Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

I have the privilege, as Mr. Woodall mentioned, of serving with him on the Budget Committee and serving with him on the Rules Committee, and being a fellow member of the Republican Study Committee with him. And I want to thank him for all he's done, quite frankly, to fashion both the Ryan budget and the RSC budget, and to bring us such an excellent rule today.

Writing a budget in the end is always about making choices. And, fortunately, this rule provides this House with multiple choices, a variety of options, and a great deal of time for debate. We'll have an opportunity to debate the budget offered by our friends in the Congressional Black Caucus. We're going to have an opportunity to debate the Progressive Caucus's budget, the Republican Study Committee's budget, and what we think will be the Senate budget--or at least as close to it as we can determine at this time. Obviously our friends on the other side of the aisle will present their substitute budget, and we'll have the underlying budget, the so-called Ryan budget, the Republican budget. So I think those are a lot of choices that this body will have to work through in the next couple of days. I'm proud that this rule allows that degree of choice and facilitates debate.

Personally, I support both the Republican Study Committee budget, and should it fail to achieve majority, the underlying Ryan budget. Both of them make tough choices. First and foremost to me, they both come into balance. Now our Republican Study Committee budget, which my friend Mr. Woodall had more to do with than any other Member in crafting, comes in a little faster. I actually think that's a good thing. But the Ryan budget also comes into balance within 10 years. That's important not just for the sake of bookkeeping; it's important because

we all know that private sector growth depends on the confidence that taxes aren't going to continually go up, and that the public sector will remain in check.

I think by giving that kind of assurance, both of those budgets facilitate what I know all of us want, and that's the creation of more and better jobs for the American people. After all, if budgets that never balanced and record deficits got job creation, we would be coming off the four best years in modern American history because we've had four $1 trillion deficits in a row, another that will ``only be'' $850 billion this year. That has yielded us less than 2 percent growth a year. We all know if we took the number of Americans that have left the workforce and recalculated our unemployment rate, it wouldn't be 7.8 percent; it would be about 10.5 percent.

So the path that my friends on the other side recommend doesn't work, and the balance in both the RSC budget and the Ryan budget are a much more promising course. And they achieve that balance while not raising taxes. I think that's very important, too. We certainly aren't undertaxed in this country. Now my friends on the other side clearly believe that we are. They are going to offer multiple tax increases in all their budgets. I like a budget that does not require tax increases.

Finally, both these budgets, the Republican Study Committee budget and the Republican budget, come to grips with the reality that we have to reform entitlements. Now we have our preferred way of doing that, but there could be others. Unfortunately, our friends on the other side are largely silent about that important choice.

As my friend, Mr. Woodall, mentioned in his remarks, the Ryan budget in particular is hardly a radical budget. It's going to increase spending every single year over a 10-year window by about 3.5 percent. The main Democratic alternative is at about 5 percent. Can't we live at 3.5 percent and have a balanced budget in 10 years as opposed to going to 5 with higher taxes and not balance the budget within that 10-year window?

Again, I'm proud of my Democratic colleagues for joining in the debate. I appreciate the fact that they're going to put multiple budgets on the floor. I wish the President's budget was available. I'm going to assume some day it will be. It should've been here months ago, quite frankly. But sooner or later he will get it into debate.

In my view, all of the Democratic budgets are unacceptable for three very simple reasons: each and every one of them calls for much bigger government, much bigger than we've had historically, and all of them call for higher taxes. And frankly, most of them never, ever, ever balance at all--not in 10 years, not in 20, not in 30. So effectively, our friends are offering more expensive government, bigger government, and an eternal and ever-expanding debt. I don't think that's a choice that the American people want to make.

I want to urge support of this generally excellent rule. It provides every Member of this House an opportunity to participate in this important debate. I want to urge passage of the Republican Study Committee budget, and failing that, the underlying Ryan or Republican budget.

I thank the gentleman.

Madam Chair, I want to thank my good friend, Mr. Young, for bringing this amendment. Nobody has worked harder or worked longer for Native peoples in this Chamber than my good friend from Alaska. And the fact that we would guarantee this, I think, is an important recognition of how difficult the circumstances are for much of the Native population in the country.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not actually keep statistics on Native American unemployment, but anybody that has ever been to a reservation knows that we have plenty of them in the middle of States with very low unemployment rates where the unemployment rate on a reservation will be 75 percent or more.

So, again, I want to thank my friend for making sure that important resources are directed toward an often neglected population. I want to thank him for his many years of work in this area and look forward to working with him as we move forward.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 107 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Worcester (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, Mr. Speaker, 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 closed rule for consideration of H.R. 890, the Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act of 2013.

The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided between the chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means. In addition, Mr. Speaker, the rule provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

It was not the intention of the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, to have a closed rule. However, the committee received only four amendments, one of which was withdrawn. The remaining three amendments were all subject to points of order for germaneness and other violations of the rules of the House. Unfortunately, we are left with little choice but to propose a closed rule.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 890 would prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from issuing waivers relating to compliance with the work requirements for welfare recipients, which were created under the historic 1996 welfare reform law. These work requirements have led to more work, more earning, less welfare dependence, and less poverty among low-income Americans.

Additionally, H.R. 890 incorporates the text of H.R. 987. H.R. 987 extends the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, also known as TANF, which is due to expire on March 27, through the end of 2013.

Mr. Speaker, the Welfare and Medicaid Reform Act of 1996 made historic changes in the way our country treats its most impoverished citizens. Generally, the reforms offered States new flexibility in designing welfare programs. However, in exchange for that flexibility, strong new Federal work requirements were put in place. These requirements specified the minimum number of hours per week an individual must engage in either work or work-related activities and penalties for failure to comply.

What were the results of the 1996 reforms? Well, let me just go over a few. America saw the greatest reduction in poverty among children since the 1960s. The employment rate for single mothers in 2010 is higher than it was in 1996, even though the unemployment rate itself has almost doubled during that period of time. Poverty among single mothers has fallen by 30 percent. The list of successes associated with the law, which I must stress was bipartisan and worked upon by both parties both in this Chamber and obviously by President Clinton, goes on and on.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Welfare Reform Act specifically prohibited waivers of the new TANF work requirements. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, it's been assumed that these requirements could not be waived. However, the current administration, through a so-called ``informational memorandum''--I'm frankly not quite sure what that is--has decided it does have the authority to waive these work requirements.

Mr. Speaker, the bipartisan compromise that was drafted in 1996 has done a good job in reducing poverty in this country and improving the lives and the prospects of those mired in very difficult circumstances. We should not allow the administration to undo, by an informational memorandum, what the Congress and Presidents in the past have been able to accomplish by statute.

Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill and a good rule. I urge the support of 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.

It was once famously observed that the inhabitants of the United Kingdom and the United States were two people divided by the same language. Evidently, that applies to the people of Massachusetts and the people of Oklahoma.

I want to thank my good friend, who kindly sent me a note. I had mentioned if you're from Oklahoma, we would say he's from Worcester, but he said it's ``Worcest-ah.'' So I want to get that right, and I want to thank my friend for correcting me. That's probably the only place my friend and I will agree, and I'll agree that it was appropriate to correct me.

Let me just make a couple of simple responses to what my friend had to say. I don't want to re-debate sequester. He and I had an opportunity to do that in the context of the continuing resolution last week. But the idea that that was somehow partisan, when over 50 of my friends' colleagues voted for it on final passage, strikes me as odd. It was, actually, quite bipartisan, and we began a process in that that is going to result in saving the American people $1.2 trillion.

We think we made initial steps in improving the bill. It appears to us as if that same process is working now on the other side of the rotunda amongst our friends in the Senate, and so we're working our way towards a responsible piece of legislation, operating through regular order and trying to find common ground.

We're not happy with the sequester. We tried to fix it a couple of times, as my friend recalls. Neither the Senate nor the President ever took us up on that offer, so we worked hard. Now we found another route. Perhaps we can keep working and find some common ground in some other areas.

As to this bill itself, let's just go back to the specifics. All we're doing is making sure that the work requirement stays in place. I'll make a rather bold prediction and say after the rule vote is over, probably a lot of Democrats will vote for that legislation.

They'll vote for it for two reasons:

First, it reauthorizes TANF, which is a good thing. We agree on that. It's a good piece of legislation. And certainly we should provide the neediest of our people certainty through the end of the fiscal year, as opposed to the end of March. So I think that's an effort by both sides to do the right thing.

But second, if there's a misunderstanding here and we misinterpreted the administration, fair enough. I don't think we did, but regardless, let's just make absolutely sure and pass this legislation. If we both agree on it, it shouldn't be a point of a great deal of contention.

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

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

I just want to quickly respond to my friend's point on sequester again. A little bit like Lucy and the football, we've tried this twice, and the idea that we should now have to tee it up a third time before the President rouses himself--or the Senate--to action, strikes me as a little bit extreme. Again, we've tried to do it. We're now moving through another process. It seems to be working. Regular order seems to actually be working around here, and I'm hopeful we'll get to, before the end of the month, a resolution that will be considerably better than the CR, that will frankly have folded a lot of the work of the Appropriations Committee into what is effectively the fiscal year 2013 budget.

To my friend from Puerto Rico, it is my understanding--and I'm not a parliamentarian--that the amendment was not germane or was ruled out of order to the bill. Again, I'm not and don't pretend to be an expert on that, but I think he makes an excellent point, and it is certainly a matter worthy of consideration at some appropriate time.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, we don't have a great deal of disagreement here. Let's just make sure that the work requirement is there. There is considerable debate as to who asked for waivers, whether they were asked for, and whether it was reform. I've seen a lot of back-and-forth on this, and I don't pretend to know; but I think it's the clear intent of this Chamber, and always has been since the legislation was passed, that the work requirements remain intact. So just reiterating that point I think makes it crystal clear to everyone and perhaps eliminates the confusion.

Again, I think the reauthorization of the underlying legislation is something that both parties want to accomplish and want to provide certainty for people that are in very difficult circumstances that they're not going to be at risk financially if for some reason, which I don't anticipate, we actually don't get our work done by March 27 and avoid some sort of catastrophic government shutdown. Again, something that I know the President wants to do and something that my friends on the other side of the aisle want to do and something I think our colleagues in the United States Senate want to do.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I'm prepared to close whenever my friend is.

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

I want to take a moment and respond to some of my friend's concerns and points. First, simply on sequester, with all due respect, I'm glad there's an interest now. There wasn't an interest last May when this House passed legislation. The Senate never picked it up; the President never offered a counter. There wasn't an interest last December. There seems to only be an interest here in the final, waning days.

Now, we actually think we're proceeding in the continuing resolution, perhaps in the upcoming budget debates, and perhaps later on in ways where we can come back and work in a bipartisan fashion. But our efforts to do that were twice rebuffed, and now we're beaten up for not doing it a third time. I think two chances is about as many as you get. And, again, we'll try to find another way to work with our friends on this thing.

As for the job loss, I couldn't agree more with my friend. This is a tremendously bad thing for the economy. This is not the right way to do things. We would have preferred to have done it differently.

Now, you can always arrive at some interesting figures on job loss. According to the CBO, the Affordable Care Act will cost 800,000 jobs. I doubt my friends would work with us to repeal that and save those 800,000 jobs. They've got other objectives there.

Our objective in the entire sequester effort is simply to begin to lower the

long-term debt for this country, a debt that is going to undermine the economy and destroy many, many, many tens of thousands of jobs in the coming years unless we deal with it. We're making that effort today in the Ryan budget, in the Budget Committee. That will be on the floor next week.

I know my friends will have an alternative for that. I welcome that. I'm glad they're doing that. They did not do that when they were in the majority.

The Senate finally, for the first time in 4 years, looks like it's going to put out a budget. It's not a budget that I would like, but they're going to put one out; and I think that's a very good thing.

So, again, I see some little gleams and glistenings of progress around here. And I do want to thank my friend because we have worked together in the last 70 or 80 days on some significant things. I worked with my friend on the fiscal cliff. I worked with my friend on Hurricane Sandy relief, worked with my friend on violence against women; and I very much appreciate his kind words about that.

So I actually see opportunities in front of us, as well as obvious differences and debates that we're surely going to have.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I believe that the underlying bill provides additional certainty for those currently on the TANF program and ensures that their benefits will not lapse at the end of the month, something I know that my friends are concerned about, just as we are, and want to ensure that that doesn't happen.

In addition, it maintains the bipartisan work requirements that this administration professes to support, but has clearly created some doubt about. So let's give them the opportunity, through this legislation, just to make sure that there's no misunderstanding, that both parties and the administration want to maintain the work requirements.

In closing, I would urge my colleagues to support the 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, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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 my good friend, the gentleman from Worcester, 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.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for the consideration of H.R. 933, the Department of Defense, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013.

The rule is a closed rule, which provides for the consideration of fully conferenced Department of Defense and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bills and a continuing resolution for other government programs at the FY 2012 levels. This rule provides for 1 hour of debate, equally divided between the chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations. In addition, the rule incorporates a purely technical amendment to the bill by Chairman Rogers.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 933 accomplishes several key objectives.

First, it preserves military readiness and national security capability, while maintaining core commitments to our troops and our veterans.

Second, it ends the current uncertainty of the fiscal year 2013 budget. It seems that over the past year, we have moved from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis. Thanks to the leadership of Chairman Rogers and Chairman Sessions, we are able to consider funding the Federal Government through the end of the fiscal year at this point, avoiding the threat of a government shutdown.

Additionally, by considering full-year DOD and MilCon-VA bills, we are able to establish a stable baseline for the Department to act upon, as opposed to having them rely on fiscal year 2012 priorities. This bill realigns the appropriation accounts for Department of Defense and MilCon-VA to better reflect the fiscal year 2013 execution, rather than the fiscal year 2012 levels carried forward in a CR.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation operates under the caps of the Budget Control Act of 2011 as modified by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. There are across-the-board reductions in security and nonsecurity spending to reach the caps of $1.043 trillion. Additionally, there is a provision which ensures that the funding will be reduced to the post- sequester level of $982 billion in total spending, a reduction of $85 billion in overall Federal spending for fiscal year 2013.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to spend a moment discussing the anomalies in this bill. Let me assure my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that none of the anomalies in this legislation, on net, do anything that raise the cost of the bill above the statutory Budget Control Act caps.

Some of the anomalies in the bill are things like turning off the $100 million in convention funding for Charlotte and Tampa, and turning off $31 million in funding for the Eisenhower Commission, where funding has been delayed indefinitely and no funds have yet been expended.

These anomalies are limited. There are only approximately 80 in the entire bill. For reference, in the last full-year continuing resolution, there were over 600 anomalies. The Appropriations Committee has been judicious in its use of anomalies, only providing them in cases where mission-critical operations might be impacted.

Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill. I urge support for the rule and the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to make a few quick comments in reference to my good friend's remarks. You referred to an interesting phrase, ``selective bipartisanship.'' I would suggest to my friend that we've probably practiced that more in 2 months than they did in 2 years when they were in the majority.

These were major pieces of legislation that we did move in a bipartisan fashion. As my good friend knows, I helped on all three of those occasions, was happy to do so, and I'm sure the Speaker will continue to try and work across the aisle whenever he can.

My friend also referred to the nature of the cuts. Let me assure him of this: these are cuts, and they are going to occur; but we've repeatedly told our friends and the President and the Senate that we would be more than happy to redistribute where the cuts are going to occur. We did that twice: in May of last year and in December of last year, after the election, in good faith. In neither case did the Senate pick that up or the White House respond with a serious offer. Now my friend is asking us to do it for a third time in the hopes it will be different.

Perhaps this time you should go first. Perhaps the Senate should actually pass a plan or the President actually lay one out. I don't think we've really seen that. But again, if we see that, we'll be willing to work with our friends and try and redistribute the cuts.

But don't have any illusion that we're going to eliminate them. We're not, any more than our friends eliminated the idea of tax cuts when the Bush tax cuts ran out. This is something we feel is a first step in getting our fiscal house in order.

And let me remind my friend, as I know he knows, this bill, in itself, is an effort to work with the President and the administration. The President has said, and I think quite correctly, that we need to avoid a government shutdown. Mr. Rogers and the Appropriations Committee are acting early and acting, I think, in a very responsible manner to put a vehicle out there and begin to move it through the process.

We are more than willing for the Senate to do the same thing, would expect that they will. They may well add other departments. Frankly, speaking only for myself, I would hope that they do. I would like to recapture a lot of the appropriations work that was done for the fiscal year 2013 and lost during the CR process, and we can have, I think, a good negotiation going back and forth between the two parties.

So this is the beginning of a process. It's the beginning of a return to regular order, and it's an opportunity to work, I think, in a bipartisan fashion.

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

Just for the purpose of response, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate my good friend's offer on staying in session last week. It would have been nice if we'd have dealt with this 18 months ago. We've known it's been coming. We tried to do that twice.

I'm not sure the President would have been around last week. Frankly, he spent the last 6 weeks crisscrossing the country, campaigning and bludgeoning people, as opposed to having a dialogue. He did not bother to invite the Speaker, the Majority Leader, or the leader of the Senate or the minority leader of this House to a meeting until the very last day--the very last day. Now, that suggests to us there wasn't a great deal of interest in serious negotiations.

So, again, this process is going to allow that to occur. We're going to advance our bill through this Chamber. It's going to have incorporated some of the work in the appropriations process. It's going to help the Defense Department a great deal.

We're waiting for our friends in the Senate to do the same thing. They're going to, undoubtedly, add some things. I think there will be a negotiation. I think we will end up in a good place. But we will preserve the spending reductions of the sequester in the final product of the bill.

With all due respect to my friend, revenue's off the table. You had revenue about 6, 8 weeks ago with no cuts. This time I suspect you're going to get cuts and no revenue.

With that, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Texas (Mr. Burgess), my distinguished colleague, classmate, and a distinguished physician.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Listening to my colleagues, I'm reminded of that old saying that Washington, D.C., is 10 square miles surrounded by reality.

Let's talk a little bit about the definitions we use for cuts. First of all, the Government will spend more money this year than it did last year, just as last year it spent more money than it did the year before. We're not cutting anything. We're slowing down the rate of growth. In parts of the budget there are real cuts. But in terms of overall spending, it's ever and ever higher.

According to the much quoted, much loved Congressional Budget Office, this year we will have the highest level of income for the Federal Government in history. In the history of the United States, we will have more money to spend than we have ever spent before. And yet that same CBO estimates it will run a budget deficit if we keep sequester, if we allow the revenue that occurred in January of over $850 billion.

Now at some point you have to reconcile the highest level of income and an $850 billion deficit. We don't have a revenue problem here; we have a spending problem of historic and massive proportions. This is one small step in the right direction to try and get that under control.

We look forward to what our friends in the Senate do. We look forward to what the administration does. And we look forward to having a conversation over not just this bill but in the next several months we're going to have that opportunity when the Senate finally presents a budget. We'll present a budget. The administration for the fourth time in 5 years will be late but surely will at some point present a budget.

The American people can look at all of those.

We're going to have an opportunity for a great debate, and I suspect we'll continue to try and adjust things as we move forward to get ourselves more in balance. But let's recognize the reality. We've had four trillion-dollar deficits in a row. We have, with these cuts and with additional revenue, an $850 billion deficit, at the minimum, in front of us. Maybe that ought to be the focus.

I can assure my friends--we all talk a lot about polling and what the American people think. I can assure you, I've done a lot of polling in my lifetime. They think the Federal Government is too big; they think it spends too much; and they would like to see

us take less of their money, not more. So if we get into a real debate here, I suspect the American people will say: Figure out a way to live within the highest level of income in American history as opposed to coming to us and asking us for more.

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

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

Just, again, to get back to the big picture for a moment, as my friends know, we're going to spend about $3.5 trillion this year in the Federal budget. These dreaded cuts, in terms of the total budget, amount to 2.4 percent of all spending--2.4 percent of $3.5 trillion. I suspect the American people think: You could find a better way to distribute those cuts than closing our towers.

I agree, actually, with my friend, Mr. McGovern. One of those towers, by the way, is in my district, so I certainly understand it. I have 20,000 Federal defense employees in my district, so I'm quite aware of the problems with the distribution of the cuts.

Now, I'll leave it to my friends on the other side of the aisle and Mr. Woodward to argue whose idea this was and what purpose and how it was constructed, but it's hardly as if the President of the United States or our friends in the Senate were innocent bystanders in all of this.

We tried twice last year to sit down and renegotiate. We moved something through. We've said repeatedly this year we're willing to sit down and renegotiate the cuts. To me, that's compromise.

The President talks a lot about a balanced approach. Two months ago, he got a lot of revenue. That's his side of the equation. This time it should be cuts. That's an appropriate balance. We'll sit down and renegotiate where they should come from--we think we've got some great ideas on that--but they are going to occur. They're the first and appropriate step toward getting our fiscal house back in order.

So when my friends want to work with us about the distribution, I know they'll find a willing negotiating partner in the Speaker. Until such time, we will follow the course that the President laid out, advocated for, and signed into law. If he wants to revisit that, we agree with him, let's revisit it and redistribute it, but the cuts are going to occur.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume for the purpose of response.

First, I appreciate my good friend, whom I have worked with on a number of things, most recently the Violence Against Women Act, where she certainly ably represented the bill in the Rules Committee and on the floor, and I appreciate that very much. I'm going to gently correct in return.

When we talk about cuts that were previously agreed to, with all due respect to my friends, most of those cuts still haven't even taken place. If you look at them, they are far in the future, in the 10-year window.

These were not cuts, by the way, that the two sides found contentious. This was the easy stuff that they all agreed

to right up front. It wasn't as if there was some concession.

The real discussion was in the next round of cuts, where the supercommittee wasn't able to come to an agreement. Even there, there were $600 or $700 million in agreed-upon ``cuts'' that both sides acknowledge. There just wasn't agreement about revenue, and so the cuts didn't occur.

Well, we're here today, and just as the tax increases were written into law effectively when the Bush tax cuts sunsetted in January, these cuts are also written into law.

Again, since they're written into law, they're going to occur. Now, we're willing, again, to sit down with our friends and redistribute where they come from. We think that would be the prudent thing to do. We tried to do it twice last year. It didn't work out. Nobody was interested in talking to us last year. The President wasn't interested in putting a proposal on until, if anything, recent days, and I really couldn't still tell you what it truly is.

I will finish my point, and I will be happy to yield to my friend briefly.

I think that the reality is we ought to recognize--just as I urge my friends on my side of the aisle to recognize--as we approach the end of the Bush tax cuts, that they're going to end. We ought to sit down and negotiate with our friends some better and more proper distribution, whether we like it or not. That's just the case. It's going to be that way. That's what's going to happen here.

Now, we would rather renegotiate, minimize the harm and spread that 2.4 percent over the entire $3.5 trillion budget. I suspect our friends would like to do that, too, over time, and hopefully we can arrive at that. So I look forward to continuing the dialogue, but the cuts are going to be secured. This legislation will move through the House, and then I'm sure something will move through the Senate and we'll sit down and negotiate in a bipartisan, bicameral manner.

With that, I yield to my good friend from Texas.

Reclaiming my time, if I may, I think the gentlelady asked a good question, and I look forward to working with my friends on the other side of the aisle. I actually think today is the beginning of a process where that will happen. It's one of the reasons I really commend Chairman Rogers for moving early.

We're not in a last-minute crisis atmosphere here, and we're not trying to jam our friends in the Senate. We want them to move as quickly and expeditiously as they can. We would like to move toward the discussion and talks with them, and I'm sure the administration will be involved in that.

To me, that's a step back toward what I would like and what we all talk about around here, which is regular order. While that's going on, we can engage in the normal appropriations process for fiscal year 2014.

So, as difficult as this is--and we've been through a difficult time, I think, in recent months and over the last year plus, honestly--this may be the first step back in the right direction.

Again, I respect that my friends have a different point of view on this, but I'm talking what I would view as political reality to them, just as I did to my friends on my own side of the aisle a few weeks ago. This is going to occur, so let's just be reasonable and rational about how it is. We're going to have a lower deficit because of that. I think that's one of the reasons that Wall Street is doing well. But who knows? It's always hard to predict what's going on there.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to agree with my good friend from Virginia on his point about discretionary spending. It's probably an area that he and I would find a considerable amount of common ground on. I certainly do think that far too much of this is coming out of the discretionary side of the budget, particularly in defense, but I would say across the board.

I have Indian health facilities in my district that will be hit, and I have the National Severe Storms Laboratory in my district that will be hit. I understand my friend makes those points. He's making a very important point.

Now, we've been willing to go where no man has gone before, the nondiscretionary side of the budget. The Ryan budget, which you may like or not like, or the Ryan plan on Medicare is a real attempt to deal with where we all in the room know the real problem is, and that's on the nondiscretionary side of the budget.

I hope that our friends put their ideas out there. The President has put, and sometimes withdrawn, but has put a number of interesting ideas on the table at various points. We never seem to quite get there, whether it's change CPI or raising age over time gradually on some of our programs.

Now, my friends on the other side, at least our distinguished minority leader, has refused to ever do that. Whether it's Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, it's been: We're going to defend this ground; we're not going to make any changes. At the end of the day, that's the kind of thing that we're going to have to deal with.

As an appropriator, as somebody who, like my friend from Virginia, sees the impacts of these discretionary reductions and this squeezing down, I think that is the solution. I think that's at least a big part of the solution.

I have no illusions we're going to settle all our deficit problems with this bill, but we are taking a step in the right direction. Hopefully our friends, and our side as well, will expand the dialogue to include the nondiscretionary side of the budget in the weeks and months ahead, and we can begin to arrive at common ground. But we can't simply allow Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and farm programs--I'll put some of our sacred cows on the table as well--to expand by a matter of law without any effort to look at them.

We've offered to do that. We've actually written a budget that has done that. We've gone through the political fires. I can assure my friends you can do that and still survive as a majority. And we're anxious to do that going forward. If we can find willing partners in that, both on the other side of the aisle, the other side of the rotunda, and the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, I think we'll actually be on the road to doing something.

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

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

I want to thank my friend. I can assure you that we take this very serious, as well. I have lots of Federal employees, and the real job loss won't be theirs. They will certainly be hard-hit, they'll be furloughed, but the real job loss, as my friend suggests, really is in the private sector, and that's why we should sit down and have a serious discussion about entitlement costs.

With all due respect to my friend, Mr. Van Hollen, my friends on the other side of the aisle, I don't think that proposal would pass. I certainly wouldn't vote for it. I want that very much in the Record.

If our friends want to do something, they do have control of the United States Senate. That's a body that can do whatever it wants to do, and we'll see what happens going forward.

Again, what I'm pleased with is, I think this is the beginning of a real discussion and the beginning of a real dialogue. We're going to do some good things in terms of giving flexibility to the Defense Department and our friends that deal with military construction and the VA. We're anxious to hear ideas on the other side. But we are going to reduce spending, and we're going to reduce it not by an extraordinary amount, but by 2.4 percent of the entire $3.5 trillion Federal budget, and we're willing to renegotiate where those cuts come from. I think that's a pretty reasonable position to have.

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Reclaiming my time, I'd be happy if the United States Senate decided to operate collectively instead of individually, but I didn't write their rules and neither did my friends. I'm sure if we got to write them--although we've both sent a lot of our friends over there, neither of them seem to be willing to sit down and change the rules to make them a more functional body.

But I'm glad you've moved the discussion to where we both agree away from our adversarial discussion toward the real enemy, the United States Senate, which has a hard time acting.

In this case, honestly I think they are going to act, and I say that with a great deal of respect to Senator Reid and to Senator McConnell. I think that they will produce a product to make sure that something doesn't happen that we all agree shouldn't happen. The President doesn't think the government should shut down. We don't think the government should shut down. I don't believe our friends in the Senate think it should shut down.

This is actually a pretty good day. It may not be the perfect bill from my friends's standpoint. I certainly respect that. It's probably not the perfect bill from all of our Members' standpoint.

I will in a moment. Let me just finish my point.

But we will move in the right direction. We will actually move to avoid a government shutdown. We'll leave open an avenue of negotiation with our friends in the Senate. I'm sure the President will be involved in discussion at some point too. So I take some heart from that.

With that, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Reclaiming my time, we'll have an opportunity in the sense of the previous question. We'll see how the majority shakes out on that issue. I'm sure my friends will regard that as effectively a vote on their proposal.

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

I'm certainly prepared to close whenever my friend is.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

I want to begin by, frankly, agreeing with my friend. The time to act has long since passed. We tried to act a long time ago. We tried to act in May, but nobody in the Senate chose to pick up our bill. They sent us back something different, which was their right, but it didn't do anything at all. We tried to act in December, but nobody did anything in the Senate then.

We offered to negotiate with the President for weeks. Instead, we saw a 6-week, an 8-week campaign all over the country. There was no time, evidently, in the President's busy schedule in city after city, at photo op after photo op to simply get on the phone, call the Speaker and say--How would you like to come down and talk?--until the very last day before the sequester, when it had become evident that this type of political bullying wouldn't work.

So we believe the time has passed to act. That's why we're acting today. We are actually going to secure the cuts that are in the legislation that the President advocated for. He originated the idea--I accept the Woodward version of that, I suppose--and he signed it into law. He had 18 months to do something about it. We offered two opportunities in that timeframe to do something, and the Speaker has always been available to sit down with the President and do something.

We are going to take a small step in the right direction. Now, let's not overestimate what we're doing. We could probably take more pride in this than is warranted. Our friends, I think, are shouting more alarm than is necessary. This is $85 billion in a $3.5 trillion deficit--2.4 percent. We ought to be able to do that in our sleep. Quite frankly, we are willing to sit down and renegotiate with our friends from where they come. We are not willing to renegotiate the total amount of the money involved. Over time, it does add up to $1.2 trillion. That's a lot of money, but it's not anywhere near what it's going to take to get our budget in balance.

I look forward to the debates we're going to have on that in the budget discussions ahead; but let's right now, while we have that debate and while we go through that process, take the responsible step that the President urges us to take and that we all agree on, which is simply to make sure that the government doesn't shut down while we have our discussion and sort out our differences.

I applaud Chairman Rogers and Chairman Sessions for making that possible, particularly for bringing this bill in a timely fashion, giving us enough time when we're not going to be jammed. I know our friends in the Senate are going to try and do the same thing. They're going to produce, I have no doubt, a different product than we have. That's fine. We'll negotiate it out, and we'll avoid a government shutdown, but we will secure these savings for the taxpayers of the United States, and we will then take the next step in a longer discussion.

I believe we've had a good debate on the rule. I believe the underlying bill provides the American people with the hope that we can do the basic functions that we were sent here to accomplish--funding the government. I would 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 ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 37 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, March 6, 2013, at 10 a.m.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the rule and the underlying legislation. This rule brings the Senate-passed version of VAWA to the floor and allows us to vote on House language to replace that version. I want to particularly thank my good friend, Chairman Sessions of the Rules Committee, for devising a rule that will help the House work its will on this important issue--and do so smoothly, fairly, and quickly.

I want to particularly thank Leader Cantor for his hard work and effort to truly understand and deal with the problems that Native American women face. That part of our population, as many of my colleagues have learned during the course of this debate, is in many ways the most at-risk part of our population. One in three Native American women will be sexually assaulted in the course of her lifetime. The statistics on the failure to prosecute and hold accountable the perpetrators of those crimes are simply stunning. I'm very proud that both the Senate and the House have turned their attention to this issue and finally begun to give it the consideration that it merits. Again, I particularly want to thank Leader Cantor. The House version has improved tremendously over what this body passed in the last Congress; and that's due, in large measure, to his hard work.

That being said, I cannot support the House version of VAWA. While it's made great strides in recognizing the jurisdictions of tribal courts over non-Indian offenders, it falls short of giving tribes what they need to keep their citizens protected from the scourge of domestic violence. Unlike the Senate version, the House version fails to recognize existing tribal sovereignty that's enshrined in the Constitution and has been recognized throughout the history of our country. The House version requires tribes to seek Department of Justice certification before exercising jurisdiction over non-Indian offenders. I cannot think of any example where one sovereign has to seek permission to exercise their rights as a sovereign. It doesn't make sense to ask

tribes to willingly abdicate part of their sovereignty to exercise another part of their sovereignty.

In the same vein, the House bill waives sovereign immunity on behalf of the tribes. As sovereigns, tribes should make that decision on whether or not to waive sovereign immunity. In the final analysis, Indian tribes and Indian women need help--and I don't think there's much debate about this in this body. And they prefer the Senate bill to the House bill. That settles the issue for me.

I support this rule. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the House amendment to the underlying bill, and I support the underlying bill that's been passed by the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 3 p.m. on Friday, January 18, 2013.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 23 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.

During the 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 Monday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of H.R. 152, the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013.

The rule is a structured rule that allows the House to work its will and decide the appropriate amount of aid for the devastation as a result of Hurricane Sandy. It allows for an up-or-down vote on the first $17 billion in aid, along with an amendment by Mr. Mulvaney which would offset the cost. Additionally, the rule allows the House to consider Mr. Frelinghuysen's amendment for an additional $33 billion. The rule also makes in order 11 other amendments.

Additionally, this rule directs the Clerk of the House to add H.R. 219, a bill to improve and streamline disaster assistance for Hurricane Sandy, which passed the House yesterday by a vote of 403-0, as a new matter at the end of H.R. 152.

Mr. Speaker, as I review the rule and the underlying legislation, my own opinion is shaped by a variety facts:

First, there's no question that an enormous disaster has taken place and hit the northeastern portion of the United States and that the dimensions of that disaster are truly extraordinary. There's a lot of different estimates that are floating around about how much, but one is as high as $85 billion, and that doesn't begin to calculate the human suffering in addition to the enormous financial cost.

Second, there's clearly a Federal responsibility to act in this case. We've always acted after disasters. We acted quickly after Hurricane Katrina, after the Oklahoma City bombing, and after the horror of 9/11. In countless other instances where a Federal response was in order, we've quickly moved to that responsibility, and we need to do so again in this case.

Third, frankly, and I think this is too often overlooked in this discussion, we have a national interest in getting this region on its feet as quickly as possible, not only because it's the right thing to do, and it certainly is that, but because it's the smart thing to do. Over 13 percent of our citizens lived in the four most affected States that were damaged by Hurricane Sandy, and collectively, they produce over 17 percent of the wealth of this country. Having that area up, operational, and prosperous is critical to the prosperity of the entire country.

As an American and as an Oklahoman, I know that my State has often benefited from Federal disaster relief in the past. I think of the Oklahoma City bombing in particular, where I served as Secretary of State and chief liaison to the Federal Government, and know firsthand how critical it is and how helpful it is to have the resources of the Federal Government at hand when you're dealing with an unanticipated disaster.

Again, it's pretty unusual in my State to go through a year without a tornado disaster, and it's pretty unusual to go through a year without a drought disaster. Each time, we've come and asked for help from the Federal Government; each time, we received that help. Undoubtedly, we'll be doing that again in the near future. It would be hypocritical, in my view, to fail to do for people in the affected region what I and, I know, many others have routinely asked for our own regions.

I do think, as I look forward, we should do a better job in budgeting for disasters, and frankly, we've taken steps in that direction. To the credit of this body and the executive branch, under the Budget Control Act, we actually set aside money for disaster relief; and had we not had the disaster of Hurricane Sandy, we would have actually finished the year with a surplus in that account. This disaster, though, was so large and so sweeping that it used all that surplus and still demands more.

So going forward, I hope we can look at different mechanisms to budget in a more responsible and consistent manner. However, to not allow whatever shortcomings are in the mechanisms of disaster relief, to stand by and allow Americans to suffer while we sort all that through, we have never done that in the past during a disaster, we certainly shouldn't do so now.

In closing, I want to admit a personal debt to the Frelinghuysen family. I owe them a great deal. Almost 183 years ago today, in April, actually, of 1830, one of Rodney Frelinghuysen's distinguished forebears, Theodore Frelinghuysen, rose on the floor of the Senate to protest Indian removal, removal of my tribe from Mississippi and many other tribes to what's now Oklahoma. And he held the floor for 3 days defending a people that had no right to vote, had no ability to defend themselves, and tried valiantly to make sure that they were allowed to retain their homeland, retain their identity and their rights. He wasn't successful in that fight, but he fought it nonetheless. And, frankly, it would be incredibly ungrateful for me now not to, at the time of his people's greatest need, return the favor.

So I urge the passage of the rule, I urge the passage of the Rogers bill, and I urge the passage of the Frelinghuysen amendment to that bill.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Member from New York, the former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and one of the most distinguished Members of this body, Mr. King.

I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend from California, one of the most consistent and thoughtful conservatives in the House, Mr. McClintock.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), one of the most consistent and distinguished defenders of human rights in Congress.

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Runyan).

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, first let me yield myself 30 seconds.

This is legislation, obviously, that I support, but I want my friend to be aware, the House did not sit on this for 90 days.

The administration of the States concerned took over a month, appropriately, in my opinion, to assess the damage. The administration sat on it. We didn't get this bill until just before Christmas. We're actually acting on it with a deadline of Congress and proceeding more rapidly than anybody else has. So we've not been part of the delay. Actually, we've been trying to expedite things.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to my friend from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo), the distinguished Member from the affected area.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee, my friend, Pete Sessions, and the person who crafted the rule that allowed us to move this expeditiously through a difficult process and bring this important matter to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida, the former chairman of the Transportation Committee, Mr. Mica.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Again, I associate myself very much with the substance of the gentlelady from New York's remarks.

There's no question there's a disaster here. There's no question there needs to be aid. I do differ with the speed with which the House has dealt with this. Let's remember, it took 30 days for the affected areas to assess the damage themselves. It then took the administration an additional couple of weeks to assess that--appropriately so, in my opinion. It then took the United States Senate a considerable period of time to deliver us something--essentially on Christmas Eve, with a deadline coming.

The House has actually moved expeditiously here. We have the issue before us now, certainly no intention to delay.

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

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

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

I am prepared to close as well.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I'd like to say that I believe we've had a good debate on the rule. I believe the importance and timeliness of this legislation couldn't be more self-evident.

This bill has been carefully crafted and worked in a way to ensure that those Americans in need can access the resources necessary to begin the rebuilding process. This rule has brought this issue in a manner which allows this body to consider it responsibly and thoughtfully, but quickly.

Personally, I want to add that I hope every Member reflects on the situation of our fellow Americans in the Northeast. There's no question they've been overtaken by a disaster of historic importance. They've been there for us in the past; we certainly need to be there for them today.

Each Member ought to recognize at some point his or her area will be hit by some disaster, and they will be here seeking support. So I would ask that they consider this request from our fellow Americans in the Northeast in the same way they would want their requests considered at the appropriate and necessary time for them.

To close, I would 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 move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 29 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, January 15, 2013, at 10 a.m.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I had a long oration I was going to make, but I want to be quite honest. My good friend Chairman Smith and my good friend Ranking Member Lofgren have actually covered the case as well or better than I can. They're both distinguished attorneys. They understand the intricacies involved here, so there's no need for me to go through and literally repeat point by point what they have already made.

I do want to make one central point, or two points.

First, I want to thank both of them. This is a matter of justice. This is a bipartisan effort to try and make sure that an Indian nation that has a legitimate claim against the United States of America has an opportunity to go to court and make its case; no predetermination of the outcome, no settlement without coming back through Congress again, just simply an opportunity to make a case of an injustice that all sides admit occurred, and establish what's fair compensation.

I want to commend, again, both my colleagues, and particularly Chairman Smith. This simply could not have happened without his cooperation, his help, and the diligent work of his staff.

I urge passage of the legislation.

Introduction

Several hundred years ago, the Quapaw (``the Downstream People'') were part of a larger group known as the Dhegiha Sioux, which split into the modern tribes known as the Quapaw, Osage, Ponca, Kansa, and Omaha. The Quapaw's ancestral lands are located at the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers in what is present day Arkansas. When first encountered by the Europeans in the 1670's, there were some 20,000 Quapaws living in four villages in this area.

A series of treaties with the U.S. Government resulted in most of the Quapaw land being ceded to the United States, and the

Tribe acquiesced to relocation to the far northeastern corner of present day Oklahoma. In the process, the tribal land base was whittled down to its current acreage.

After Quapaw lands in Oklahoma were found to contain rich deposits of zinc and lead in 1905, the Government allowed mining activities to be carried out largely unfettered, and not for the benefit of the Quapaws. For years the value of the Quapaw mineral estate was exported from their land with the Government failing to ensure that royalties, bonuses and other payments were properly made and managed.

Why H. Res. 668 is Necessary

The Office of Historical Trust Accounting (OHTA) was established by Secretary of the Interior Secretarial Order No. 3231 on July 10, 2001; OHTA is charged with planning, organizing, directing and executing the historical accounting of tribal trust accounts and non-monetary assets.

In 2002, the Tribe filed a lawsuit for an accounting and for asset mismanagement in the Federal District Court in Oklahoma alleging the U.S. Government owed them an accounting and had mismanaged their funds and non-monetary assets.

During this time, there were over 104 tribal lawsuits pending and the Department of the Interior--Office of Historic Trust Accounting's ability to fund the accountings and determine whether assets were mismanaged was severely limited. At the same time, the Department of Justice had similar concerns about its ability to respond to the myriad of tribal lawsuits

In July 2004, the U.S. Government and the Tribe negotiated and agreed to settle the pending lawsuit, and enter into an agreement under which the Department of the Interior would enter into a contract with Quapaw Information Services as contractor, to ``identify, select, and analyze documents, and prepare an analysis (the Quapaw Analysis), of Interior's management'' of the Tribe's Tribal Trust Fund Account, along with certain non-monetary land and natural resources assets held in trust on behalf of the Tribe, and eight individual members of the Tribe.

In 2010--after six years of work, Quapaw Information Systems gave its report to the U.S. Government. In turn, the U.S. Government accepted the accounting as being in conformity with the Federal standards, but refused to do anything with the accounting.

The Tribe fulfilled its end of the bargain. The U.S. Government did not.

By 2011, the Tribe was left with no choice but to seek relief in court from the Government's failure--not only its failure to fulfill its trust obligations, but its agreement to mediate and settle the matter once the accounting was completed. Accordingly, eight Quapaw tribal members filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and all other similarly situated tribal members. This case, Goodeagle v. United States, seeks damages for the Government's breach of trust in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

In May 2011, the Tribe submitted a formal settlement demand to the Government, to which the Government has never responded.

Instead, the Government has filed repeated Motions to Dismiss the Goodeagle case.

With the settlement demand ignored, and the Government's ongoing refusal to resolve these claims through settlement, in September 2012, the Tribe filed a complaint for damages in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

In November 2012, the Government filed yet another motion to dismiss the Tribe's case.

The Mechanics of H. Res. 668

To ensure that the Tribe and its members can pursue their trust- related claims in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Rep. Tom Cole and Rep. Dan Boren introduced H. Res. 668. Notably, this resolution does not pre-determine the outcome of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims review of the Tribe's lawsuit.

It simply allows the Tribe and its members to plead their case to a neutral decision-maker in a judicial proceeding.

Some may assume that the sending of a congressional reference to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has already predetermined liability in favor of a claimant. As observed by former House Member (Rep. Marion T. Bennett (R-MO)), who became a Claims Court judge, ``nothing could be further from the truth or the intent of Congress . . . Congress intends only to afford an impartial and independent forum for determination of the merits of a complex claim by judicial methods.'' Bennett, Private Claims Acts and Congressional References, 9 JAG L. Rev. 9 (1967).

H. Res. 668, as amended, simply affords the Tribe and its members the chance to present their case about the nature, extent, and character of the Indian trust related claims of the Quapaw Tribe and its tribal members for compensation as legal or equitable claims against the United States other than the legal claims that are pending in the Court of Federal Claims on the date of House approval of this to a neutral decision-maker in a judicial proceeding.

Mr. Speaker, during rollcall votes No. 624, on the motion to instruct conferees regarding H.R. 4310, No. 625, on the motion to permit closed conference meetings for H.R. 4310, and No. 626, on the motion to suspend the rules and pass H.R. 4053, I was unavoidably detained and unable to cast my votes. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on all three votes.

I thank my friend for yielding.

H.R. 5912 is a bipartisan bill to end public financing for political conventions. And that's all it is.

I want to begin by thanking my friend, Mr. Loebsack from Iowa. We belong to different parties. I have no doubt we'll be voting for different Presidential candidates. But we both agree that it's wrong to use taxpayer dollars to finance partisan political events. And I appreciate his support in helping push this legislation.

Let me make it clear to everybody. I'm not opposed to political party conventions. I've gone to 10 of them. I actually had the privilege of helping stage one in 2000, when I was chief of staff of the Republican National Committee. And I can assure you that experience taught me that the parties are more than capable of putting on their conventions. They essentially do that now. The Federal component of the cost to the convention is about 23 percent of the total cost. So the idea that they can't find the resources to do this for themselves I think simply falls flat on its face.

This year, at a time when we're going to be running trillion-dollar deficits for the fourth year in a row, we wrote checks to the Democratic Party and to the Republican Party, as my friend Mr. Lungren mentioned, for almost $18 million each. For what? Was it really necessary? Does anybody really believe that was the best use of public money? Is there no program that's more important? I can give you a list of better places for that money to go that we would probably agree on on both sides of the aisle.

It's remarkable to me that we've reached a point in this body that this becomes an issue of some degree of partisan contention. The United States Senate passed, essentially, this legislation by 95-5 in an amendment by my friend, Mr. Coburn, to a larger piece of legislation. So there's broad agreement in the Senate, which Democrats control, that this is a Federal expense that we no longer need to incur.

This bill is a small step, but it's a stall step in the right direction. It's a step to save taxpayer dollars for things that people need as opposed to things that politicians and political parties want. We ought to take this opportunity, work together, save the money, reduce the deficit by at least a modest amount, spend money in places where it's necessary, and pass this bill. It's a quite simple piece of legislation. Those folks that have a different point of view, bring your legislation to the floor, we'll deal with that. But there's no reason to pay for the Democratic and the Republican national conventions with taxpayer funds.

One last point, if I may, Mr. Speaker. We don't do this for anybody else. There are other political groups and parties in America that I'm sure would like to have their conventions paid for. We don't give them a single dime. So this actually perpetuates a bipartisan monopoly, if you will. There's no public purpose in spending this money.

So I urge the passage. I urge some bipartisan cooperation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

H.R. 2362 is simply a bill to facilitate economic development in Indian Country and to expand the range of options open to some of the poorest and most disadvantaged of Americans, the first Americans.

Currently, as my friend Mr. Hastings pointed out, economic development is often hampered in Indian Country by restrictive leasing practices on Indian reservations. H.R. 2362 directs the Secretary of the Interior to create a demonstration project for up to six tribes engaged in economic development with foreign companies and foreign countries. Tribes will develop the guidelines for their own economic activity with these entities, the Secretary will approve them, and we will over time learn how to do business between Indian tribes and foreign countries. Frankly, that is something we know comparatively little about. One of the things that comes out of this is a development by the Secretary of the Interior of recommendations and best practices, something which needs to be done in this area.

We have tried in the course of this legislation to recognize the concerns raised by some people about it. There's no question that I was approached by the Turkish American Coalition, who have a deep interest in Turkey and American Indians. It has been for many hundreds of years. This goes back a long way. They're the only country that has actually sent a national delegation to an Indian economic development conference. There are scholarships for Native American students at the Istanbul Technical Institute. There's a constant movement of tribal citizens going back and forth. This interest, apart from these other disputes, is real and genuine and deep. We've accepted some of the concerns that were voiced in subcommittee. There is no preferential status for Turkey in this bill. All 155 World Trade Organization countries will have exactly the same opportunity.

It's important to note, I think, that this bill is strongly supported in Indian Country. Maybe we should listen to Indians about what's best for their own economic development. The National Congress of American Indians supports this bill, the National American Indian Housing Council supports this bill, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development supports this bill. Numerous tribes support this bill. Perhaps they are the real experts here that we should be listening to.

Passage of this bill would normally be a routine matter in this House. Frankly, due to the strong Turkish interest and support for the bill, we have a number of ethnic communities in the United States that have voiced objections. I think that's always legitimate and always appropriate. But sadly, as I pointed out, some of these objections don't have much merit. Again, this is not special legislation for Turkey. All 155 World Trade Organizations can participate. That includes the folks that are so concerned about this.

Second, the idea that passing the HEARTH bill--which, by the way, I strongly supported, cosponsored, came down here and argued for. I think it's a wonderful piece of legislation. It's largely silent, save for one phrase. On foreign investment, we do not have a lot of experience here. It would be helpful to have demonstration projects. It would be good to have the Secretary of the Interior involved more deeply.

And third--and I hope this isn't the case. I have heard recently that there is even a sheet going around--perhaps not true; I hope not--that suggests this legislation will cost domestic manufacturing jobs. You've got to be kidding. Putting jobs on Indian reservations is going to take American jobs away? Who were the first Americans? So again, the arguments, I think, largely do not address the legislation.

I understand something about historical grievances and controversies. I'm the only Native American in this House right now. My great-great- grandfather, when he was 13 years old, was forced to move from Mississippi, where his people had lived for 500 years, to avoid being placed under State restriction. His lands were confiscated. They were guaranteed new land in Indian territory in the West. He arrived-- nothing. Started it up being, actually, the clerk of the Chickasaw supreme court. His son, my great-grandfather, was treasurer at the time of the Dawes Commission when--guess

what--those treaties that were going to last forever were revoked again by the United States Government. Indian territory was opened up, over the objection of the tribes, to white settlement, and Indian governments were ground down.

My family has spent much of the time since that time working with other Chickasaws and other Native Americans to see tribal sovereignty restored and those rights given back. That's why I cochair the Native American Caucus. That's why, when the tribal law and order bill came to this floor, where there were concerns on our side about process, I got the Republican votes that were necessary to pass it. That is why I was the Republican lead sponsor of the Cobell settlement. That's why I've worked with this administration--which, by the way, has a great record on Native American affairs--on the Carcieri bill.

So I understand grievances, and I understand the legitimacy of expressing them.

I thank the gentleman.

But legislation must be relevant to the historical experience that we're talking about, and we ought to look for opportunities to turn old enemies into new friends. I try to do that on this floor every day.

This legislation has nothing to do with ancient or current disputes between Turkey and Armenia or Greece. This bill is about helping American Indians. We ought to put aside the disputes of the Old World and focus on helping the original inhabitants of the New World, which is exactly what this legislation will do.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I want to thank my friends on the other side of the aisle for participating in the debate. I understand the passions here are high, and I actually respect that a great deal even when I disagree with the policy conclusions that may have led some of my colleagues to.

I do ask you to stop and think, there is a sort of a contradiction in your argument: It's both redundant and yet gives special preferences. Both those things can't be true. It suggests to me the real argument is fundamentally different from those two points. The reality is it gives no one special preferences. We tried to listen to that point.

I wish other countries were beating down my door to want to go do work on Indian reservations and to want to partner with Indians. They aren't. I know of one country that has really cared enough to do this.

Now, there are a range of disputes in other areas. Those are legitimate disputes, and those are matters that ought to be the subject of serious discussion and debate on the floor, but have nothing to do with this bill. They have nothing to do with this bill. They're about ancient and current acrimonies and differences that ought to be settled in other forums on other issues but not on this bill, and certainly not at the expense of the least advantaged, frankly, the most disadvantaged part of our own population. I wish I could get more American companies that wanted to go on reservations and sit down and work with people about creating jobs. That's all this bill is about.

To those of you that have other concerns, I recognize the legitimacy of those concerns. But I just ask you to focus on the nature of the legislation. The New World is supposed to be able to put some of the Old World's controversies behind us, and certainly on a topic like this.

So for those of you, again, that have a different opinion, I respect it. But I also point out that Turkey is an ally of the United States. It has been for decades and decades. It's an important regional partner for the United States. This strengthens that relationship, as well, and the interest and the commitment in this area is genuine.

The interest in this area is genuine and real. Shouldn't that be something we should take and build on and try and add to and encourage? There needs to be a competition here. Let's build a competition to help Indian Country. Other countries can step up. Foreign companies can step up. Let's get a blueprint on how to do it. It is more complex than we would like to admit or acknowledge. That's one of the reasons why there's not American investments in these places.

I can take you to some of the Indian reservations in North and South Dakota where the unemployment rate is 80 percent and the State unemployment is under 5. Should that tell you how serious the problem is? I'd like to get anybody interested in helping and doing it legitimately.

We now have a level playing field for everybody. There are no preferences in this bill. Let's encourage other people to join the competition. Have them come in, and maybe they've got a better idea and a better way. But in the

meantime, we should pass this bill, we should get about the business of putting Americans to work--the first Americans--and certainly Americans on Indian reservations that have every obstacle in the world against them. This bill will give one more tool in the toolbox. It's not a panacea, but it's a tool they ought to have.

I thank the gentleman for including me on his committee.

H.R. 5872 is a bipartisan bill. As has been mentioned several times, it did pass out of the Budget Committee unanimously, and that's a very good thing. I think, honestly, we have a very strong bipartisan agreement that sequester is a very bad policy, something that really shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Obviously, I also sit on the Defense Appropriation Subcommittee. So I focused on that area. If we don't arrive at agreement before the end of the year, we'll have $110 billion worth of cuts across the entire budget, but about a 10 percent cut on top of a half a billion dollars we've already taken out of defense that will begin that will have tremendous consequences in my State, potentially 16,000 jobs, $620 million or $630 million to the State economy. We all hope this doesn't occur, but we all know that the administration does have a responsibility to plan for it and to inform us of those plans. So far it has failed to do that.

Mr. Speaker, it's worth noting for the record that we have dealt with sequestration in this House. We passed a measure to avoid it. It's the Senate that has failed to act. We may not have acted in a manner in which our friends on the other side would like, but the responsibility now is with the United States Senate to at least pass something and put us in a position to go to conference.

It would be irresponsible to allow sequester to occur, and it would be responsible for the Senate to actually act. I hope today, by giving the Senate additional information, by encouraging the administration to plan for something we hope doesn't happen, that we will actually bring ourselves a little bit closer to a solution, and we'll come to a bipartisan compromise by the end of this year.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of this legislation.