on a bipartisan basis, Mr. Speaker; and I am confident we will be back here with a bill the American people can be proud of because that will have been negotiated in good faith, it will be bipartisan, and it will give us the stability that we need from now until September 30.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 225.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his remarkable leadership in this important debate.

Seven years ago, I was on this floor and I heard that, if you liked your plan, you could keep it. I heard, if you liked your doctor, you could keep that doctor. And I heard that healthcare costs were going to drop by $2,500 per family. None of it was true.

I sit here now and look at my State, and I know what is happening next year. The rates on the ObamaCare exchanges are going up by 69 percent. We are down to a single provider. That is what 7 years ago brought us.

Today we have a chance to do something different, and everybody from my State will do something different. They will vote for a plan that actually does what it says it is going to do. Number one, they will be able to actually have plans that are designed by Oklahomans, not by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. They will be able to have a tax credit, if they are not already insured under Medicaid or Medicare or from their employer. They will be able to have an individual tax credit to purchase a plan that they design, that they like. They will be free of the mandates of ObamaCare, free to make their own decisions, free of the mandates that require them to buy insurance products that they simply don't need.

I have got a lot of people in my district that are in their fifties and sixties. Some of them might like to have children again, but they are not likely to have children again, and they mostly don't want maternity care.

So it is a pretty simple choice for us. It is a choice to be free and make our own decisions. It is a choice to design our own plans. It is a choice to have Federal assistance where we need it, but to be used under our direction. It is an easy choice.

I urge the passage of this rule, and I urge the passage of the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and, frankly, I want to thank her for taking on this rule and the role she plays in this House. She came to Congress with an extraordinary expertise in national security, probably unsurpassed by any new Member. So she is not only a valuable member of the Rules Committee, she is an important voice for the security of the United States of America in a very dangerous era.

Before I begin, I want to actually agree with my friend from Massachusetts on a couple of very important points that he made. First, I want to agree with him that this should have been done earlier. My friend is exactly right about this. This could have been done, in my view, in November and December. We should have gotten it done then. We would have avoided a lot of problems that come with a continuing resolution.

I am very pleased that we are moving it now, but earlier would have been better, no question about it. And that is true with every other bill, and my friend made that point as well. We really should make sure that each of the appropriations bills are passed. All of the problems associated with the continuing resolution are so evident for our military, are evident, frankly, in every other department. So I would hope my leadership continues to do what they are doing today and that is move these bills forward.

My friend is also right, in my opinion, about the authorization of the use of military force. This is something we have agreed on, even when we disagree on other things. This is a congressional responsibility. The President has announced he is going to announce a new strategy going forward on ISIS. I would suggest to my side of the aisle and to the administration, now would be a great time to come to the Congress so we could have this robust debate on deploying and using our military and discharge our constitutional responsibilities.

I am less persuaded by my friend's arguments about the spending levels here. I just point out for the record this is well below what former Secretary of Defense Gates, when he was Secretary in the Obama administration, recommended we should be doing at this time. Frankly, that is because the last administration dropped the ball and simply didn't listen to its own experts as to what the appropriate level of our forces should be.

The underlying legislation here is an excellent bill. My friends have already talked about it in detail. I am going to take a 30,000-foot look at the bill and remind our listeners and our colleagues, there are three important objectives that this bill achieves:

The first is stopping the erosion in end strength, something that went on for years under the last administration that somehow thought we would be safer if our military got smaller. That was a bad assumption.

The second is to restart the procurement cycle. We have fallen far, far behind what we should be doing in terms of replacing, upgrading, and improving the weapons systems and the communication systems, every system that we move into war with and that we ask our men and women to use.

And finally, this actually begins to address a problem that my friend from Wyoming discussed in great detail: readiness. We simply are not ready now to fight with the effectiveness. Now, I don't have any doubt, if we had to deploy massively, that our forces would do well and they would win, but a lot of people would die because they hadn't had the appropriate training, the appropriate time on task to get ready.

The other great objective that this bill meets is that we finally match up spending with the authorization. Last year, we had an excellent authorization bill out of the House Armed Services Committee. Unfortunately, that doesn't get you very far if the money doesn't match the policies and the recommendations that they advanced. This now takes care of that problem.

I also remind our colleagues that passing this bill is only a first step. As my friend from Wyoming pointed out, we are going to need a supplemental later this year, just for this year. We are going to need a robust increase in the fiscal year 2018 authorization and appropriation, something that the President has committed to and something I hope we can advance on a bipartisan basis.

Finally, again, as my friend pointed out, real military buildups take years, not months and weeks. We are going to have to be at this task for several years to restore and strengthen, frankly, what we allowed to decline, what the last administration allowed to decline over several years.

So this is an extraordinary first step, but it is only a first step; and I would hope my colleagues would join us on a bipartisan basis, while we have differences, but come together and put the defense of the country in a very dangerous time ahead of all else that we do.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of the bill and the underlying legislation, and I urge the passage of the rule.

Again, I want to thank my friend from Wyoming. I want to thank my friend from Massachusetts. We sometimes disagree, but he makes very valuable and very important points in some of the critiques he offers, and I hope that we heed them well.

With that, again, Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of the underlying legislation and the adoption of the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend for yielding.

Before I begin my prepared remarks, I had no idea there was such interest in the Arbuckle watershed, but I am flattered and pleased that all of you are here for this important legislation.

I rise in support H.R. 132, the Arbuckle Project Maintenance Complex and District Office Conveyance Act. This bill is straightforward. As has been mentioned, it is a land conveyance which has both Federal and local support.

I would like to remind my colleagues this legislation was passed in the 114th Congress on December 7, 2016, by a vote of 412-1. Clearly, it was so good, everybody wanted it back again.

H.R. 132 would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to convey certain lands and buildings of the Arbuckle Project in Murray County, Oklahoma, to the Arbuckle Master Conservancy District.

In 1962, Congress authorized the payment of reimbursable costs for construction, operation, and maintenance of the Bureau of Reclamation's Arbuckle Master Conservancy District in south-central Oklahoma. The district completed repayment of the capital costs of the project in September of 2012.

In accordance with the Bureau of Reclamation's policy framework for title transfer, in December 2014, the Bureau of Reclamation and the district executed an agreement to transfer, in fee title, certain facilities that could be more effectively and efficiently managed at the local level.

The title transfer involves approximately 2.83 acres of land. On this land is a small house, associated structures, and the conservancy district's headquarters office building. The house and property are used to accommodate a district employee who maintains and inspects the dam and the pumping facilities. The headquarters office building is the base of operation for the district.

This bill also divests the Federal Government of its responsibility and liability associated with the district's facilities. Reclamation and the district have worked cooperatively and successfully to address all of the elements necessary to bring this legislation forward and make this transfer proceed as smoothly as possible.

I am pleased this bill is an agreement in which both the Federal and local interests are satisfied. I want to urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation once again.

I want to again thank the chairman for his help in expediting this matter.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 99 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of two important measures. First, the resolution provides for consideration of H.R. 428, the Red River Gradient Boundary Survey Act. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, and provides for a motion to recommit.

In addition, the resolution provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 42, providing for congressional disapproval of a rule issued by the Department of Labor with regard to drug testing. The rule provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, and provides for a motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 428 is a product of months of negotiation between the States of Texas and Oklahoma and the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Tribes in my district. I am happy to have been able to work with my friend Mr. Thornberry to come up with a fair and equitable solution which all interested parties have agreed to.

As you may know, the Red River serves as the State line separating Oklahoma and Texas. Over time, the river has moved, as much as a mile in some areas, causing landowners' properties to be affected. Instead of working to resolve this, for nearly a century, the Bureau of Land Management, BLM, has been unwilling to survey a small portion of the Federal land along a 116-mile stretch of the Red River between Oklahoma and Texas. H.R. 428 would direct the survey to be completed, using the gradient boundary survey method that was mandated by the Supreme Court, so that ownership of the land, which has been under dispute, can be effectively resolved.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the rule provides for the consideration of another Congressional Review Act resolution, which would overturn a Department of Labor rule related to drug testing for those applying for unemployment insurance.

In 2012, the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act made a number of reforms to the unemployment insurance program, including overturning a 1960s-era Department of Labor ban on the screening or testing of unemployment applicants for illegal drugs. The 2012 provision allowed, but did not require, States to test unemployment insurance applicants who either, one, lost their jobs due to drug use or, two, who were seeking new jobs that generally required new employees to pass a drug test. Unfortunately, after 4 years and a now finalized rule, States are no closer to being able to implement this sensible policy. Instead, because of the Department of Labor's overreach, three States which have enacted necessary State law changes to implement this commonsense policy are actually now precluded from moving forward with this sensible, bipartisan policy.

Mr. Speaker, most States already limit unemployment insurance benefits or individuals who refuse to take or fail an employer drug test or who have previous employment issues with drugs. We should empower States, employers, and prospective employees who are looking for work and overturn this onerous regulation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Obviously, the gentleman and I have some disagreement here, but let's talk for a minute about the form of what we are doing.

The gentleman is correct in that this rule covers two different pieces of legislation that don't have anything substantive in common. However, the legislation itself will be debated separately. We will have one debate on the Oklahoma-Texas issue, which involves the boundary between those two States and the tribal interests that are also intimately part of that. We will have a separate debate on the rule. That is the appropriate way to proceed. There is no reason to have a separate rule for each one of these debates, but it is appropriate, as the gentleman suggested, to have two different debates because they are two different subjects.

I am going to disagree with him--and I am probably being parochial in this sense--for, if you live in Oklahoma, we actually think the border between Oklahoma and Texas is pretty important. This is an issue that, frankly, was dealt with legislatively last year. This body did not vote out the bill. I actually opposed it last year because it did not take care of the tribal interests involved and they had not been suitably dealt with. We amended the bill. Actually, I should say it was brought up, but it was not taken up by the Senate. We changed it, but we kept working for many months. Chairman Thornberry is the person who deserves most of the credit here of trying to bring the parties together.

Also, just by way of explanation so everybody is clear, this does not settle the issue. This doesn't force anything on the Federal Government or the two States or the tribes. It simply creates a common database. The two States have been asking for a complete survey of the contested area for many years. The BLM has refused to do that. You simply can't sort through this problem of a shifting border--set well over a century ago--with conflicting tribal interests if you don't have a common set of data here. So that is all that is being done here.

I can assure you that, certainly, the tribes in question would not have consented to go forward if they had thought they were having a solution imposed on them. What they think they are getting is a database that will allow them to determine exactly what their interests and rights here are and, hopefully, negotiate that with the two States in question; but, if necessary, they will litigate the issue.

So we see this as a reasonable effort to bring parties together where there is a great deal of confusion through nobody's fault. And we think the BLM has been lax here and, frankly, may well be claiming things beyond its authority. But the survey, again, will hopefully take care of that. So I hope that eases the concerns that people have.

In terms of the drug rule, we see this as an issue where Congress made its intent in 2012 very clear, that is, we wanted States to have options to make these decisions for themselves. We think the Department of Labor rule made that more, rather than less, difficult.

We can argue over the merits of any individual treatment of people that have used illegal drugs or what the appropriate testing measure is or whatever. I happen to think those decisions are best made at the State level where you have got interested parties that are more knowledgeable about local conditions than us dictating a one size fits all. So we just simply disagree on that.

Finally, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) mentioned some concerns about the speed with which we are acting and also the form with which we are acting. The form, frankly, is basically dictated by statute.

The Congressional Review Act dictates the manner in which we can bring these items on rules to the floor, the timetable which we can operate under. If we alter that over here, then, frankly, we lose privilege status in the Senate and the chances of succeeding actually diminish pretty greatly.

We think, in this case, the issues are pretty clear. These aren't really things that need to be amended. We need to decide whether or not the regulation is appropriate or not. If you think it is, you should vote in favor of keeping the regulation as it is and against this effort.

If, on the other hand, you would like to see decisionmaking devolve down to the States and where we think better decisions will be made, then, you should vote in favor of the rule and the underlying legislation.

So, again, I don't think these issues are overly complex. I do think this is an important time to deal with them. Again, we have a limited period of time on the Congressional Review Act. We have a certain format. We think we are abiding within both that timeframe and that format.

On the Oklahoma-Texas border issue, it is a knotty issue. It has been around for decades. There have been multiple efforts to deal with it. Most of them have faltered because we have not had the various parties arguing from a common database as to what their positions are. We have asked the Bureau of Land Management repeatedly to survey the affected area. They decided they didn't want to do that.

In this case, Congress says: Look, we have two sovereign States and three sovereign Indian tribes here that have a concern. We want them to be able to work it through. We want them to draw on a common set of data. So we are going to essentially make sure that that happens and hopefully we can avoid a protracted court case between the States and the Indian tribes and actually resolve an issue that needs to be had.

There are literally thousands of people along this border that are not certain whether or not they own the land that they have actually been farming, in some cases, for generations. There are three Indian tribes that have historic rights to this land that predate, frankly, the existence of Texas as a State and certainly the existence of Oklahoma as a State. They want to make sure their mineral rights issues and their land issues are appropriately handled, and they want to preserve their rights going forward if they want to litigate. Again, they need this kind of data to make those sorts of determinations.

I commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry). I, again, look forward to working with my good friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings) on these issues.

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

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

Actually, I listened with a great deal of interest to the debate from my friends on the other side. None of it had very much to do with the rule or with the underlying legislation that we are going to discuss shortly, so I don't pretend to be an expert on the issues.

I do point out, simply in passing, that it really is up to the President of the United States as to whose advice he or she wants to take. Frankly, you know, to say that there aren't ``political people on the National Security Agency,'' with all due respect to a Chief of Staff that I admire profoundly, I think Leon Panetta is one of the great Chiefs of Staff to ever serve any President, but I would tell you that he is a pretty political guy. He was in this body, and one of his jobs was to help make sure the President of the United States was reelected. So there was a political dimension to what he did.

I don't know Mr. Bannon. I have never met him. I don't pretend to be familiar with him or his thinking. I do know that he is a valued adviser to the President of the United States. And if the President of the United States is going to seek advice from somebody--and it may be in these areas of national security--frankly, personally, I would prefer them to be part of the National Security Council, simply to have the educated debate of some of the very best professionals that we have and so that their opinion, when they advise the President, is fully formed. Again, I see this as the President's decision, not some enormous departure.

On occasions, Mr. Axelrod, who was not a chief of staff who was primarily a political counsel, did sit in on national security meetings at the request of the President. So, again, we can have this argument. I am not sure it is particularly relevant to the legislation. But at the end of the day, I want anybody advising the President of the United States--and he gets to make that choice--to get the best information they can possibly receive so that that advice is well-informed.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter), who is here to offer some important thoughts about some of the issues that are involved in the underlying legislation.

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

I just want to point out for the record, Mr. Speaker, that actually this rule that we are trying to repeal, the measure we are trying to instate, doesn't force drug testing on anybody; and that is not going to happen in any State, unless the people in the State decide that that is something they want to do. I am quite content to let people in any State make that decision.

I think in my State, I am pretty certain that the people who I am privileged to represent would be very upset if they thought somebody was receiving unemployment compensation while they were on drugs, because they think

that is going to make it pretty hard for that person to ever get back into the workforce, and they want to be able to identify that. They don't want to incentivize it.

Other people may have a different opinion, and that is legitimate. It is a big country. That is why our Founding Fathers adopted a Federal system, so I wouldn't begrudge another State that saw it differently.

What we are trying to avoid here is a one-size-fits-all or this body and any administration dictating to every State what they ought to do.

Frankly, I would suggest that my good friend's remarks suggest that is the concern, that they actually want to decide in Oklahoma what we would do. We are not trying to decide in Connecticut what our friends would do. We are just thinking this ought to be down to the States.

That was the intent of Congress. When this was written, it was to empower the States to allow them to pursue policies they thought were appropriate. Frankly, if they do that and they pursue different policies, which they may well, we may actually learn something out of this. Again, that is part of the genius of our system, having 50 different laboratories out there.

But let's not have a bureaucracy decide that it will circumvent the will of the Congress of the United States and write a rule that is clearly meant to undo the intent of a legislation that was passed across this floor with bipartisan support.

Again, we just disagree on the issue, but, for the record, we are not trying to impose our beliefs. We are trying to let every State do what that State thinks they ought to do.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly prepared to close if my friend is.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out again that, while my friend is correct, we have two different pieces of legislation under a single rule, and those legislations, as my friend points out, are not particularly related. As a matter of fact, they are not related to one another in any way. Each piece of legislation will receive a separate debate and a separate vote on the House floor. There was simply no reason to have two rules when one would suffice for two bills that basically need to come into the same format, in our view.

I also point out that, when we are talking about the vote under the Congressional Review Act, we are actually following a form prescribed in statute, and we are moving at a pace that the law dictates and that, frankly, is necessary in order to retain the privileged status of the legislation in the United States Senate. So nothing unusual here, other than we are actually being pretty productive and undoing a lot of rules that, frankly, we think were misguided and rushed into the final days of the last administration.

My friends are free to disagree with that, but I think the issues are pretty clear, pretty easy to decide, and don't require a great deal of amendments.

On the Oklahoma-Texas issue, and that is something I know a little bit about since it affects my district, last year, when we considered this legislation, we actually did have an amendment. It was my amendment, and my amendment that probably made it unacceptable in the Senate. But I was indulged by my chairman of the Rules Committee, and for the very important reason that we actually make sure that the tribes have an opportunity to be at the table. In this case, they do.

Mr. Thornberry has worked very hard, and so there is no dispute between the delegations in Oklahoma, the delegations in Texas, the interests of the various Indian tribes. Everybody agrees that we need a common set of information, a common survey that we can all trust to, frankly, work out the differences here that have multiplied over a century as the border has literally shifted. So that is the appropriate thing to do. We don't need a lot of amendments on that.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to encourage all Members to support the rule. H.R. 428 is a fair and equitable solution which all interested parties have agreed upon and which can provide certainty that many landowners have sought along the Oklahoma-Texas border.

In addition, H.J. Res. 42 undoes a regulation that should have never been made in the first place. By preventing implementation of this regulation, we can ensure that those actively looking for work are provided with the support necessary to reach that goal.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to take a point of personal privilege. This is the last time my good friend and my staff member, Mr. Waskiewicz, will be on the floor with me. He has been with me for 6\1/2\ years. He has made a smart career move and is moving on to the Budget Committee, a more august position.

But I have had the good fortune, as I know my friends have and we all have, to have very many wonderful staff members over the years. I have never had a better staff member than Steve Waskiewicz, never had a better friend, never had a harder worker, never had anybody who was more selfless in putting the interests of our office and the constituents whom we are privileged to represent ahead of all else. So I want to commend and thank him publicly and on the record for his wonderful service.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 9, 2017, and further when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet on Monday, February 13, 2017, when it shall convene at noon for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 74 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of two important measures, which would overturn two significant onerous regulations finalized in the waning days of the Obama administration.

First, the resolution provides for the consideration of H.J. Res. 36, providing for congressional disapproval of the so-called BLM methane rule. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee and provides for a motion to recommit.

In addition, the resolution provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 37, providing for congressional disapproval of the so-called blacklisting rule. The rule provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and provides for a motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, burdensome regulations are crippling our businesses. The Obama administration finalized 38 major rules between election day and inauguration day. It is estimated those rules will cost our economy $41.2 billion. Sadly, this was just par for the course with the previous administration. In 2016, the Obama administration finalized over 400 regulations at a cost of over $160 billion to the economy. Over the entire Obama Presidency, over 3,000 regulations, at a cost of $873.6 billion, were finalized.

I am heartened by President Trump's regulatory freeze, which has been estimated to save over $180 billion in regulatory costs, followed by his executive order which aims to revoke two regulations for every new regulation put forward.

Specifically, H.J. Res. 36 overturns the BLM methane rule. The rule is a significant regulatory overreach by the Bureau of Land Management. Under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate methane emissions, which it currently does. Instead, the BLM has decided to also assert authority over methane in a way that is both duplicative and unnecessary, yet has significant negative impact on jobs, energy production, and Federal, State, and local revenues.

Mr. Speaker, this is a regulation in search of a problem. According to a 2015 EPA study, methane emissions from both natural gas systems and crude oil production have fallen by significant margin, even while oil and natural gas production have exploded. The BLM flaring rule is both costly and unnecessary.

The second rule considered by this resolution is similarly a solution in search of a problem. For decades, the Federal Government has had a suspension and debarment process in place to deny Federal contracts to bad actors who violate basic worker protections. However, President Obama signed an executive order directing various agencies to add another layer of bureaucracy onto the Federal procurement system. Prior to awarding a contract, each agency's contracting officer and a newly created labor compliance adviser will be required to review both violations and alleged violations to determine whether an employer should be awarded a Federal contract. Even the courts have agreed this is overreach. In October of 2016, a Federal district judge blocked enforcement of these rules, citing concerns with the violation of due process rights and executive overreach.

For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, it is critical that we prevent implementation of these rules which are unnecessary and add even more regulatory burdens to our struggling businesses and anemic economy.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the rule and the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Not surprisingly, my friend and I have a number of disagreements on the wisdom of getting rid of these particular regulations. We do agree on the importance of actually capturing methane gases. Frankly, my friend is right. That is a profitable thing, and most companies try to do it on their own.

We do, frankly, need more infrastructure in this area, no question about that. The BLM has been less than cooperative in allowing that infrastructure to be built on Federal land, and that has made this problem more difficult than it needs to be.

But it is important to recognize, overall, the amount of methane gas that actually escapes has gone down steadily and, frankly, dramatically, even as production has moved up. So additional regulation is unlikely to change that process. It may actually complicate it.

In terms of where the appropriate authority lies, again, I would just remind my friend, as he knows, the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to do this. So if it felt like it needed it, it could.

The BLM has actually moved into a new area beyond its traditional jurisdiction because it does not have authority, under the Clean Air Act, to draft these kind of rules and regulations. The Clean Air Act, again, is already in place. The EPA has the authority. If we need to do something, let's do it.

In terms of the disbarment procedure for contractors, what we have is already awfully robust. Almost 2,000 firms, or on 2,000 occasions, companies were disbarred in 2015 from Federal contracting work. It was the same in 2014. So there is something in place. We don't need additional regulatory expense, additional people working for the government. We can rely on the procedures we already have.

My friend is concerned about the lack of hearings. I would remind him, while we haven't had hearings on these items in this Congress, we certainly did on both of them in the last Congress, in some cases, multiple hearings. There is not any need to rehash and go over the same ground, in my view.

Finally, in terms of just the process itself, the Congressional Review Act actually limits the form in which these sorts of things can be brought forward. If amendments are made in order, frankly, the item loses its privilege in the United States Senate, which, obviously, changes the speed at which you can move and perhaps even the number of votes that are required to actually move forward.

So we think, again, these are items that have been explored, looked at, debated. The evidence is pretty clear. We think it is important to move quickly in these areas, and I would urge the body to do so. Adopt the rule. Support the underlying legislation.

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

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

I just want to make a couple of good points. Remember, my friends, disbarment is already a very common procedure. It was invoked over 2,000 times. So having another regulatory hurdle and hoop to jump through, just simply isn't necessary.

Again, these regulations were, frankly, generated in the final waning months of the Obama administration. They haven't been in action, and there is sort of a regulatory fit. It is not, by the way, unusual for just the last administration. All administrations have this tendency near the end, and that is one of the reasons why we have the Congressional Review Act in the first place, so that when administrations, in their waning days, decide they want to leave difficult situations or push through things that they didn't see fit to do over an 8-year period, Congress can expeditiously make sure that those regulations aren't put in place and businesses are forced to begin to comply with them.

As I pointed out in my opening remarks, the regulations released by the last administration--over 3,000 of them in an 8-year period--cost the economy over $870 billion. The regulations that were issued between election day and Inauguration Day cost the economy over $40 billion. That is real money. That is real investment that could go elsewhere and could hire people.

So I would think that these, along with the other Congressional Review Act bills that will be coming forward, and have already come forward, will actually give the economy a much-needed shot in the arm, will help stimulate job creation and movement, and we have a timeframe in which we have to operate.

So if we actually followed all of the procedures my friend suggested, many of these regulations, frankly, would never get reviewed before they went on the books.

So it is better to act quickly. I think it is better for American business.

Again, I urge the support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am certainly prepared to close.

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

I want to thank my friend. As always, he is always thoughtful, always a good person to hold a debate and a conversation with.

On this one, we simply disagree. My friend referenced some of the ``conservative groups'' that are supporting the maintenance of the flaring rule, the BLM.

Just for the record, I want to add some that I am actually more familiar with: the Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste, Americans for Prosperity, and Taxpayers Protection Alliance. All of those are in favor of the repeal of this regulation, and all of them think it will actually save businesses money and increase activity as opposed to the regulation which we think actually discourages economic activity.

Again, these are regulations--in both cases, they were adopted in the final waning days of the administration. These are things that Congress had serious doubts against, but, obviously, couldn't override an administration when they were in office.

The Congressional Review Act itself is done, so we can do this sort of exercise after an administration leaves, and actually go back and undo some of the damage that I think is routinely done by both parties in their waning days, when they would actually be better off to just simply let the new people get into their jobs and actually go about their business.

We have appropriate regulatory authority in both of these areas. Again, the Environmental Protection Agency has the power under the Clean Air Act to issue whatever regulations it cares to on methane. And here, frankly, we ought to pat business on the back because, as we have increased production of both oil and natural gas, methane has consistently gone down dramatically and steadily over the years.

I suspect that process will continue with or without the regulation of the Federal Government because, quite frankly, it makes good business sense. And, quite frankly, most people in private business want to be good stewards to the environment. They are not out to try and damage our air or our water.

The same thing is true in terms of bad actors--and there certainly are some bad actors--that engage in activities that are inappropriate for Federal contractors who violate the law. That is why, under current law, almost 2,000 companies were disbarred in 2015; a similar number in 2014.

So, again, what we have in place appears to be working. Why we would create an additional hurdle, hire additional people, and force companies to do additional paperwork is beyond me. I don't think it is the wise thing to do; I don't think it is the necessary thing to do.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to encourage all Members to support the rule.

H.J. Res. 36 and H.J. Res. 37 both undo regulations that should never have been made in the first place. By preventing the implementation of these onerous, duplicative regulations, we will relieve the burdens faced by American small business.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his kind words and for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and the underlying legislation. As has been made clear, we are actually talking about two different pieces of legislation here today.

The waiver for Secretary-designee James Mattis is, quite frankly, a no-brainer. The Senate voted 81-17 in favor of that waiver. I would suspect there will be similar bipartisan support here.

My friend is correct, of course; this is a serious matter whenever we grant exceptions to the law. But General Mattis is just uniformly and universally respected across the lines for his distinguished work in defense of this country, so I hope we move ahead on that.

The budget resolution that comes before us is another matter, and there will be a great deal of contention. Frankly, the resolution itself is not, as my good friend from California pointed out, and should not be seen as, a traditional budgetary item. It is, frankly, a projection of what will happen if we do absolutely nothing over the next decade and leave the current set of policies in place.

It is a sobering document to read in that regard because it shows rising deficits every single year for a decade, beginning at over $580 billion and then moving well north of $1 trillion. Frankly, in my view, it is something that we ought to look at and come to the realization that we are going to need to do entitlement reform in the next decade, something that people on both sides of the aisle seem to want to ignore. Absent that, we will, indeed, have extraordinary budget deficits, and they will be large enough to undercut and undermine our economy.

The budget resolution is also a vehicle, a tool, to begin to repeal the Affordable Care Act. This is necessary for, really, one simple reason. The Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare as it is popularly known, is a failing system. It is unpopular. It has never been popular, never hit 50 percent of popularity. Frankly, in my view, it has cost our friends their majority in the House, then cost them their majority in the Senate, and may well have cost them the Presidency of the United States. The American people have spoken pretty emphatically: We don't like this product. And it is collapsing financially right now. This is not a system that is an operation that is really doing well.

Let me just talk about my own State. We have about 197,000 people that have gotten insurance under ObamaCare. This year, they will have exactly one choice as to what company they want to choose to provide them, and their rates will go up by 69 percent. Now, nationally, I think the average is over 25 percent.

Clearly, this is not a system that is working very well. Politically, the easy thing to do would be what our friends want us to do--let's just leave it alone. It will fall under its own weight, and it will be very clear who is responsible for that collapse: the current administration and my friends on the other side. But that also would be the irresponsible thing to do, and that would be, in itself, an abdication of leadership and, ultimately, unfair to the American people.

Instead, we are going to repeal the system and begin to replace it with something that will work better. Now, my friend's point is a fair one. There is not a single plan out there, but there are plenty of plans. I know I cosponsor a couple myself. I think we will be able to work through this relatively easily.

There has been a lot of discussion and a lot of diagnosis about what the failures of ObamaCare are, but there has been very little in the way of actual legislative remedy. We have a unique opportunity to do that. Frankly, I am proud of our Speaker, and I am proud of our conference that they are going to seize that and begin this process because I don't think there is anything more important facing us.

So I would urge the passage of the rule and then the passage, obviously, of the underlying legislation, particularly the budget resolution that allows us to begin the necessary work in repealing and replacing ObamaCare, and, obviously, the waiver that would allow us to have a distinguished Secretary of Defense, General Mattis.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 101 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

On Tuesday, the Committee on Rules met and reported a rule for consideration of two important pieces of tax legislation, H.R. 644 and H.R. 636.

The resolution provides a closed rule for consideration of each bill and provides for 90 minutes of debate equally divided between the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means on each bill. In addition, the rule provides for a motion to recommit on each bill.

Mr. Speaker, most of my colleagues will remember the House's consideration of H.R. 5771, the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014, in December of last year. At that time, more than 50 individual tax extenders were retroactively extended for the 2014 tax year, giving businesses just 12 days to make complicated investment decisions. That is no way to run a business.

Every time I am at home I hear from Oklahomans who either work for or own small businesses. Without fail, they tell me that certainty is what they need most from Washington. But too often Washington tells Americans who operate and work in small businesses to ``trust us.'' We promise to extend X or Y or Z tax provision indefinitely.

Unfortunately, those Americans can't take that to the bank. They can't take our word that we will actually be able to deliver on the promises made by Congress. The only thing they can rely on is the law. If our tax laws expire every year, it injects an uncertainty into the business environment that inhibits economic growth.

Even though we were able to retroactively extend those tax provisions at the end of last year, they are already expired again. Instead of continuing this cycle of uncertainty, it is important to put these tax cuts in place early so that we don't end up in a situation like we did last year.

I applaud Chairman Ryan for beginning early with provisions we all agree on.

This rule will provide for consideration of permanent extension of seven different tax provisions, provisions like section 179 expensing and provisions like extending the deduction of IRA distributions to charities. All of us, Republicans and Democrats, have supported these measures in the past, at least on a temporary basis. These are tax provisions that we retroactively extended less than 2 months ago. Why shouldn't we make these popular tax provisions permanent and do it now, not retroactively late in the year?

Mr. Speaker, some have criticized this legislation because it ``isn't paid for.'' I think Chairman Ryan said it best in the Rules Committee on Tuesday. These are provisions of the Tax Code which we routinely extend, year after year. They are effectively part of the existing Tax Code. Permanently reauthorizing them reflects the policy this country has maintained for years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations and Congress. And doing so provides business with the certainty that they desperately seek.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to take a few moments to note that just as we have had to examine and pare back the discretionary side of the budget, we need to examine and pare back the tax side of the budget. There are over 200 tax expenditures--or spending on the ``tax side'' of the ledger--that, if all are extended, will cost the Federal Government more than $12 trillion over the next 10 years. Many of these provisions are worthy, but many others should clearly be eliminated. The sheer complexity of the Tax Code and associated regulations should push us towards reforms so that our Tax Code works for us all in the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend Chairman Ryan for beginning this process in earnest and look forward to the consideration of additional measures at the appropriate time.

I urge support for the rule and the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

My good friend from Massachusetts covered a lot of ground. I am not going to try to deal with every single issue that he raised in my response. But let me point out a couple of facts.

First, my friend is concerned about the deficit, and I appreciate that. But this is a rather new, novel idea for Democrats. When the Republican majority actually took power, the deficit was $1.4 trillion a year. It is under $500 billion, which is still way too high. But this majority has taken deficits extremely seriously and has lowered them every year.

Second, my friend is worried about the cost of these tax cuts. That is amazing to me because when they were in the majority, they routinely extended these same tax credits without paying for them year after year after year. So the sudden conversion to paying for tax cuts is new and remarkable and probably worth some consideration.

Third, my friend is worried about this coming to the floor under a closed rule. Frankly, tax legislation always comes to the floor under a closed rule. It is pretty hard to make calculations otherwise. And that was true with Democrats. It is true with Republicans. In this particular case, I am informed that the minority was offered a chance to submit an alternative proposal in the form of an amendment and chose not to exercise that right. That is certainly their right. But if they wanted an alternative, it could have been made in order. They chose not to do that.

My friend raised the issue of Homeland Security. And on this, frankly, we all are concerned. I think all Americans are worried. I think where we disagree is, this House has acted. It has fully funded and passed, and we are waiting on the Senate to do something.

Now, what is happening in the Senate? My friend alluded to the fact that the Republicans were somehow responsible for this in the Senate. As he well knows, the Republicans on three occasions have tried to bring the bill that we passed in this Chamber to the floor for consideration. The Democratic majority on all three occasions have kept them from reaching the 60 votes that Senate rules require. Why? Because they simply don't want to vote on anything.

We lived through 4 years of a Democratic majority that never brought appropriations bills to the floor. They have already had more votes under the Republican leadership in the other body in a matter of weeks than they had all of last year. The Democratic majority in the Senate didn't want a vote. The Democratic minority in the Senate evidently does not want a vote either. And that has frustrated, frankly, both sides and has kept legislation from coming to be. That is just simply the reality of it.

We will wait to see what the Senate does. I would not expect them to pass exactly what we pass over here. If they would simply allow consideration for a bill, something would emerge. We would go to conference. We would hammer out our differences, and we could move on and fund the Department of Homeland Security.

But right now, this is a Senate issue. This is not a House issue. And this is a question as to whether or not Democratic Senators will allow their own body to function. That is in their hands, not in ours.

Frankly, I think that we will, unfortunately, see a lot of this in the course of this session. We will send legislation over. Democrats will try to keep it from being considered. I think they will be offered the opportunity to consider that legislation over and over again. I hope we don't see this pattern repeated time after time after time.

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

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

Let me return the focus for a moment at least to the matter at hand, the legislation in front of us.

In response to my good friend from Massachusetts' concerns, remember, the provisions in the tax legislation that we are considering have been routinely enacted for years under both Democratic and Republican Congresses and Democratic and Republican administrations.

They are so automatic that they are essentially part of the existing Tax

Code. Frankly, I predict once we get to the legislation, probably we will have dozens of my friend's colleagues vote in favor of these. That certainly was the case last year when similar provisions were brought to the floor. There will be a lot of Democratic votes for the very bills that are under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my friend. We do need a larger overhaul of the entire tax system. He is totally correct at that. We made some progress in that regard last year. I have no doubt that is exactly Mr. Ryan's intent.

The reason to act on these measures and others like them now that will be part of any final package is to simply give our fellow Americans--businesses, workers, and people that want to make charitable contributions--tax certainty early in the year, so they can go ahead and make their actions knowing that this legislation is in place.

I am not convinced that none of these will be taken up by the other side in the other Chamber. We will see. It is an unpredictable body, but we will see.

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my friend from New York, the gentlewoman who is the ranking member on Appropriations. We have gotten 95 percent or so of government funded in large part due to her efforts in conjunction with our colleague, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and she was a big reason that that got done and got done in a bipartisan manner.

We passed legislation across this floor with the gentlelady's help, quite frankly. So all of us, myself included, owe you a debt in that regard.

I do point out that the legislation on homeland--we have acted on that. Now, my friends have said, Well, perhaps you should sue the President. That is a good suggestion. About 30-odd States are doing that right now.

He is in court because the action he took, in their view, is going to cost them millions and millions of dollars. My personal view is perhaps the House should somehow associate itself with that lawsuit. That is not my decision to make, but I think that is an appropriate thing to do.

Mr. Speaker, this was an action that was extraordinarily provocative by the President. The President has a long history of using immigration as a political issue rather than viewing it as a problem to be solved.

When he ran for office in 2008, he said he would have an immigration bill on the floor within 100 days. We had a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House, and we never saw the bill.

Then we didn't hear much about it for 2 years because he was busy running for his own reelection. Then later, we heard a lot about it. The President said he was going to act before the election. Then he pulled back from doing that because he thought, Well, electorally, this may not be advantageous.

But the minute afterwards when he thought it was to his political advantage, he rolled it out again. So let's be real here about how serious this effort is, but it will be challenged in court.

In terms of this body, again, it has passed appropriate legislation on funding. It has done exactly as my friend from New York suggests, use some of the tools that are legitimately at its disposal. That bill now rests in the Senate.

If the Democratic minority in the Senate will allow it to be brought up, I would not expect it would come back exactly as this House fashioned it. They simply just need to do their job, send something back, go to conference, and we can act on it. They have had lots of time to do this. This was moved over there weeks ago--or a couple of weeks ago.

The real problem here, Mr. Speaker, is the United States Senate, because of the obstruction of the minority, is simply choosing not to act. As soon as they act, I think we will probably move pretty expeditiously, find some common ground, and address my friend's concerns because I think they are very legitimate concerns and very appropriate in terms of getting the Homeland Security bill done.

It is a good bill. The underlying bill that my friend was part of negotiating was an excellent piece of bipartisan, bicameral compromise. If the Senate would simply take up the bill in front of them, I think we could get to the point we could have an agreement in rather short order.

Mr. Speaker, I will continue to hope that the Senate actually does its job.

In the meantime, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Again, let's go back over a couple of points in the process where my friends and I disagree.

Again, tax legislation normally comes here under a closed rule-- almost always. Democrats do it; Republicans do it.

The second point: I bet you that these provisions that we are discussing here today will at some point this year, if not in this legislation, almost certainly--as a matter of fact, certainly--be extended and placed. All we are trying to do is move them early so people know for sure it is going to happen and can plan and act accordingly--and, frankly, dozens of my friends who will vote for this, almost certainly, when it is actually considered on the floor. Nothing unusual or extreme here. It is just simply a way to try to give a break and a little advance notice to hardworking men and women that run small businesses all over America.

On the Homeland Security issue, again, this is now in the Senate. This body has acted. The Senate can literally do whatever it chooses to do. We have had several suggestions of what Republican leaders can do or what Democratic leaders can do.

Right now, the Democratic minority has chosen not to allow debate to occur, not to act on the bill. If they simply act on the bill, I suspect it will change. It will not look exactly like what we sent over. All they need to do is actually legislate.

Now, this is the oldest book, evidently, in the minority party on the other body's playbook, because, again, they did it when they were in the majority. They just simply refuse to vote on things. We don't have a broken House. We certainly have differences of opinion in the House, but at least we act and actually move legislation across the floor and put it in the other Chamber.

All we are asking of Democrats and Republicans alike in the other Chamber is just do your job. Just send us something. We will go to conference with you. We will hammer out a compromise, and we will go on from there.

So this sort of deja vu all over again, I agree with that. We saw a Democratic majority in the Senate blocking action on almost any legislation, didn't pass a single appropriations bill last year. We now see a Democratic minority trying to do, in the same body, essentially the same thing.

So, hopefully, that lesson will be learned at some point over there and they will just simply pick up legislation and begin to move it. If they do, I think we can find a lot of common ground on a lot of important issues.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, let's go back to the beginning of this debate and make sure that folks are very clear about what we are talking about. We are talking about extending tax breaks that have routinely been extended for years--that Democrats have extended, that Republicans have extended--that, frankly, have not been paid for in the past, and that will most certainly be part of any overall package that is enacted.

We are simply saying let's make sure people that have a benefit bestowed in these areas know and can calculate and make business decisions accordingly early in the year instead of scramble at the very end. It simply makes sense, and it is simply fair to the American taxpayer. That is important to remember.

Also, it is important to remember that the underlying legislation is extremely bipartisan. The only part of this process that will be partisan is the normal procedural part, where it is almost a sort of shirts and skins game where Democrats all vote against a Republican rule--we do exactly the same thing when we are in the minority--and our people mostly vote for that rule, and I think probably certainly will today; and then we will actually have a vote on the underlying legislation, and many, many, many Democrats will join almost all Republicans and vote for it.

So we think it is a good piece of legislation, and we also think it is part of an incremental effort. We think Mr. Ryan will bring other bills like this to the floor but also will, in time, make an overall proposal on tax reform. Then we will see if our friends are really serious about engaging in that debate. I am not questioning my friends on this side of the aisle, but I do have some serious questions about how serious the President is about tax reform. But, again, we will see.

Finally, we have had a great deal of discussion about Homeland Security. And, again, just to be clear, this House has acted and fully funded Homeland Security. The Homeland is done. It is funded through the end of this month. We have got legislation that we have agreed on.

The President, in my view, provoked a crisis by acting unilaterally. That view, by the way, is not just a narrow view by a few people. He is in court defending his actions. Over 30 States are involved in a lawsuit against him because of what he did. He knew it was going to be controversial. He waited until after the elections to try and pick a fight and I think probably try to cover up a little bit for how poorly his side did in that particular election, anything to change the topic.

So now we are here.

The House has reacted to that, I think, in an appropriate form and has sent it to the Senate. In the Senate, the Democratic minority has simply refused to allow any debate. They can do that under the Senate rules--and I respect that process--but let's be clear about who is stopping the funding of Homeland Security. It is actually Democratic Senators, who won't allow a measure to even come up for debate.

Now, if that measure came up for debate, what this House passed, I would suspect that it would be changed in some ways. I do not expect the Senate will do exactly what we suggest and think they should do. They very seldom do that. If they will just do that, we will arrive at, I think, a common agreement; we will go to conference; there will be the normal give-and-take in politics; and we will reach an agreement.

My friend is concerned about the openness of the process. Again, I point out that, when we deal with this kind of legislation, it is normally a closed rule, and this has been pretty routine stuff. I commit to my friend on this point: we will actually be much more open in the appropriations process than my friends were when they were in the majority. They almost never brought bills to the floor, and when they did, they actually, for the first time, brought them under closed rules. We will bring our bills to the floor under open rules, and that is normal in the appropriations process. I think, if you actually look at the record of the two majorities side by side, you will find that there were a lot more amendments made available to Members of both sides under a Republican majority than has been the case when my friends were most recently in power.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, again, I want to point out that the legislation in question is routine, and it should be enacted on a bipartisan basis. We have the potential, if the Senate will act, to actually put it on the President's desk. I don't think he would actually veto it if we did, but, again, that would be his call.

I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and not present for roll call vote number 32, Salmon of Arizona Part B Amendment No. 4 to H.R. 240. Had I been present, I would have voted ``YEA'' on the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote No. 24, on agreeing to amendment number two to H.R. 185 by Mr. Johnson of Georgia, I was unavoidably detained and unable to cast my votes. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no''.