Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the fact that the safety of individuals who sleep in single-gender shelters is of the utmost importance. It doesn't mean provisions cannot be provided elsewhere for other individuals, but in this case, we need to ensure that people are both comfortable in their surroundings and are protected as they are coming out of difficult situations.

The proposal also puts burdens on religious organizations who might feel differently about gender identity than the current administration.

Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 4820, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to stand before you today as we consider the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies bill for fiscal year 2024.

I am glad that we are back at work moving appropriations bills through the House floor under our new Speaker. We are continuing to fulfill our constitutional duties.

I thank Chairman Granger, Ranking Member DeLauro, and my partner on this bill, Ranking Member Mike Quigley.

This bill responsibly funds our most critical transportation and housing needs and will have a positive impact on every congressional district in the country.

At the same time, the bill meets the challenge before us to reduce spending and get our debt under control. The bill reduces spending 25 percent below fiscal year 2023 levels, with a CBO score of $65 billion. We achieve these savings through a rescission of IRS funds and by reducing billions in excessive spending.

To really compare this bill to last year, we need to be honest about what was in the fiscal year 2023 bill, what it actually contains.

First, I will point out that last year, my Democratic friends labeled an extra $3.6 billion as emergency funding. We do not repeat that mistake this year.

Second, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill uses receipts from HUD-backed mortgages and refinancing to offset spending. In fiscal year 2023, this provided $10 billion to offset spending. For fiscal year 2024, that receipt number is down over 70 percent.

Why?

It is because few people want to refinance at an 8 percent interest rate.

The real level of spending in the T-HUD bill was $101 billion in 2023 compared to $93 billion in the same bill before us today. This is a decrease of $8 billion, bringing the total slightly below the 2022 level.

Every year across government we face unavoidable cost increases in some programs. I believe we need to be responsible when addressing these costs. This bill does just that by cutting excess, removing duplication, and even trimming some programs that are, quite frankly, popular on both sides of the aisle.

Nevertheless, we also made sure to prioritize the core missions of DOT and HUD. We prioritize transportation safety on our railways, roads, and airways. I am proud that we provide resources for the Federal Aviation Administration to hire 1,800 new air traffic controllers to backfill the retiring workforce and deploy air traffic controllers to understaffed facilities. We also provide funding for the most critical air traffic control modernization programs. We all feel the impact of a strained air traffic control system. This bill will address some of those strains.

These investments will generate economic growth and ensure uninterrupted air service, which is critical for rural and remote communities and metropolitan areas alike.

This bill provides $60 billion for highways and bridges through the highway trust fund. These resources are directly allocated to our State departments of transportation, enabling State and local governments to collaborate on the highest priority road projects.

The bill prioritizes safety programs at the Department of Transportation to ensure that our roads and railways are safe for freight haulers and the traveling public.

The bill supports the DOT's maritime mission for full funding for national security programs. We ensure a responsible safety net with housing support for our most vulnerable citizens, especially the elderly, disabled veterans, and the working poor. These programs are run at the local level, through public housing authorities, private landlords, and faith-based organizations.

The bill supports self-sufficiency programs so that families can move up and out of rental assistance. Our housing assistance programs should be a hand up and not a handout.

I have heard from Members on both sides of the aisle about the importance of Community Development Block Grants, or CDBGs, so we provide the fiscal year '23 enacted level of $3.3 billion for this program.

I am proud of the work that we have done in this bill to meet our trust and treaty responsibilities to Native Americans. For years, HUD Tribal programs languished, their buying power eroded by inflation. At the same time, much of the housing on Tribal lands has deteriorated to the point of being dangerous and uninhabitable. So we have increased the Indian Housing Block Grant Program to $1.1 billion, catching up to an inflation-adjusted 1998 level. While this does not make up for decades of underinvestment, it is at least a start. The bill also increases investments in historically underfunded Tribal road programs.

The bill includes provisions that will scale back the Biden administration's regulatory overreach. For example, we prohibit funds such as to implement the affirmatively furthering fair housing rule at HUD. This does nothing to impair HUD's enforcement of the Fair Housing Act but cuts red tape for public housing authorities and other recipients of HUD funds.

The bill also bars the DOT from imposing new carbon emission reduction targets for highway projects. This would be particularly burdensome for small and rural communities.

In addition, the bill prohibits funds for drones subsidized by the Chinese Government. This will safeguard our national security and create a fair playing field for American manufacturers.

These are just a few of the policy provisions in the bill that will scale back the Biden administration's overreach. I am pleased that we will consider several amendments that will do even more to keep a check on the excesses of this administration.

I thank Members of the House for their input to this bill. We received roughly 9,000 requests, and we were able to meet over two- thirds of them, including community project funding for transportation infrastructure and bricks-and-mortar community development projects.

The alternative to passing this and other appropriations bills is a continuing resolution. Let me remind all Members that a CR will serve no one well. This bill is an ideal example of why we must avoid putting the government on autopilot.

Under a CR, our air traffic control system would suffer delays because of staffing shortages, housing assistance would be revoked from vulnerable Americans, and spending that is no longer needed from fiscal year 2023 would be carried forward for another year.

We must avoid that outcome.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased that we are moving forward. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California.

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

Mr. Chair, while I recognize the concerns of my good friend, the ranking member of the full committee, I think you need to put some of them in a little bit of context, particularly the subject of the Amtrak Northeast corridor.

While I recognize there is always a desire for greater support for the Northeast Corridor, I believe our bill strikes a necessary balance given the allocation we have for the year. I would also note that we are having just as many Members who believe we are spending too much as those who think we are spending too little.

Our $99.2 million appropriation supports the contingencies and legally mandated improvements to the Northeast Corridor. I recognize that while this level is certainly lower than last year, we must make three major points and take them into account.

First, prior to the passage of the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, the Northeast Corridor normally received about $650 million to $700 million for capital improvements on an annual basis. This was at a time when Amtrak was nearly profitable. Today's ridership levels are still not back to where they were then, and the changing work patterns indicate that they may never return to those same levels.

The IIJA provides $1.2 billion, in addition to what we appropriate in this bill, annually in advanced appropriations to the Northeast Corridor for capital improvements. When you combine our appropriation with the advance, the total support for the Northeast Corridor is still double what it was prior to November 2021.

Further, Mr. Chairman, two-thirds of the Federal Railroad Administration's Federal-State partnership program advanced appropriations are set aside for projects in the Northeast Corridor, and we are also beginning to see these dollars flow.

This week, the FRA announced $16.4 billion in funding for projects along the Northeast Corridor, with $16.2 billion of those going to projects where Amtrak is the sponsor or one of the core beneficiaries of the project.

Clearly, the IIJA advanced appropriations are providing an amount of funding higher than Amtrak has ever seen in the past, particularly given the fact that their ridership is at a lower level.

The thing that my colleagues never address is that we are running a $2 trillion deficit. These programs are significantly above what Amtrak, particularly the Northeast Corridor, was receiving less than 2 years ago. We regret we have to make some adjustment, but we need to begin to bring this deficit down. This legislation responsibly does that.

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

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

My friend is certainly correct, I voted against the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, and I did so for a very good reason. It didn't pay for itself. There have been three previous transportation bills in my time here, two under President Obama. I voted for those because they paid for themselves.

My friends worry about rising costs. They should worry about rising costs. It is their reckless spending that sparked the worst inflation in 40 years and the highest interest rates in 20 years. When they are concerned about housing costs, just look in the mirror.

That is not just me saying that. Go back and look at all the Democratic economists that criticized the passage of the so-called American Rescue Plan where my friends injected $1.9 trillion into the economy at a time when we were growing at over 6 percent and rapidly recovering.

We do have problems with what it costs. Nobody in my son's lifetime-- he is 41 years old--ever paid 8 percent interest rates, but my friends got us there. It didn't take them long to do it, either.

The record deficits we are running are why we are having to make some of these reductions. The income to the Federal Government is actually higher than it has been in quite some time. It is higher on a percentage basis, it is higher in actual totals, but you can't continue to spend at these rates. That is what caused inflation. That is what drove up housing prices. That is why we are passing this legislation, to try and begin to responsibly fund important programs as opposed to just throwing money at problems and leaving the American people to deal with the bill in terms of higher costs, higher inflation, and more expensive housing.

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

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Chairman, I begin by reciprocating the very kind remarks of my working partner, Mr. Quigley. I find him to be a person of extraordinary ability, a wonderful working partner, and somebody that I look forward to continuing a dialogue with as we go through the process.

As my friend knows, we are not at the end of that process. Our aim is to pass a vehicle and be able to go to conference, where I know my friend and I will continue to work on some of the concerns that, frankly, people on both sides of the aisle have. I think that is the way we ought to work, and I am very proud of the relationship that we have that will allow that to continue.

I will, however, point out that we have several problems. The reality is our funding levels are actually essentially where we were in 2022. This is 2023. We have not gone a long way past that.

Second, there is an enormous amount of money that has been interjected into the infrastructure bill by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and that money needs to be offset in some way to bring down this extraordinary deficit that we have.

My friends are concerned, appropriately so, about the cost of things. Those costs have been raised mostly by excessive government spending. The worst thing that we have out there right now is simply what interest rates are compared to what they were, literally, when the President walked into office. They were 1.4 percent. They peaked at 9 percent. They are still running somewhere around 7 percent. If you don't think it makes a difference, go try to buy a home.

You have to begin to responsibly restrain government spending. This bill does that. It takes us from $101 billion in total spending to $93 billion. That is a significant cut. That is exactly where we were in 2022, not very long ago.

We will continue to work and try to find common ground with our friends because I recognize, as I know my friend does, at the end of the day, all appropriations bills have to be bipartisan, but they are usually not bipartisan at this stage in the process. I am not surprised that that is where we are right now.

I think there are a lot of good features in this. I think, quite frankly, Tribal housing and Tribal roads have been underfunded for decades. It didn't matter who was in power. This bill begins to address that.

I think we have critical needs at the FAA, where we need to train more air traffic controllers to modernize the system. This bill does that. It matches up pretty closely to what this Congress actually passed when it passed the FAA Reauthorization Act earlier this year.

There is lots of infrastructure in this bill. Would we like more? Yes, we would. Maybe we will be able to get more, but right now we have to operate within the allocation that we have.

I think we have more in common to work with here than probably the initial debate and the early rhetoric suggests, and I will just close by saying my friend has my commitment that I will continue to work with him.

I share his admiration for the staff on both sides of the aisle. Sometimes I often like to say Members may not work together very well, but staff almost always does around here. At the end of the day, more problems are solved at that level sometimes than solved by the rhetoric on the floor.

My friend and I, I hope we get to a deal. I know we have one thing above all in common. We both know what a continuing resolution would mean. We both know that is a bad outcome. If that happens, we will lose the improvements in this bill, particularly for FAA, but for other areas as well.

My friend has my commitment that we will continue to work together. We may not get to the same place in the debate over this particular piece of legislation, but if we are going to have something that actually becomes law, he and I will have to come to an agreement. At some point, I am confident that we will.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, pursuant to House Resolution 838, I offer amendments en bloc.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this bipartisan en bloc amendment which represents amendments from both sides of the aisle. The en bloc includes 25 noncontroversial amendments that reiterate our collective support

for the Nation's transportation and housing needs.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my good friend Ranking Member Quigley and all Members who have worked with us on this en bloc, and I ask my colleagues to support the amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), who is the chairman on the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mast).

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

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's support. I also, obviously, support the en bloc amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in support of his amendment.

There is no question that the CRISI program is incredibly popular and improves the safety and efficiency of passenger and freight rail. It is the most in-demand program, and despite having over a billion dollars, we quite often get more requests.

Mr. Chair, this is a very good and thoughtful request, and I am happy to support it.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, the Thriving Communities Program is duplicative to the technical assistance already provided by the DOT's Office of the Secretary.

I recognize the burdens that rural, Tribal, and disadvantaged communities face in obtaining Federal grant funds, but a $25 million office focused on providing additional technical assistance is unnecessary.

DOT should focus on simplifying the grant application process as opposed to a slush fund for additional grant consultants.

I understand that this program has received a total of $50 million in funding over the last 2 years. However, even the Senate recognizes that this program does not need any more funding. They detail in their report that they are also not providing any funding for this program this year because the program still has $28 million in unused balances.

I simply don't think it is necessary, and I urge the rejection of the amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to my good friend from Pennsylvania's amendment for a simple reason. Actually, I will start with where my friend, the ranking member, was.

These decisions are too often made by faceless bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and there ought to be an opportunity for Members to advocate.

We all know the top lines are set long before any of these projects are awarded, so this doesn't add a single dime. It just allows Members to advocate under a structured process for things that they think will make a difference in the lives of their constituents.

We are not spending one cent more than we would have spent. We are giving Members the opportunity to influence decisions that are important to them and their constituents.

We do take our vetting responsibilities very seriously. These were vetted by the Republican Appropriations Committee and staffers in cooperation with our friends from the other side of the aisle, and we don't approve them all. About a third of these things never make it, and a lot of them don't get as much money as they ask for.

This is a good tool, an important tool. Congress went without it for a decade and decided after that experience, we need it back.

Overwhelming majorities in both conferences made that decision, not one or the other. We voted on this rule in our conference multiple times. The margin has gotten bigger every time.

Mr. Chair, I urge defeat of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker pro tempore, I rise for the purpose of placing in nomination the name of the Honorable Jim Jordan for the position of Speaker of the House at the direction of the Republican Conference.

Mr. Speaker pro tempore, 2 weeks and 1 day ago, I was on this House floor and in this Chamber defending my very good friend and our former Speaker, Mr. McCarthy, from an effort to vacate the Chair.

In the course of that speech, I made the remark that those who did this, whether intentionally or unintentionally, were going to put the Congress in a state of chaos and the country into a state of uncertainty. I think the last 2 weeks have vindicated that observation. We have a chance today to end that chaos and to end that uncertainty.

When these races happen, there are always a lot of hard things said on both sides of the aisle. There is a lot of finger-pointing that goes on. I don't intend to be involved in any of that today. I think the decision in front of us is far, far too important for that.

I am very proud, very proud, to place in nomination the name of our good friend, my good friend, our Republican candidate for Speaker, the Honorable Jim Jordan of Ohio.

I have had the privilege of knowing Jim Jordan for a long time. I have been in Congress for a long time. For his entire period in the House, I have had the honor of serving with my friend.

My friend is not exactly a shrinking violet. You don't win national championships in college; you don't come to this floor with a sincere set of beliefs and a desire to make a change and be shy about it. My friend is not a shy person.

I have learned some things about him over the years. He is a person of absolute personal integrity. I have never once had to question something that he told me. He is an honorable man.

I also think we all know he is a pretty direct man, too. I don't think anybody in here on any issue of any substance would have to guess where Jim Jordan is going to stand.

He doesn't deceive. He doesn't dissemble. He simply tells you straight up that this is what I believe; this is why I think it is the right thing to do for the country; and that is what I am going to try and accomplish, and I am going to work with you in any way that I can to do it.

The other thing I think we have found in the last couple of weeks is what it takes to be a Speaker. The one thing I know--never having been one and never having aspired to be one--is that it takes a spine of steel to do this job.

My friend has that kind of determination, has that kind of character, and has that kind of spine. I think the next Speaker is going to need that quality, and I know my friend has it in great abundance.

If you are a Republican, it ought to be a pretty easy decision, my friends. This is somebody who believes what we believe and has fought for and shown that over and over again.

When I first got to know him, a lot of his focus was on spending. That is exactly where the focus of this House ought to be.

Now, he has laid out a plan, not just a short-term plan, as to how we deal with the appropriations process. I am an appropriator. I think I know that that is not the root of the problem.

Unlike any other Speaker we have had, he has had the courage to talk about a long-term plan and to get at the real drivers of debt, and we all know what they are. We all know it is Social Security. We all know it is Medicare. We all know it is Medicaid.

No President of either side has been willing to deal with this. No Speaker of either side has been willing to deal with this.

My friend, our former colleague John Delaney, and I offered a plan. I still file it every year--John is not here anymore--which is to go back to 1983 and do what we did then and address Social Security. We can never get any help.

This is a guy that wants to create a debt commission, a bipartisan debt commission, and get at the roots of our spending problem. That takes courage.

Republicans ought to support somebody with that kind of courage. He is not only focused on one thing. I don't know anybody that has done more to highlight and talk about the border disaster that is underway right now as we speak.

I had the privilege of serving here when Jeh Johnson was Secretary of Homeland Security. I have a very high opinion for Jeh Johnson. I think he is one of the finest public servants that I ever met. He was asked on one occasion to define what was a crisis on the southern border.

He said: Any time that you have more than 1,000 illegal entries a day, you have a crisis.

We have 10 or 11 times that every single day. In that tide of humanity that is coming across, there is a boatload of fentanyl coming to kill tens of thousands of all of our constituents.

There are human traffickers who are taking advantage of young men and young women and, frankly, predators in our own country, and they are bringing them across, not by the 10s or 20s or the dozens, but by the hundreds and the thousands.

There are, amongst that flow of people, people that wish us ill. There are people who are not fleeing from oppression. There are people who are terrorists or criminals that are coming into our country for no good reason.

That is not an immigration problem. That is a border security problem. They are not the same thing. We can debate immigration. That is a worthy debate. We should never have to debate border security. Nobody has highlighted that issue like my friend Jim Jordan. Nobody has done more as a committee chairman to move legislation that would meaningfully deal with this problem.

This, my friends on both sides of the aisle, but with all due respect, particularly this administration and my friends on the other side, need to look at this. You need to look at this seriously. Don't confuse it with immigration. You are not going to have immigration reform until we have border security. It cannot be done. He has been the number one champion of that. It is one of the number one issues that we have.

Finally, I want to talk about something that can bring us together. There are a lot of things we disagree on, legitimately so, but most of us do not disagree about the security of the State of Israel. All of us on both sides of the aisle reacted with horror and with deep sympathy and with legitimate outrage at the crimes that were perpetrated against the people of Israel in the last week. All of us know that they are within their rights to respond forcefully and swiftly to defend their people and punish those who brought that upon them.

In a moment of crisis--and we are in a moment of crisis--we should come together and act. We know we can't do that without a Speaker of the House. Now, it is a narrow majority, but my friends and I are in the majority. We need to produce a Speaker.

We have a candidate who we know where he will stand on issues that are important. We know where he is going to stand on spending because it is where he has always stood. It is not like he changed over the course of his career.

We know what he is going to do on the border. We read H.R. 2. We have seen what his committee produced. It is not just money; it is policy and change that will provide security for the American people.

Finally, and I say this on a bipartisan basis, I know he will stand up for Israel, and I know in that area we can come together. That crisis is on us now. We may get a request at almost any time to act. We need to be able to act. My friend will act on that crisis. He has shown it his whole career.

It is with a great deal of pride that I have the privilege of nominating my friend, our chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but a person whose principles you know, whose actions you can trust, and who in a time of crisis will respond with the leadership we need, Jim Jordan.

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

Mr. Speaker, I share one thing in common with my friend from Virginia. This is a very sad day and certainly a day I never expected to have to live through.

I think, broadly speaking, as I look across this floor, you can divide Members into three groups. I am very happy to be in the first group, the overwhelming majority of my party who supports the Speaker that we elected.

We are proud of the leadership he has shown. We are proud of the manner in which he has been willing to work with everybody in our Conference, and I believe in this Chamber.

There is a second group, a small group. Honestly, they are willing to plunge this body into chaos and this country into uncertainty for reasons that only they really understand. I certainly don't.

Then there are friends on the other side--I mean friends, honestly, with great sincerity--I have a lot of friends over there, and I recognize that my friends on the other side have a very complex set of partisan, personal, and political calculations to make.

I certainly wouldn't presume to give them any advice about that, but I would say think long and hard before you plunge us into chaos because that is where we are headed if we vacate the speakership.

I personally think there are really three reasons why we have come to this point, and that is because at each three of these critical minutes, the Speaker did the right thing.

First, there was a Speaker vote. He got 85 percent of the vote in our Conference; 90 percent of the vote from Republicans on this floor.

Yet, we had a small group that decided no, they would dictate what they want. He didn't let that happen. He fought. Now, he fought for himself, but he fought for 90 percent of us too that wanted him to be the Speaker, and I appreciate that.

Then, of course, we had the debt ceiling deal. Nobody here thought he could pass a bill. Nobody in America thought he could pass a bill.

He did what Speakers are supposed to do. He passed the bill. Then he sat down and negotiated with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President and came back with a good deal, a deal that will limit spending. He did the right thing.

Finally, last Saturday on this floor, we were on the verge of a government shutdown, a government shutdown that the vast majority of Members in this Chamber did not want, a substantial majority on my side and an overwhelming majority on the Democrat side.

He put his political neck on the line, knowing this day was coming, to do the right thing--the right thing for the country without a doubt. My friends and I agree on that, whether or not we agree on the Speaker. He did the right thing. He did the right thing for this institution. He showed it could function in a time of crisis. Finally, he did the right thing for our party. He made sure that we could continue to negotiate and achieve some of the very objectives my friend from Virginia laid out, and achieve them in divided government, which calls for some degree of give-and-take.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of this Speaker. I am very proud to stand behind him. Tomorrow morning, whether I win or lose, I am going to be pretty proud of the people I fought with and I am going to be extraordinarily proud of the person I fought for, the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), my good friend and fellow member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gimenez), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Hinson), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), our distinguished majority leader and my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Mike Garcia), my very good friend and fellow member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Stefanik), my very good friend, and our distinguished Conference leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining for each side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Armstrong), my great friend.

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

Mr. Speaker, I voted in favor of Roll Call No. 507, H.R. 4368, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2024, in order for the appropriations process to move forward. However, I do have some concerns about certain provisions and cuts in the underlying bill. Watershed programs, rural energy and broadband grants, and water and wastewater projects are just a few programs that are of vital importance to my district and need adequate funding. As the appropriations process continues, I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure the needs of rural America are met.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 730 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), my very good friend, the ranking member of the full committee, 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 in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 730.

Mr. Speaker, last night, the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule, House Resolution 730, providing for the consideration of H.R. 5692, the Ukraine Security Assistance and Oversight Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024, under a closed rule.

It provides 30 minutes of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees, and it provides for one motion to recommit.

I rise today, Mr. Speaker, in order to support that rule and the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, although I know my friends in the minority will express some consternation about today's rule, it sets up a discussion that I think is important to have.

The rule takes $300 million in funds intended to support Ukraine out of the current Defense appropriations process. It then makes in order a separate vote on those funds through H.R. 5692.

The bill also creates a special inspector general for Ukraine assistance, ensuring that American dollars going to Ukraine receive appropriate oversight and supervision.

Now, as my friends across the aisle are well aware, there is no mystery about how I will vote on this question. Ukraine has been and remains the victim of Vladimir Putin's unprovoked, unjust, and illegal invasion of his neighbor to the West. I firmly support continuing to provide funding to Ukraine so that they can continue to resist that invasion. It is not only in America's national interests to do so, but it is also the right thing to do.

For other Members of the House and for their constituents, a vote on funding for Ukraine is a matter of conscience. Shifting these funds out of the Defense appropriations process and into a separate bill allows those Members for whom there is a question of conscience to vote to support our troops through an otherwise robust Defense appropriations bill while also allowing all Members to vote separately on providing funding to Ukraine.

Mr. Speaker, it is never a bad thing to have all Members of the House take a vote on a question. It is especially helpful in this instance to give all Members the chance to be heard.

Some of my Republican colleagues are supportive of the overall Defense appropriations bill but want to vote separately on Ukraine. Conversely, the vast majority of my friends across the aisle support funding for Ukraine but are opposed to the Defense appropriations bill. Voting on this issue separately through H.R. 5692 gives everyone a chance to be recorded on this important topic.

This resolution does something else that I think is very important. It sets up a debate about American policy toward Ukraine. This is a very valuable discussion to have, Mr. Speaker, and one that the American people would assuredly benefit from.

A debate on American policy toward Ukraine is important. It would help answer certain key questions that Americans are asking, such as: What is America's overall strategy? How are funds being used in Ukraine? What oversight policies are in place?

President Biden has never given a formal address to the American people outlining America's overall strategy with respect to Ukraine, but that does not mean the House cannot have such a discussion. In fact, the opposite is true. The Biden administration's failure to adequately explain to the American people what our overall strategy is means that it is imperative for the House to discuss the topic on the House floor.

Today's rule will give the House and, more importantly, the American people just that opportunity. We can have an open and honest discussion about American policy toward Ukraine and about American dollars supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression. When the debate is over, all Members of the House will have the opportunity to vote on this important question.

I am confident that, at the end of the day, the House will pass this measure to appropriate these funds to support Ukraine. The only difference will be that we had a full, open, and honest debate about it on the House floor.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support both the rule and the underlying measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by reminding my friend that, again, we agree on this issue. We both feel strongly in support of Ukraine. I know my friend will vote accordingly. So will I.

The reality is, this measure actually makes it more likely that Ukraine will get support, not less likely. As a part of the Defense bill, that bill may or may not pass. My friends are united in their opposition against that bill for a variety of reasons. That is certainly their right, but they actually do support this particular measure almost unanimously. Why not take it out of a bill that may or may not pass the floor and have a separate vote?

My friends will actually be able to vote to move forward something they agree with and, quite frankly, something the majority of my Conference agrees with. I don't see how this imperils Ukrainian funding. It makes it almost certain.

Moreover, I do believe discussion on this floor has considerable merit on this issue. The reality is that we haven't had that discussion, and it is time we did. I wished the President, who I happen to support in this instance--I don't support every nuance of his policy. I think he was too slow to commit here, too slow to get aid there. He has been unclear about what the final objectives of this exercise are, an exercise I remind everyone is extraordinarily expensive. It is over $100 billion invested and a request for more. I wish the President would do that. The House is going to endeavor to do that, at least to some degree, through this discussion.

Again, I think it is important to note that if you support Ukraine, you should support this measure because my friends, who I know sincerely do support that effort, are going to almost and probably unanimously oppose the Defense bill in which it is contained.

Why in the world would they be upset because we take it out, put it on its own, make it more likely to pass, and, frankly, do what we are supposed to do around here, which is actually let every American see how his or her Member of Congress votes on this issue and how they choose to defend it. I just simply think it is the appropriate way to go.

Now, I will be candid with my friend, as I always try to be. It also helps us pass the Defense bill. We have some people, because they feel very strongly about this particular issue, who might

not vote for the Defense bill that otherwise will. I am not going to apologize because we strengthen our ability to actually move an important piece of legislation through. The one thing we do, and it is really not disputable, is we increase the chances that Ukraine will get at least this $300 million of additional training aid that I think they ought to get and that my friends agree with.

Having one more vote on the House floor, particularly at a time when we are having so many, does not seem to me to be a high price to pay.

Mr. Speaker, let me quickly address one other point that my friend made. He talked about an imminent shutdown. We are coming close, and my friend is absolutely correct in that. I do remind him that the Rules Committee passed a measure roughly a week ago, I believe, that actually is an amendment that would continue funding the government while we work out our motions. That amendment can come out of the Rules Committee. It can be placed on the floor at whatever time the Speaker and the leadership of the majority choose to do that. There are vehicles in place to act.

I also remind my friend that the United States Senate is doing the same thing. I would prefer that we not get as close to the deadline as we are, but we are here. It is not as if nothing is being done and time in other areas is being wasted.

I suspect we will have a vote relatively soon on continuing to support the government. It may or may not pass. I suspect the United States Senate will have a similar vote. I suspect that one probably will pass and move to this Chamber.

The idea that nothing is being done while trivialities are being debated, I dismiss that out of hand. I don't think that is the truth.

Those issues are coming to a head right now, but again, I end once more with the obvious point: If you care about Ukraine, you ought to be voting for this measure. I will. I know my friends almost unanimously will, and that will ensure that that important funding moves forward. We have a fuller debate on the House floor about American objectives, goals, the price tag associated with that.

I think these are all good things, all things where the House is actually doing the right thing and, frankly, where I think the majority is giving the minority an opportunity to move forward, something I know they feel passionate about. I share that passion, and many on our side do, too.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the rule, which makes this possible, and the underlying resolution. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to address two points, one that my friend from Massachusetts made about the potential of a government shutdown.

As my friend knows, because we have spent a lot of time together, particularly recently, I am very much opposed to a government shutdown. I am pleased we have a vehicle out of the Rules Committee to address that. It is not up to me to decide when it comes to the floor, but there is one prepared, and hopefully, we will have an opportunity to vote on this.

I remind my friends that during the debt ceiling crisis, they said, oh, my gosh, we will never get out of this without defaulting on the debt. My gosh, it is the end of the world.

What did the House do?

It actually passed its bill and had a negotiating position and sat down with the Senate and the administration and negotiated a settlement. Some like it. Some don't like it. It is like anything around here in divided government, it is a compromise. The reality is that we moved and acted before the deadline. We have that ability, and I suspect we will do that before the deadline.

I also remind my friends--and again, I think they would agree with this--the United States Senate is moving and will present a vehicle. We may be in a negotiating position. They, by the way, never passed anything on the debt ceiling on their own. They waited to have a negotiating position from the House and then finally woke up and sat down with us. They never moved their own vehicle.

This is normal legislative process. That is an important question, but I agree with my friends about the virtue of a shutdown. I think that is actually the sentiment of the overwhelming majority of the House on both sides of the aisle.

We have got something working on that. The Senate has something, and we will see how that plays out over the next few days.

In terms of this measure, I am mystified by my friend's position. They are overwhelmingly in favor of support for Ukraine. I share that position, as does the majority of my side of the aisle.

Right now, $300 million of that support is embedded in a defense bill that they themselves will oppose unanimously, and we may or may not get everybody on our side. The reality is, it is a very narrow majority. People can have a different opinion, and we might or might not be able to pass it, but they support that particular measure almost uniformly.

Now when we take it out and say, here is something you support and the majority of us support, why don't we not risk this in a bill that could go either way?

Why don't we just advance this portion of it? That somehow is a problem?

I actually see it as something that ensures this particular issue will almost certainly move through the House. Moreover, I think it ensures a more robust discussion and an education on this important measure.

The reality is, it is hard for the average American to follow this. We have not had a Presidential address laying out the goals, the reasons, and the strategy for this. I think more discussion about Ukraine on the House floor would be helpful, not unhelpful, particularly when I think the majority in the Chamber would very strongly come out in support.

I don't see this in any way as somehow damaging our ability. Rather, it sort of clarifies our opinion on this issue in a very narrowly divided House. I think that is a good thing. I am not going to apologize, quite frankly, if this helps us get another couple of votes on a defense bill that I think is a good defense bill and a move toward a conference with the Senate on the appropriations front--that is all to the good. I don't have any problem with that.

If I can remove somebody's moral objection or concern and give them an opportunity to express their opinion, whether I agree with it or not, and recruit additional support, I think that is just smart politics and good procedure.

More importantly, I want to reemphasize that if you care about Ukraine, you should like this. You should say: Gosh, let's at least make sure that training money is going to get there. I won't have to vote against a bill that contains a measure I support. That measure has got to be taken out. I can support that measure and still oppose the bill if I want to. At least this thing that I care about deeply is actually going to be passed.

I think that is a prudent way to proceed. I think it is the right thing to do for Ukraine. I look forward at that time and that vote to actually voting with my friends on that measure.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I didn't particularly come down here to discuss the border, but I am delighted to discuss the border. I am glad my friends are finally interested in the border.

We have watched for 2 years as this administration has turned a green light on the border and has dramatically escalated the crossings. The border has been the biggest single disaster of an administration that, frankly, has been a failure in many different areas. The border, incontestably, is a problem that is created by the administration, owned by the administration, and my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle that actually have presided over this mess.

As a matter of fact, when we bring something onto the floor to keep the government open, I suspect there will be a border measure attached to it. My friends could then eagerly embrace that and actually do something to help on the border, a place where they fought us on, H.R. 2, our border security bill, where they have done nothing but support the administration that has engineered this incredible crisis.

I remind my friends that former Democratic Secretary of Homeland Security, who I admire a lot, Jeh Johnson, was once asked: What constitutes a crisis at the border?

A thousand illegal entries a day.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday that number was 10,000-11,000. Have my friends done anything about it? No.

We will probably put something on this floor pretty quickly, we already have with H.R. 2. You didn't vote for that. We will now give you an opportunity to both keep the government open and vote for border security. You should be happy about that. If you want to talk about the border, we will do it all day long on our side of the aisle.

Finally, with all due respect to my friends, you are not going to support the defense bill. I don't have any problem with that. That is your right. You have some concerns. You have some criticisms.

You are going to support--you do support aid for Ukraine, so we take it out and we put it out there. This is something you can support. The majority of our Members support it, too, but we have some that certainly do not and are vocal in that opposition. Why don't we make sure this gets through?

I am just mystified that this is somehow a problem. We guarantee you something you want is going to pass the House and you are upset about it.

You can express your displeasure in whatever way you want. I suspect when the deal is here, the measure is on the floor, you will actually vote for it. I will be happy and proud to vote with my friends on that because on this issue I share their point of view.

As somebody who supports Ukraine, I think it is a good thing to make sure this portion is going to pass for sure, this portion is going to be visible to the world. There is strong bipartisan support and we can move on.

Finally, I will just go back to the shutdown discussion. If we are going to have that discussion, I suspect it will be in the next day or two. They are having it in the United States Senate. Let's see how that plays out.

I do remember my friends telling me the sky was falling on the debt ceiling, but it didn't exactly happen that way. Once the House actually passed something, it triggered a serious discussion, and it actually got the Senate--which had done nothing--to actually act and sit down. We bargained the position, and we got it through. Not everybody on my side of the aisle agreed with that. Not everybody on my friends' side agreed with it, but it got done.

I see the same process, I hope, working out now. On this one, at least, why don't we make sure we take care of this particular piece of Ukraine funding. I am sure at some point in the not too distant future we will have a discussion about a larger supplemental, and I look forward to that particular debate and discussion.

Please don't be upset because we are giving you what you want in this area and ensuring that it actually passes and are trying to work with you on it.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, we have talked a little bit about the border, which we are always delighted to talk about. We are happy to see our friends interested in it because they have been so uninterested.

I appreciate what Leader McConnell in the Senate had to say about it. Frankly, it would help anything that he sends over here in terms of keeping the government open to actually put some border security measures in that particular piece of legislation. I understand there is some consideration about that in the Senate. I would encourage the Senate to do that. I think that would be a good thing.

Again, the reality is my friends haven't cared about the border. We are going to try to give them a couple opportunities here in the coming days to show us that they do because the policies they have pursued and supported and this administration have advanced have been a disaster. You know it, I know it, we know it.

There are 70,000 dead Americans thanks to the fentanyl flow. There are tens of thousands of children that have been illegally trafficked across the border. Many border agents will tell you we don't have operational control on the border.

The other side doesn't want to do anything about that. If we are going to put it in a measure to keep the government open, you know, then maybe they will vote for that. We are going to hopefully give them that opportunity. Again, we would encourage our friends in the Senate, a Democratically-controlled Senate, to be fair, that have not done anything about the border, they have not taken up any legislation, maybe they will finally do something. That is part of the frustration over here.

I have, frankly, great admiration and respect for the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith). I think he is one of the best legislators in this Chamber. I just disagree. The reality is, none of the Members on the other side are going to vote for the Defense bill that this money is in. What kind of message will that send overseas?

If they bring down the bill with Ukrainian support--and they are going to vote against it unanimously--that is a great message: We are for Ukraine, but we are not for the vehicle that has Ukrainian support and the defense of the United States? That is their choice. They disagree with the bill, I get it. That is fair. Now they are concerned because we actually put it in a format that they can vote for and that it will pass with an overwhelming majority? That mystifies me. That is just bizarre to me.

If they are worried about Russian propaganda, the reality is when and if--and I hope they do not, but if they manage to bring down the Defense bill with Ukrainian money in it, do they think Russian propaganda will say, oh, well, gosh, that is okay, we won't say anything about that--of course they will--and Democratic Members will have voted to do it. We are offering an opportunity here to actually make sure the money moves through the legislative process. I think it is an incredibly fair thing to do.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have had a robust debate on the border

and on keeping the government open. The reality here is, we ought to do this for Ukraine, we ought to make sure the money is going to be set aside and move forward with a bipartisan majority. I look forward to voting for that. I suspect my friends will certainly oppose the rule. However, when that legislation comes down here, I bet they all vote for it. I hope they do, and I am going to encourage them to do that.

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

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

I certainly want to begin by returning my respect to my good friend, the ranking member of the Rules Committee.

We argue, fight, disagree, but I know we have great respect for one another. I certainly do for my friend. I have great personal affection for him.

When we disagree, the tone might go up a little bit, but we remain good friends. The reality is that we have a good working relationship, one which I treasure.

I will say, on this one, I didn't come here particularly to talk about the shutdown, but let's wait and see what happens.

This has nothing to do with the shutdown, absolutely nothing. There is nothing saying: Beat this rule to say where you stand on the shutdown.

They don't connect. This rule is about something else. It is about Ukrainian aid, and frankly, it is also about enhancing the prospect that the Defense appropriations bill will actually pass this body.

I think that if you look at what this does, it enhances the chance that Ukraine aid will survive, no matter what.

My friends care about that. They are going to vote against a Defense bill where the current money is. They are going to vote against it, every one of them. It is their right to do that.

They have disagreements with other parts of the bill, so we took a part of the bill they like and put it out on its own.

We are going to get a bipartisan vote on it. I think that is a good thing. I think that is something that should be celebrated.

I think Congress will have a chance to make a strong statement about Ukraine. I will actually be voting with my friends on the substance of the bill.

That will probably be lost in the debate over the rule, but the reality is that we will be on the same side. That is because we have the same view of the issue. I think that is a very good thing.

I think more discussion about Ukraine in the Congress of the United States is a very good thing because I think we have some profound differences on our side of the aisle about the merits of this.

I actually agree more with my friends, but I want to have the American people more involved in the debate. Sadly, the administration has really not done that very effectively. They have been afraid for the President to address the issue, for whatever reason. He ought to lay out our goals, lay out our timelines, lay out the resources he thinks we need to be committed.

I give him the benefit of the doubt. I think a war is pretty hard to plan and lay out. It is not like you are building a bridge and you know where you start, where you end, what you need. War is a contest of wills.

To the President, my free advice would be that it is time for you to talk to the American people and get them more deeply engaged in a project that you and I happen to agree on. We need you to use the bully pulpit more effectively than you have.

In the meantime, let's do what we can in the House of Representatives to educate people on this particular issue.

Again, I remind my friends, on the government shutdown issue, we are probably going to put something on the floor and give you a chance to help on the border because you seem so anxious to do it.

We certainly hope that Senator McConnell--and I know he is working in good faith; I have great respect for Senator McConnell--adds some border security to whatever the Senate does.

I hope we do what we did on the debt ceiling: Sit down, negotiate, find some common elements.

I thank my friend for reading all the Republicans that think a government shutdown is a bad idea. He probably didn't know that the Speaker thinks that, too. Most of us on our side do.

How you avoid that, how you fund the government, what other things you do, is another matter entirely. We are working on that, and we will see how the weekend goes.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, before I yield back the balance of my time, I once again thank my friend for a robust debate. I look forward to working with him on the Ukrainian issue on a variety of fronts going forward.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my friends who care about Ukraine to look at the Defense bill, as well. It needs to pass. If you are worried about $300 million, it is a lot more important to pass an $880 billion bill that defends our country and puts us in a position to defend liberty. Do that and you will help Ukraine, and we can help them separately with these funds.

I will work with my friends on the supplemental.

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

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 712 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the ranking member of the Rules Committee, 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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 712.

Madam Speaker, last night the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule, House Resolution 712, providing for consideration of H.R. 4365, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2024, under a structured rule.

It provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the

chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. It also makes in order 184 amendments, more than 75 percent of those eligible for consideration. Finally, it provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule also makes in order H.R. 1130, the Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2023 under a structured rule. It provides for 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees. It provides for one motion to recommit.

Finally, the rule makes in order H. Res. 684 under a closed rule. It provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees.

I rise today, Madam Speaker, in support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

Madam Speaker, as Members are aware, the House has previously debated an identical rule covering H.R. 4365. This was a fulsome and passionate debate, and I said most of what was needed to be said from my point of view during that debate, but I will make a few key points about this bill again now.

The bill before us provides full funding for our national defense. It appropriates $826 billion in new discretionary spending, which is a modest increase of $300 million over the President's budget request of nearly $29 billion or 3.6 percent over the FY 2023 enacted level.

Madam Speaker, this truly is a good bill, one that I think the House can and should be proud of. It makes appropriate investments in the military and ensures that dollars are being directed where they are needed the most. It invests heavily in our servicemembers, providing them with a 5.2 percent pay raise. It provides continued funding for new advanced weapons systems, ensuring that the military has the force it needs to confront any foe anywhere in the world at any time, and it continues to expand the Navy to protect the freedom of the seas and invests heavily in Asia and the Pacific theater where China continues to expand its own military might in anticipation of a confrontation with the United States and our allies.

Madam Speaker, providing funding for our national defense is both Congress' privilege and its responsibility. In order for our brave men and women in uniform to do their jobs, Congress must do its job. Today, we can take that first step toward doing so.

The rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1130, the Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2023. This bill removes regulatory barriers for the construction and licensing of new liquid natural gas or LNG import and export terminals.

Madam Speaker, when the Republican majority took over in January, we committed to unleashing America's energy potential. For too long, regulatory roadblocks and active hostility of the Biden administration have made it difficult to expand production of America's abundant energy resources, but despite the Biden administration's hostility, America is today the top producer of natural gas in the world.

From my home State of Oklahoma, this is not an academic point. Oklahoma is the fifth largest natural gas producing State in the country, with nearly 350,000 jobs in the State tied directly to natural gas production. It is a critical part of my home State's economy.

In recent years, innovation and new technology have revolutionized and expanded the production of natural gas, both in Oklahoma and in the United States as a whole. The people of my district are very proud to be part of that revolution. There is still more to be done, and the passage of H.R. 1130 will help make it easier, cheaper, and quicker to bring new LNG export terminals online.

It is no exaggeration to say that American natural gas is a critical part of the world's energy mix, particularly in Europe, which previously sourced much of its natural gas from Russia, and we are capable of achieving more. The end result will be a strong future for us as we create more high-paying jobs and maintain America's energy independence and a strong future for our friends and allies around the world who can source their energy needs from us rather than from vicious dictators like Vladimir Putin.

Madam Speaker, all in all, this is a strong bill, one that I am certainly proud to support.

Finally, the rule makes in order H. Res. 684, which condemns New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham for her executive order attempting to subvert the Second Amendment rights of New Mexico's citizens.

As Members are aware, earlier this month, Governor Grisham issued an executive order purporting to suspend the right of New Mexicans to open and concealed carry of firearms. Governor Grisham claimed that this was necessary in order to deal with a public health emergency.

Of course, this claim is patently absurd, and there is not now, nor has there ever been, a public health emergency and exception for constitutional rights. The right of Americans to bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and a constitutional right cannot be subverted at the whim of an elected official.

Last week, a Federal judge in New Mexico agreed and issued a restraining order blocking implementation of this patently unconstitutional order.

Governor Grisham has rightly received condemnation on a bipartisan basis for her actions. H. Res. 684 will give all Members of Congress an opportunity to do so officially and on the record.

It is always appropriate for the House to take time to reaffirm our values as a country and to protect the constitutional rights that form the foundation of our Republic.

Indeed, I urge all Members to do so and speak with one voice, reminding all Americans that when it comes to their constitutional rights, the House of Representatives has their back.

Madam Speaker, I urge Members to support both the rule and the underlying bills, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I would again return my friend's compliments. I enjoy working with him on the Rules Committee. We have been there together a long time. There is nobody I have a higher professional and personal regard for than my good friend.

Now honestly, Madam Speaker, I wish I had his talent for colorful rhetoric. I particularly like the ``Groundhog Day'' reference. I remind my friend, while there are some similarities, the movie had a happy ending. Everybody learned some lessons and they got to where they needed to be. I think we may be involved in a process something like that.

I disagree with my friend that the issues being brought up in this bill are trivial. Defending the United States of America is not a trivial thing. You can agree or disagree with the bill, and I will talk about that in a minute. That is fair enough. I don't consider that trivial.

Providing natural gas in abundance and at modest prices to Americans and having that resource to deal with our adversaries overseas, who often use energy as a weapon, and to be able to provide for our friends and allies reliable energy is not a trivial matter. It is an extraordinarily important matter.

The 10 million Americans that work in the domestic energy industry think what we are doing here is the right thing to do. I don't consider their interests and their views trivial. I am just very privileged to represent many people that have that point of view and are involved in that particular profession.

Finally, I don't consider standing up for the Second Amendment a trivial thing. We have a Governor that issued an order that a Federal judge immediately overturned and Democrats in New Mexico condemned-- elected Democrats, law enforcement officials. It is actually one of the areas that is usually a contentious issue that we had really strong bipartisan agreement. We think it is important to make my point.

My friends have a different point of view. That is fair enough. Just express it, and we will move on. Again, we don't consider defense of the Constitution to be trivial.

I agree with my friend about a number of things, and we have had this discussion, frankly, as friends in the Rules Committee.

I agree with him about shutdowns. I do not think it is an appropriate tactic, and I hope that we are able to avoid one. There will be an appropriate time, I am sure, when we discuss with our friends how to do that, but we need a negotiating position. We are working toward that, and we hope we will get there.

Believe me, I am well aware that we have a Democratic Senate. This House has done wonderful work on things like H.R. 1 to deal with energy, H.R. 2 to deal with our border. We send them over there and they are never picked up, never heard of again unless we can snatch pieces out of them here or there and attach them to one of these broader agreements, as we were able to do on the debt ceiling crisis over permitting of facilities, both for renewable and nonrenewable energy.

Again, it is a difficult legislative process, and I agree it is going to be complicated, but our goal is to get to the same place; that is, to make sure that the government is funded, and also, that we advance shared values that we have and have an open and honest discussion with the United States Senate. When we do that, we have been able to find some agreement.

My friend likes to point out--all my Democratic friends like to point out regularly--well, gosh, why are you passing appropriations bills that are less than to the letter agreed on? Well, gee whiz, where I come from, if you can do something for less money, that is usually a good thing to do. I am never going to apologize. If we see a different way to get to a policy objective that costs less money, that is a good thing to do.

Now, I know when we discussed this last night, the Senate is consistently appropriating above the agreed-upon number. All the appropriations bills, or pretty much all of them that they have dealt with so far, are at higher levels. So guess what? We will get into negotiation. My guess is they will come down some. We will come up some, and we will find some sort of common deal. That is just the way politics work. I am never going to be critical of my colleagues for trying to do something cheaper and save money.

I remind my friend of the condition in which the Democratic majority left

our fiscal finances. We are running a $1.7 trillion deficit this year. That is bigger than all the discretionary budget of the United States of America. We have not had a Democratic President submit a budget that comes into balance--not in a decade, but ever, since Bill Clinton.

President Obama never did. President Biden never has. I don't think any future Democrat will.

We used to have Democrats in the 1990s that we disagreed with, that we fought, but they said, well, let's try to get to a balanced budget within 10 years, and they managed to do that.

My friends have basically abdicated that debate. They just let it go on and on out to infinity. Even President Trump submitted budgets that within a decade came into balance. I didn't always agree with some of the decisions. I don't think either party has done a very good job.

My friend and I have had this discussion in dealing with the real drivers of debt: that is mandatory spending; that is Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. We need to have that debate. I hope the Presidential contest has it. I note at least some of the discussions we have been having in our caucus talk about having a debt commission attached to some of this, so perhaps we can make some modest steps.

My friends heard me talk about my Social Security bill, which is really modeled after what was done in 1983 by Ronald Reagan, Tip O'Neill, and Howard Baker working together, a commission, then Congress voting--including, by the way, the President of the United States at that time who liked commissions, voting for the commission, for the deal, and it worked. It improved the fiscal solvency of the country. It extended the life of Social Security, a program I know that we both support.

Again, you may think these are trivial issues. We don't. We think we have a long process in front of us. These are steps in the right direction on the appropriate end that won't be enough.

Madam Speaker, the last point I will make--and my friend and I just disagree here--look, defense is a very different thing than any other part of the appropriations process. Most appropriations process is about things that are desirable and good.

I have worked pretty hard on cancer research, so my friend's points are well made there. I think those are valuable investments.

Defense is about threats. We had a peace dividend in the 1990s. You know why we had it? Because the Soviet Union had collapsed, and we could prudently save money in defense.

I will tell you right now, I would go higher than the number here; but if the number we have on defense is outrageous, your first call ought to be to the White House because it is basically the President's number. We actually pulled back from where our defense appropriators wanted to go and a lot of our defense hawks wanted to go because we did think addressing the horrific deficits that were inherited from the last Democratic era meant we even had to make sacrifices here.

I am not really comfortable with it, but it is a step in the right direction. We might not even had to have that if you hadn't, through reckless spending, unleashed the worst inflation in 40 years. I actually have a 40-year-old son. He had never seen anything like what happened in the Biden administration because of irresponsibly passing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and another $700 billion much- misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.

We inherited a mess. We inherited inflation. We inherited record deficits.

It is a pretty tough deal. My friends don't want to address it. Well, this majority is going to do its best to address those issues. We do struggle and disagree, and sometimes I get frustrated with some of my friends on my side of the aisle about tactics.

My colleague is right about one thing, and I will agree 100 percent. There is no objection to this rule on the basis of the rule. There is nothing wrong with it. It has 184 amendments. You can agree or disagree with the bill, but it is a good rule.

In my view, there is nothing wrong with the bill, other than I would like to have spent a little bit more money. Like any bill that spends this amount of money, everybody could do it a little bit differently.

People are trying to make other points unrelated to the bill, and I will agree with my friend that that is unfortunate. I don't think that is a good way to legislate. I think my colleagues should look at the legislation in front of them. If they agree with the rule, they ought to vote for it. If they disagree, it is fair enough to vote against it. However, if they agree with the basic bill, don't relate it to something else and try to use it as a weapon. We don't have many Members who do that, but we have a few.

As my friend knows, we have a very narrow majority. He has been here once or twice himself when they had narrow majorities. It is part of the legislative process. We will continue to work it.

My hope today is we will advance this rule. It will open the way to advance what I think is a good Defense appropriations bill, and we will continue to move legislatively as rapidly as we can. We will work and, at the appropriate time, I am sure, work across the rotunda with Democrats in the Senate and probably in this Chamber with some of my Democratic friends. Hopefully, we will avoid a government shutdown.

The most important thing today: Move the rule. Move the bill. That is what we are going to try to do.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I want to respond to some of my good friend from Pennsylvania's points, and some of them I agree with. I do think shutting down the government is not an appropriate tactic. We agree on that.

You know, linking them to election results is really an interesting exercise. The government shutdown that I think my friend thought was in 2011, if I am correct, and I may be wrong, was really the one in 2013. We actually picked up seats in 2014. I don't think that is why we picked up seats. My friends always forget that they shut down the government in 2017, and they won seats in 2018. So you can pretty much play these numbers however you want.

The important point, which my friend makes and I agree with, is that shutting down the government is bad for the American people. It is an abdication of our responsibility. It is something we should not do. I have never supported it in the past. I hope we manage to avoid one now. I think that is exactly what the Speaker is engaged in trying to accomplish, whether my friends agree with his methods or not.

I will tell you, I am mystified by this concern about the agreement. Again, we agreed on top-line numbers. We didn't say we are going to the top-line numbers. This is the top-line number, and if we can do it for less and persuade the Senate that that is a good idea, then I don't see that as a bad thing.

If my friends are concerned about keeping agreements, maybe they ought to call over to their friends in the United States Senate who are producing bill after bill that are above these numbers.

Guess what? I suspect each side is positioning for a negotiation, and magically, we probably won't be too far off, if we come to an agreement, of the numbers that are laid out in the debt ceiling deal.

I am not telling you this is the most efficient way to legislate, but I have seen it before, and we are seeing it from both sides right now.

In terms of the budget, I tell you what, I am interested in the opinions my friends have on the budget because they didn't bother to do one for the 4 years they were in the majority. I am thrilled they are actually marking up a budget in the Budget Committee. I give Chairman Arrington a lot of credit for doing it. It is hard to do. My friends didn't do it for 4 years because they couldn't do it because they couldn't come to an agreement.

As a matter of fact, I remember those 4 years I used to serve on the Budget Committee. You couldn't get a budget out of the Budget Committee that you controlled.

Do you want to talk about dysfunction? The Budget Committee sets the top-line number for all spending. Maybe that is why we overspent so much. As a matter of fact, you deemed budgets in the rule.

So I would agree with you. We should probably be sitting down and figuring out ways to run our fiscal affairs better and particularly do it in a more cooperative way because, as my friends point out, they do control the United States Senate and the United States Presidency.

However, please don't lecture me on how you do budgets when you had the House, the Senate, and the Presidency and could not write a budget in 4 years and get it out of your own committee, let alone bring it to this floor. Some of those years you weren't operating with a five-seat majority. You just couldn't get the job done.

We are trying. I commend the Budget Committee. I hope they bring one out here. I will be disappointed if they don't, but at least they are making the effort.

Finally, again, to my friends, I can't figure out whether you want the Speaker to succeed or not because there are lots of expressions that you feel sorry for him in the job he has. Don't worry, he likes the job he has. He works hard at it every day.

I think he is a good Speaker. He delivered on a debt ceiling deal that my friends even in the end came around and voted for. He delivered one that was a heck of a lot better because it had some genuine concessions in it, in terms of energy production and in terms of setting top lines.

We are on the eve of another kind of negotiation, and maybe we can find common ground again. I genuinely, quite frankly, hope that we do. In that process, there will be plenty of people on both sides of the aisle who don't like what the end product is, and they will vote accordingly. That is fair enough.

This is just kind of the way it works around here right now, and I think the Speaker is doing a terrific job of trying to work the process, trying to make sure legislation moves across the floor in regular order, and trying to get to numbers that begin to bring down this horrific deficit that my friends left the country with, with no plan to deal with it.

Nobody in the White House has a plan. The President has never submitted a budget that comes into balance. He won't talk about entitlement reform. He rules it out.

Sorry, if you are serious about the budget deficit, you do control two-thirds of this process. I know it is inconvenient when we bring up the fact that we are spending a lot more money and you have no plan to deal with it, but that is what we are going to do.

We will see. The American people can make a choice in the next election about that, but I am not going to be critical of my friends. Even when I am critical of their tactics, and I am sometimes, I am not critical of people who are trying to lower the budget deficit and trying to restore a measure of fiscal sanity to this country. That is something the Democrats used to care about, did care about when I first got here. They totally abandoned it during the Obama Presidency.

When my friends want to get serious, they will have a willing negotiating partner on the budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Alford), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. In closing, I urge all of my colleagues to support the resolution.

The rule will make in order three bills.

First, it makes in order the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2024. It will provide full and complete funding for our Armed Forces and Defense needs and provides the resources necessary to defend freedom around the world.

It makes in order H.R. 1130, Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act. We think that is important.

My friend had an interesting discussion about LIHEAP. I actually share my friend's view. It is an important program. I remember when I chaired the subcommittee on Appropriations, I had to actually reverse a cut ordered by President Obama of $300 million in his own budget, and we stopped that from happening.

People throw out numbers, and then you work it through. I always call a Presidential budget a bargaining position. I think the same thing tends to be true of congressional budgets, but we will work that through.

The real cause of lack of heating, though--let's be real about this-- is not LIHEAP and whether it is funded or not. It is whether or not there is natural gas to heat it in the first place. My friends have done everything possible to increase the cost and limit the availability of the very product that they want to provide with a government program.

It would be better for every single American if you would just simply be pro-energy production in our country. It is okay to be for renewables. I am for renewables. My State is number one or two in the country in wind power, well ahead of a lot of other progressive States.

We just think what works is what you ought to do. We have got a lot of wind in Oklahoma. It makes a lot of sense, so we use it, and, if it lowers emissions, we think that is good. Natural gas, by the way, has been the single biggest driver of lowering emissions. My friends have done nothing but make it harder in that industry. Frankly--and I mean this with all due respect--I hear people in that industry and companies in that industry vilified routinely. If I said those things about people in your respective States engaged in energy or in other kinds of production, you would be appalled, because you know those people.

I have got millions of people in the energy industry. I have thousands of people in my district that go out and work on rigs. They go out and lay pipeline. They go out and find oil and gas. It is hard work. They do that, and they give many parts of the country that don't have energy production the cheapest energy in the world outside of a couple of petrostates, and the most secure product, and they have tripled production in petroleum since about 2006. Yet, the price of gas goes up--it is a lot less here than it is almost anyplace in the world--and then they say, oh, my gosh, they are profiteering. No, there are market forces out there. That is off the subject.

I would just say my friends are worried about the cost of heating. LIHEAP is a good program. I support it. I have proven that over and over again. Please, let's make sure that we have the gas in the first place.

Finally, my friends dismiss the importance of the Second Amendment because they disagree with it for the most part. That is fair enough. All we are saying is we want the opportunity to actually invest things.

My friend made a couple of other points I just want to quickly address, because I want him to be under no--

and I don't think he is--under any illusion. I hold Senator Murray and Senator Collins in very high regard. I have worked with them both. I have worked with Senator Murray, in particular, for 8 years, either as chair, or ranking member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies when she held the same respective position. We came to a deal almost every year. The gentlewoman is a good legislator, and Senator Collins is legendary.

What the Senate is crafting over there right now is well above the agreement that my friend thinks we are violating. It is pretty easy to declare emergencies. Yes, I would love to spend more money on defense. I have said that on this floor. I have said that during this debate. Let's call it emergency and heap it on.

They are laying out a negotiating position. It is fair enough. My guess is we are going to end up pretty close to the numbers we agreed upon.

My friends have been very critical of my leader, the Speaker of the House, and that is fair enough. This is politics. I will tell you this: You guys said he wouldn't get elected, and he did. You said he wouldn't get a bill across the floor to deal with the debt ceiling and then negotiate a deal, but he did. Let's wait and see how this plays out.

My friends need to remember, when it comes to these fiscal issues, they are the ones that never passed a budget for 4 years. They are the ones that left us with a $1.7 trillion deficit, and they have got the White House and the Senate and have not produced any plan to address it, nor have they been willing to sit down and talk to us about, in a bipartisan way, how could we start dealing with what we all know is the big driver, and that is entitlement programs.

We have a lot of problems in front of us. We can point a lot of fingers. Let's do the right thing today, though, and start addressing them.

The right thing today is to move ahead and pass this rule, get onto a debate about what we think are important issues. Defending the country is certainly an important issue. Securing our energy future is important, and dealing with constitutional rights, and we will continue to discuss and work on these other matters.

I will agree with my friend. I am not for shutting down the government. I hope we don't get there, and I always worry about that as we approach these kind of deadlines.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 401.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 680 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 Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), my very good 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 may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 680.

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

Mr. Speaker, last week the Rules Committee met and reported out a

rule, House Resolution 680, consideration of H.R. 4365, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2024, under a structured rule.

It provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations or their designees. It also makes in order 184 amendments; more than 75 percent of those eligible for consideration. Finally, it provides for a motion to recommit.

I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, our democracy remains a beacon of hope to the entire world. Billions of people across the globe look to the United States as a leader in freedom and liberty and as a protector of peace. From the very moment our Nation was conceived, a strong national defense has been a differentiator of democracy. Essential to protecting the homeland, international order, and the American people from those who would seek to do us harm, we must never lose sight of the need to maintain a strong defense.

Although our men and women in uniform give of themselves every day, they cannot do their jobs unless Congress does its job. Only Congress can provide the funding our military needs to fulfill its duties. That is our responsibility. Today we move forward with that commitment as we take up H.R. 4365, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2024. We must do our duty and make sure that our brave military members can move forward with theirs.

With evolving threats, we continue to face a struggle seen throughout time. The contest between freedom and tyranny is not far from us. From Vladimir Putin's unjust and illegal invasion of Ukraine, to China's posturing in the South China Sea, to continued threats posed by extremists and terrorists, hostile actors are looking for weakness. Yet, America's Armed Forces remain ready to meet any challenge wherever it may arise. Continuing to meet those threats requires an appropriate investment of national resources. With today's measure, we fulfill that commitment and ensure that our Armed Forces will have the resources they need to meet any foe anywhere in the world at any time.

The bill before us provides full funding for the national defense. It appropriates $826 billion in new discretionary spending, which is a modest increase of $300 million over the President's budget request and nearly $29 billion, or 3.6 percent, over the fiscal year 2023 enacted level.

H.R. 4365 makes targeted investments that support critical priorities. Perhaps the most important of these priorities is to reinvest in our servicemen and -women. The bill provides a 5.2 percent pay raise for our servicemembers. For junior enlisted servicemembers, we provide an historic pay increase of an average of 30 percent, ensuring that we not only offset the effects of President Biden's inflationary crisis for these younger and most junior servicemembers, but also ensuring that we can retain servicemembers who are at the beginning of their military careers.

I would be remiss, Mr. Speaker, not to give credit to the gentleman from California (Mr. Mike Garcia), my good friend and fellow defense appropriator, for this particular measure, both in the appropriations bill and, frankly, in the NDAA, as well. His work on behalf of younger servicepeople has been exemplary, relentless, and effective.

The bill also makes continued and necessary investments to ensure that we will continue to have the best equipped and best-trained fighting force now and into the future. We fund continued expansion of the Navy, making sure that we will be able to continue to protect freedom of the seas around the globe and fund development and acquisition of next-generation weapons systems.

However, it doesn't stop there, Mr. Speaker. H.R. 4365 also ensures that the Biden administration cannot continue to put politics ahead of national security. It preserves existing and longstanding bipartisan bans on taxpayer funding for abortions. It also ensures that Federal dollars cannot be used to indoctrinate our troops with progressive ideology like critical race theory training, and instead ensures that the Pentagon's focus is where it should be: on military readiness and preparedness so that our warfighters can defeat aggression and defend freedom anywhere in the world.

All in all, there is much to like in today's bill, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to advancing this measure through a robust amendment process on the floor and onward to final passage. I urge Members to support both 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.

Mr. Speaker, I begin by returning my deep respect, my deep regards, to my good friend from New Mexico. It has been a delight to have her on the Rules Committee, and we have found a lot of common ground working on Native American issues, where, frankly, she is an acknowledged national expert. I look forward to a long and good relationship with my friend.

When it comes to this rule and bill, obviously, we have disagreements. Let me talk first about the point my friend makes about timing and how many bills have gotten done and where we are in the process. There is actually a great deal that I agree with her on.

Sadly, we ought to also remember the Democratic Congress of last year didn't finish the appropriations process until December. If you looked at it the year before, it didn't finish until March the next year, after the end of the fiscal year. Being late around here is not new for either party, but our friends set the standard last time, I think. We will see how we end up.

My friend made a comment that we had only done one bill. I will say that is one more than the Democratic United States Senators managed to do.

The reality is the Senate didn't produce, under Democratic control, any bills for the last 2 years--none out of subcommittee, none out of full committee, none across the floor.

We are dealing with a very difficult body on the other side of the rotunda. These timing issues, hopefully, we can all get better at this and work together. I actually think we have something this year in the debt ceiling agreement that will be helpful in that regard.

The reality is if we don't get our work done by January 1, which is about the time Democrats got their work done last year, we will have a yearlong CR with a 1 percent across-the-board cut.

I don't know any appropriator on either side of the aisle who wants to see that happen. I don't think most people who care deeply about the defense of the United States do. We have some forcing mechanisms in place. Hopefully, we will continue to make some better progress there.

In terms of my friend's point about divisive social policy, I will point out where this started. It is the executive branch that made decisions to do things much differently than we have done before, and usually with no consultation with the Congress of the United States.

Most of the things my friend disagrees with we consider corrective of executive overreach, including violation of the Hyde amendment, which is essentially, in my view, what the Department of Defense has decided on its own to do without discussion or consultation with the Congress of the United States. That is unfortunate. That is something, hopefully, we can work through and resolve in the months ahead.

I will also say that we are just very different in terms of where we think the focus ought to be. This bill focuses on weapons acquisition, training, and readiness. We live in a very dangerous world. We think there is a big difference, for instance, between climate resilience and actively pushing climate change legislation, which we believe the original administration budget does.

We want to refocus on the things that we think matter. We are not going to beat our adversaries if, God forbid, we find ourselves in a contest with any of them and our forces aren't well trained, aren't well armed, and aren't well prepared for the challenges they are going to face. That should be the main focus of the Department of Defense. We think the administration has lost its focus. We see this bill as a useful corrective.

Finally, I point out to my friends on both sides of the aisle that, quite frankly, whatever we pass, we are going to sit down and negotiate with the United States Senate and with the President of the United States. As my friends know, the Democrats control the United States Senate, and we have a Democrat as the President of the United States. Wherever we end up, it is going to be a process of give-and-take and discussion, but it is important that the House have an opening position.

The last point to make on this is if we get this bill across the floor--and I do say ``if'' because there is some controversy about whether or not we will make it, even on our own side. Even though nobody disagrees with the rule or disagrees with the bill, they have other points sometimes they want to make. Sadly, it shouldn't be with this bill. However, my friends never got the Defense bill across the floor by themselves when they were in the majority. There were too many divisions and splits within their Caucus to even bring it to the floor.

If we manage to get this bill across the floor, we will actually, in that single action, have moved across the floor a larger percentage of the discretionary budget of the United States than my friends were ever able to do when they were in the majority.

It is a complex bill, over half of the discretionary spending of the United States. There are lots of barriers and flash points where we disagree, but it is important that we continue the dialogue and the motion forward.

I think we have the opportunity, in passing the rule and the underlying legislation, to do that today, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote accordingly.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I both agree and disagree with my friend from New Mexico about shutting down the government. I personally could not agree more with her. I think it is a dumb thing to do. I think it is a dangerous thing to do.

I have never favored shutting down the government, and I have argued against it. The tactic doesn't work. I think it won't work this time. The American people expect us to keep the essential services of government going while we negotiate and get to a final solution.

I will correct my friend on one thing. The Democrats have shut down the government. Frankly, they shut it down over DACA in 2017.

Now, I always hand the Democrats this: When they shut it down or do something stupid, they are pretty quick to realize it, and they back off. I think they shut it down on a Friday and reopened it on a Monday, but they did indeed shut it down.

It is simply an inappropriate tool in the toolbox, in my opinion. I have seen both sides use it. My side, sadly, has used it more. I hope we don't do it this time.

Certainly, the great majority of our Members and the Speaker do not want to see a shutdown, and I think they have made that apparent over and over again.

I hadn't particularly intended to comment on the ranking member's amendment because I know how passionately my good friend feels about this. I respect those feelings. Honestly, I respect the feelings of all those who hold that view.

I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with President Biden when my good friend, the ranking member, is disagreeing with him. It shows it is not really a partisan issue. I think it is an issue of judgment.

I have no doubt the President of the United States agonized before making this decision. It was clearly a decision he did not want to make, but I think he was compelled by two factors that probably decided the case for him, although I don't presume to speak for the President.

Number one, we ought to always remember the enemies of Ukraine, Russia, introduced these weapons on the other side first and was using those weapons indiscriminately.

Second, Ukraine is using these weapons in defense of its own territory and its own people in its own territory. That is not what the Russians are doing. They are aggressively, on the other side, using these in another country.

Finally, again, just to be fair about the President's dilemma, we have used an extraordinary amount of ammunition trying to support Ukraine. I think we have some strains on our own stockpiles, and I suspect that was part of the decisionmaking. When you are in a war, you are in it to win it.

Frankly, it was not the Ukrainians or the Americans that introduced this first. It was not the Ukrainians or the Americans or the European allies, who were there in vast numbers, that started this conflict. It is to the advantage of all that it ends as quickly as it can. The level of casualties on both sides is horrific, but the person who bears responsibility is Vladimir Putin. Frankly, the country that is the aggressor is Russia, and I am not going to begrudge the Ukrainians for getting what they need.

As critical as I can sometimes be of President Biden, I will certainly not criticize him in this case because I think, in this case, he reluctantly made a tough decision, a decision he probably didn't want to make, but I think he made it for the right reasons. Therefore, I won't be supporting my friend's amendment later on today.

Although, again, I am glad we were able to make it in order. I think it is an important issue for us to discuss, and I look forward to a very vigorous debate on that later this afternoon.

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

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

Again, there are some areas where I agree with my good friends and some areas where I disagree. Nobody disagrees on the importance of the fentanyl crisis and the importance of dealing in any way we can through whatever means we have with those who engage in trafficking that illegal drug that has killed tens of thousands of Americans.

Quite frankly, I suspect later this week or next week we will give our friends the opportunity to work with us on homeland security measures that will deal with just that.

I would point to, frankly, the abject failure of the Biden administration to defend the southern border. The green light that has been put out there is a huge cost for this massive influx of drugs into our own country.

We passed H.R. 2 on this floor, Mr. Speaker, to try and deal with that, and we are going to provide our friends with some opportunities where maybe we can find some common ground. You can be pro-immigration and pro-border security at the same time. I think this administration has had a hard time doing that, and quite frankly, most of the policies that it reversed--whether it was building the wall or remain in Mexico--from the last administration were effective. You can tell by the record numbers of illegal entries we have, the record amount of trafficking we have in drugs, and sadly, in human beings across the border to know that the Biden border policy, which my friends have supported, has been a disaster. It is one that, again, we hope they not only recognize that disaster, but will work with us to correct some of those measures.

Again, I am going to agree with my friend from New Mexico. I don't believe in shutting down the government. I know we occasionally have some people who believe that, although it is a very small number, it can be a very influential number in a House that is very narrowly divided.

We are going to provide some opportunities both to our own Members and to our colleagues on the other side to avoid that and to negotiate in good faith, but again, I just reiterate a point where I know my friend and I agree: It is not an appropriate tool. It does not work. I would hope that we can avoid that.

We also need to sit down and work together where we can, and there are a lot of areas in this bill that we can work on.

The last point I will make--my friends talk about the conflicts that we have in the Defense bill--remember, we had a conflict in the last Congress when my friends in the House tried to unilaterally overturn the Hyde language, a bipartisan agreement that goes all the way back to 1975 or 1976, as I recall, Mr. Speaker, and when that was struck, there were less than 150 Republicans in the House, so it was genuinely bipartisan. It wasn't just something we crammed down.

My friends have changed their mind over the issue of using Federal dollars for abortion over the years. We have not changed our position, and we were able to beat that back even when we were in the minority because, at the end of the day, they couldn't pass the bills without Republican support.

I think the administration has tried to go around Congress in this case and use Federal dollars without congressional consent to facilitate abortion, other than in cases where we are talking about rape, incest, or the life of the mother. We have no debate over the appropriate use of Federal dollars in those cases. We do in others. It doesn't mean people can't travel; we just shouldn't be using Federal dollars in this area. That is a longstanding principle that I would argue the Biden administration is trying to subvert.

By the way, it is a principle that President Biden, until 2019 when he was running for President, accepted throughout his entire career. He was a champion of that until 2019 when his own party moved so far left he had to change his longstanding position in pursuit of the nomination.

Again, this is politics, people are allowed to do what they want, but please don't chastise us for being consistent with a position we assumed in 1975 and have not changed. It is our friends who have changed their mind on this issue, and frankly, it is the administration that tried to subvert the will and the authority of Congress by moving around it.

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

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

Nobody is arguing against diversity in the military. The American military has actually usually been the leader in this area, whether it was desegregation or certainly addressing the inequities between men and women, and we haven't gotten it right, but I think broadly it has worked in the right direction and quite often ahead of the rest of society.

The real problem here is we want to focus on training and weapons, not on culture wars. We think the administration has gone around Congress in some cases--the Hyde amendment being one of them. My friends have their lawyers, we have our lawyers. I guess they will go to court and sort that out.

There wasn't any consultation with the Congress, any discussion on this. That was a decision made unilaterally by the administration. I think Congress has every right to be consulted. They don't have money by their own right in the executive branch. They have what we give them for the purposes that are specified by the Congress of the United States. They don't get to just make it up on their own.

I know there was at least some discussion back and forth where people warned: Don't open this door without a discussion and without a green light from Congress. That didn't occur, and so we are in this discussion.

Now, over the course of reaching a bill, I suspect we will find some sort of solution or work it through one way or the other. I hope we do, because I don't think anything is more important, in what I think is a very dangerous world, than equipping, training, and preparing the men and women who protect us all.

On that, we have a lot more common ground than division. Again, I think this was a choice by the administration. It provoked a response by Congress. We will try to work it through

by normal legislative means and see where we end up.

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

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

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

I have great affection and respect for my friend, the ranking member and formerly the chairman of the full Rules Committee.

I will start where I began this debate. Remember, my friends, Democrats didn't finish the appropriations process on their side until December of last year, and Democrats controlled all three parts of government. They had the Senate, the House, and the Presidency, and they didn't get done until December. The year before that, they didn't get done until March of the year after.

I wish the process went easier and smoother as well, but I don't think it goes much differently, regardless of who happens to be in control. I do think that we are trying to make some progress here.

Now, my friends are worried about what is cut. They ought to be worried about what was spent. We are running a $1.7 trillion deficit. That deficit is bigger than the entire discretionary budget of the United States of America. It is not just bigger than the defense budget; it is bigger than everything.

It got a lot worse when my friends controlled the executive branch and both houses of Congress. You did over $3 trillion worth of spending outside the normal appropriations process; $1.9 trillion for an unneeded American Rescue Plan when we were coming out of COVID, roughly $700 billion from the much-misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which even the President now says was misnamed because it really had to do more with climate change. That was money we didn't have, money that fueled inflation that made life worse for every single American.

I don't even get to the knockoffs, like transportation bills that don't pay for themselves. I had voted for every other major transportation agreement in my time here, two of them under President Obama, but they paid for themselves either through gasoline taxes or ticket fees, what have you. Now, we have got a trillion dollars here, but it is not enough. We will just throw another several hundred billion dollars on in debt. We are paying for that now.

I am not going to be critical of my party for trying to push down some of the spending; $1.7 trillion this year. You guys can't find anywhere to cut.

Now you want to talk about defense? I am happy to talk about defense. My dad was a career noncommissioned officer at the height of the Cold War. You know what we spent on defense then? Fifty percent of the Federal budget, 9 percent of the GDP. You know what we spent during the great Reagan buildup? Six percent of the GDP, about a third of the Federal budget. You know what we spend today? About 3 percent of the GDP and about 15 percent of the budget.

Believe me, there has been an explosion of domestic spending over the decades, largely driven by my friends, and it is unsustainable. We cannot stay on the path we are on.

We can argue about this or that. I have a bill I would invite my friend to look at, try and go back and do with Social Security what we did in 1983 on a bipartisan basis. We need to start getting the spending under control. The spending that is driving us out of balance is largely not in the Pentagon. It is largely in entitlement spending, which I would be the first to say that both sides have been reluctant to deal with. Neither of the last two Presidents have been willing. This President actually voted for a Social Security commission that reformed and stabilized it when he was a Senator. Now,

the White House rules these things out. No, we can't talk about it, can't do it. By the way, his predecessor was exactly the same, so Republican and Democrat alike.

I would love to be more restrained in the spending, and I think that is what my colleagues are trying to do, even when I don't always agree with the tactics they use. They are motivated in the right direction, which is to deal with a $1.7 trillion deficit.

We are trying to make some appropriate decisions. Again, we work in the legislative process. I remind my friends, they control two-thirds of it. By the way, the Defense bill last year, which was passed almost exclusively with Democratic votes, the omni, to be fair, actually had a larger increase in the defense budget than my friends pushed, $45 billion--I actually agree with that, by the way--than this year, where we are basically at the President's number.

We can all play this game with numbers and what have you. Let's try to work toward a deal. I think we can get there, but I don't have any illusions it will be easy along the way. I certainly have seen both sides make missteps, in my view, in handling these situations over the years. I hope we don't do that again.

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

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

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

I urge all my colleagues to support the resolution.

Today's rule will make in order the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2024. It will provide full and complete funding for our national defense needs, ensuring that our servicemembers are fairly paid, and supporting the well-being of military families.

It also makes certain that our troops will never face a fair fight by giving them every advantage possible. We make appropriate investments in the development and acquisition of weapons systems needed to preserve and defend freedom around the globe and restrict the Biden administration from forcing progressive ideology on the Armed Forces and circumventing the authority of Congress when it does so.

Bottom line, the bill targets resources to its new core mission, protecting our homeland and security interests and making sure that our forces are the best trained, the best equipped, and the best prepared in the world.

To my friends, it has been an interesting debate, as always. I enjoy exchanging observations with my good friend from New Mexico, and we strayed sometimes off this bill and off this rule.

I do want to mention a couple of things. The rule, I think even my friends would agree, is a pretty robust rule. We are going to have 184 amendments, a very thorough debate, so I look forward to that.

Second, it is lost sometimes, but we actually basically fund the military at the level that the President requested, so those people who think it is over the top probably should have their argument with the White House as opposed to us. Personally, I would have liked to have done more, but we are going to go with the President's number, essentially.

Finally, we do disagree about the manner in which the administration is using the military. We think they are advancing progressive ideology when they ought to be focused on weapons acquisition, training, and warfighting, and we think that ultimately weakens the country.

We live in a very dangerous world right now. I would actually argue we are not spending enough on defense when we look at what is happening in the Western Pacific with China; when we look at what the Russians are doing, the acts they are engaged in, in Ukraine. I want a robust budget, and I want one that we come together on.

In the end, I think we will be able to achieve that, and I look forward to working with my friends to accomplish that objective.

The material previously referred to by Ms. Leger Fernandez is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 680 Offered by Ms. Leger Fernandez of New

Mexico

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 7. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the

House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the

resolution (H. Res. 178) affirming the House of

Representatives' commitment to protect and strengthen Social

Security and Medicare. The resolution shall be considered as

read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on

the resolution and preamble to adoption without intervening

motion or demand for division of the question except one hour

of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and

ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means or

their respective designees.

Sec. 8. Clause 1 (c) of rule XIX sha11 not apply to the

consideration of H. Res. 178.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 583 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) the ranking member of the Rules Committee, 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 in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 583.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule, House Resolution 583, providing for further consideration of H.R. 2670, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, or NDAA, under a structured rule. It makes in

order 80 amendments for consideration on the floor, and it provides for one motion to recommit.

I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the House passed a rule setting the parameters for general debate on H.R. 2670 and making in order 289 amendments. At the time, we made clear that the work of the Rules Committee was not yet finished. There was additional work that was left to be done, additional considerations to be had, and additional member priorities to take into consideration.

After a robust discussion, we reported out the rule that is before us today. Taking up this rule will allow us to advance our work forward and will move H.R. 2670 toward a vote on final passage.

Mr. Speaker, I know some in this House will express frustration with the process. Yes, perhaps it would have been more convenient for us to have done our work more quickly.

As this House is well aware, the NDAA is one of the most critical pieces of legislation the House considers each year. It sets overall policy for the Department of Defense and the armed services and allows Congress to set our defense priorities for the year. Perhaps most importantly, it authorizes spending levels on national defense for the fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker, on a bill that is this critical to the Nation, it is much more important for us to get things right rather than to do things quickly. When dealing with national defense, we have a sacred obligation to give the American people our best efforts. Although this may have taken a bit longer than anyone, including myself, would have liked, I am proud to say that the rule fulfills that obligation.

I like to think of this, Mr. Speaker, as a process where the House has been working its will. Frankly, we will have a pretty spirited debate here, I suspect, but it is worth noting that the underlying bill that came out of the House Armed Services Committee is pretty much intact. In other words, it has been changed very little in the amendment process yesterday, and I would argue it will be changed relatively little by the amendment process today.

The majority of the items that we deal with today are going to shift. These aren't going to be straight partisan debates in many cases. My friend, Mr. McGovern, and I will probably be on the same side when it comes to helping Ukraine in what we think is a very important struggle. We will probably be on different sides when we come to cluster munitions and whether they should or should not be used. Uncharacteristically, I will be on the President's side, and my friend will have a different opinion on that.

I say that just to say that that's how this place is supposed to work. You move back and forth, you pick the right decisions, and at the end of the day, there will be a final product and we will have a straight up or down.

Before anybody gets too elated or too disappointed, I will remind everyone that it is not as if this is the last day. This is a vehicle, if it passes, that we will take into conference, and that will be a conference between a Republican House, a Democratic Senate, and it will involve a Democratic President.

Mr. Speaker, I say all that to say that I suspect the process will continue to change the product as we move along. Again, I wouldn't be too giddy if I won today, and I wouldn't be too disappointed, no matter what your particular issue is, if I lost. I do think it is critically important that the vehicle move and that we push forward and sit down and work with our colleagues on the other side of the Rotunda in the Senate, and work with the President of the United States at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. We need to make sure that we do--for the 63rd consecutive year--what we have done for 62 years, and that is provide for the common defense of the country.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is worth remembering that this is going to be a bipartisan product at the end of the day. There is no way a Republican House, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic President are going to do anything on any issue that is not essentially bipartisan. That is the way the process works.

No matter what is happening at a given moment, I think we are preordained to come to an agreement that broadly reflects compromise.

Mr. Speaker, we have had two very late nights at the Rules Committee, and I thank particularly my friend, the ranking member, and each and every member of that committee for putting in the hours that it took. I thank our staffs on both sides of the aisle who worked really, really hard.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the staff of the House, particularly our overworked stenographers that were staying there late at night to make sure that we got our job done.

Again, I credit my friend, the ranking member, for this. We have had the good fortune to serve together on this committee for a long time. We had a contentious debate last night, but it was always a civil debate and it was always a professional debate.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of the tenor he set for our committee when he was chairman. I am proud of the manner in which he approaches his work each and every day. I am very proud to have the opportunity to work with him in the House.

Again, we will have our differences today--fair enough. I thank my friend for the kind of committee member that he is and, frankly, his commitment to the institution. I say that about each and every member on the Rules Committee on both sides of the aisle, and about their staff and about the staff of the full House that facilitates our ability to work together and produce a product.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy), my very good friend who was there for every minute of the Rules Committee hearings last night and the night before, and a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy), who is another member of the Rules Committee who has been fighting the good fight for the last two nights well past midnight.

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

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

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

I want to go back to a point on this issue of abortion. Quite frankly, we look at this issue very differently. As my friend, Mr. Roy from Texas, said, we see the administration as having directly intervened and changed existing policy.

We have something called the Hyde amendment, which has been passed for years, decades, over and over again, and it prohibits using Federal tax dollars for abortion. Facilitating abortion is exactly what we are talking about here.

Now, was there any consultation with us when the executive branch decided to do that? No, there wasn't.

As my friend from Texas pointed out, there is a pretty big pushback on our side.

We have worked in a bipartisan fashion. That is why that bill came out of committee 58-1. Most of the amendments on this floor in the last couple days have been bipartisan, and we have worked together.

There are issues where we simply don't agree, and this is, at the end of the day, a majoritarian institution.

While my friend talks about the extremist this or the extremist that, if it is an extremist amendment, it won't win the majority.

These amendments that are going to come up here are either going to win or lose. Some of them are going to lose.

Some of the time, my friend and I are actually going to be voting the same way on those amendments. Other times, we will vote differently. We will certainly vote differently at the end of the day when it comes time to vote on the bill.

That is the way the game is played here. To say that some majority is being run by extremists, by definition, that is almost impossible because you can't be the majority on the House floor if it is true.

Again, you can disagree, and I respect the disagreement, but the initiator, particularly in the case of abortion and I would say some of the other culture clashes that we are having on this bill, has been the administration, has been policies that were decided in this administration and sometimes pushed on the military against their own wishes.

Again, it is the executive branch. They get to run the military. They get to do what they want to do. But please, when you get a response from people that genuinely disagree, to say they started it by responding is simply not the case.

Again, I look forward to this debate. I understand that people will have very different opinions. I do remind everybody that 95 percent of this bill is this bill, you know. It was bipartisan. It does deal with the military. Very little of much of the debate has dealt with the military.

I actually sit on the Defense Appropriations Committee. We spend a lot of time talking about what is the right mix of arms? What is going to happen in terms of artillery? What are we doing to update AWACS? I can go on and on. Most of the discussions in the House Armed Services Committee were similar.

Again, we are going to have these differences and let the chips fall where they may. I would suspect whatever product comes off this floor will be the product that the majority of this body chose.

Then we will go, as my friends well know, to sit down with the United States Senate, and they will have a different product, and the President will be part of that discussion because he has to sign the bill.

We are going to have a pretty good tussle here. To think this is the be-all and end-all today I think is a disservice to the process and how it unfolds and how it actually works.

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

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

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

In closing, I urge all my colleagues to support this resolution. Today's rule makes in order 80 amendments reflecting Member priorities on both sides of the aisle.

Although I would have liked to have worked more quickly, on a matter that is so critical as the annual NDAA we owe the American people no less than whatever time is necessary to complete this important task.

I remind the House that the NDAA has been passed into law every year for 62 consecutive years. I am confident that with today's rule, we are well on the way to making it 63.

Mr. Speaker, again, I want to point out and emphasize several important facts that sometimes get lost in the spirited debate.

The first one is that about 95 percent of this bill is exactly what passed out of the House Armed Services Committee 58-1, as my friends have pointed out, and I agree. Most of this bill is extraordinarily bipartisan. Most of the amendments that have come to this floor, 300 yesterday, or 290, roughly, were bipartisan and were accepted no matter who authored them, Democrat or Republican, by either side.

As I said yesterday, this was going to be more contentious today, and that is fine. But to suggest that anything you disagree with that passes is extreme, I think, frankly, you are leaping to a conclusion.

Some of these amendments that my friend points to the most probably won't pass, probably won't make it. Again, there is nothing inappropriate about that. I mean, I have come down here--and I know my friend has--plenty of times and fought for things that we believed in that may have been right or wrong, but we lost or won. What comes out of here will be what a majority of the House decides is appropriate.

Now, as I have said multiple times in the course of the debate, this is a process, not an event. The reality is, we are going to sit down at some point, almost certainly, with the Senate and the President. The Senate is Democratic, and the President is a Democrat. We are going to have a discussion and a debate, and I suspect the product that comes out of that will be different than the one that emerges here. That is okay. It will be different than what the Senate writes, and it will be different than what the President's budget was and what he proposed.

Nobody is going to get everything they want. At the end of the day, everybody is going to have to give and take, and the reality is if we get to a bill, which I think we will because we have for 62 consecutive years, it is going to be a bipartisan compromise.

We can have all the theatrics and all the flailing of arms. That is part of the process, too. At the end of the day, almost all of this bill is bipartisan, and almost all of this bill is supported by the majority of both sides of the aisle. There are individual flash points where we disagree.

I know about getting rolled in debates. I remember my Democratic friends spending $1.9 trillion without a single Republican vote and unleashing the worst inflation we have seen in 40 years. I remember them bringing a bill to this floor called the Inflation Reduction Act that had zero to do with inflation and was everything about green climate. Fair enough. If you want to do that, that is okay. You didn't get a single Republican vote, but you won, and you got it through the Senate and got the President of the United States to sign it.

There are plenty of times that one side has steamrolled the other. There are other times when we negotiate together. Welcome to the House of Representatives and to American politics.

What we are going to deal with today, there will be a lot of sound. There will be a lot of noise.

Most of the bill is bipartisan. It is an extraordinarily good bill. As a matter of fact, lost in the course of this debate is one of the areas where my friends and I do disagree, and I disagree with the bill, and that is that we are coming in at the President's number. This outrageous, terrible bill is going to be at the number the President proposed. I think that number is too low--I really do--but I am going to vote for it because it is still better than last year and better than a CR, and it moves the country in the right direction.

Mr. Speaker, again, I have enjoyed the debate. I always do. I will close by thanking my friend. I mean this with all sincerity. I will end where I began. We have been through a couple of challenging days in the Rules Committee, very long nights. I very much appreciate the professionalism of my friend and his colleagues and my colleagues on my side of the aisle. I very much appreciate the staff that worked very hard on both sides of the aisle and also the wonderful House support staff that we had facilitating our meetings. I thank them all, and I particularly thank my friend.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 582 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), my very good friend and the ranking member of the Committee on Rules, 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 in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 582.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule, House Resolution 582, providing for consideration of H.R. 2670, the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA as we commonly know it, for fiscal year 2024, under a structured rule. It provides for 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services. It provides the Committee on Armed Services with en bloc authority so that the House can expeditiously consider hundreds of Member priorities.

I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the NDAA is one of the most critical pieces of legislation the House considers each year. Congress has a constitutional obligation to provide for the common defense, and this is an obligation I know the House takes very seriously. Each year, the NDAA enables Congress to set appropriate defense policies, to provide guidance and direction to the armed forces, and above all, to set authorization levels for defense funding. Collectively, these efforts provide our warfighters with the training, equipment, and strategy necessary to meet any challenge around the globe.

Congress has enacted the NDAA every year for the last 62 years. While we have a long road ahead of us, I am confident that we will do so again this year, and I am gratified that the House is moving forward with consideration of this measure on the floor.

Last month, the House Armed Services Committee reported out H.R. 2670 with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 58-1. From a review of the bill, it is easy to see why.

H.R. 2670 authorizes $886 billion for defense programs, an increase of $28 billion. This funding level will ensure our men and women in uniform are equipped for all threats and are prepared and ready to defend freedom all around the globe.

In proposing this funding level, the Armed Services Committee stayed within the parameters of the funding levels set in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Additionally, they identified nearly $40 billion that was repurposed to respond to our current national security needs. This ensures that the tax dollars of hardworking Americans are being used in the most efficient and appropriate way possible.

H.R. 2670 includes a 5.2 percent pay increase for our servicemembers, the largest pay increase in over 20 years. It includes critical policies that will counter aggression from the Chinese Communist Party, advance investments in tools to counter emerging threats, and bolster the reliability of our supply chains. What is more, it includes critical oversight measures designed to ensure that defense dollars are wisely spent.

Mr. Speaker, it doesn't stop there. H.R. 2670 also ensures that the Biden administration cannot continue to put policies ahead of national security. It rejects the Biden administration's efforts to indoctrinate our troops with progressive ideology like critical race theory training, and instead, ensures that the Pentagon's focus is where it should be, on military readiness and preparedness so that our warfighters can defeat aggression and defend freedom anywhere in the world.

In drafting H.R. 2670, the Armed Services Committee followed a robust bipartisan process. They considered 760 amendments during the markup and adopted 731 of them.

In preparing today's rule, the Rules Committee sought to continue this robust, collaborative process. We reviewed over 1,500 amendments, a record number. In keeping with our longstanding tradition at the Rules Committee, we welcomed any Member who wished to come testify about their amendments. Dozens of Members from both parties took part and educated the committee on their proposals for this bill, and, indeed, we would have welcomed dozens more.

In all, today's rule makes in order 290 amendments, reflecting substantive ideas from Members on both sides of the aisle and ensuring that Members will have an opportunity to present their priorities to the House. I look forward to debating these ideas on the floor and to full and fair consideration of these proposals before the entire House.

Mr. Speaker, all in all, H.R. 2670 is a strong bill, and the rule we are considering today is an appropriate one for consideration of such an important measure. I urge the Members to support both the rule and H.R. 2670, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend. As always, he is a thoughtful and reflective speaker, even when we disagree on certain things.

Mr. Speaker, the process in front of us is undoubtedly going to go longer than we originally anticipated. I don't think that is a bad thing. I actually think that is a good thing. I suspect we will, in the end, have more votes on a whole variety of issues than we might have originally had.

Again, I don't think that is a bad thing. That is broadly allowing the House, within the fine parameters, to work its will as we work toward a solution. I think we will ultimately get there.

Mr. Speaker, I would also remind my friend that however a bill changes here, it is going to change again. The NDAA by its very nature is, at the end of the day on final passage, a bipartisan bill. I would just suggest to people to not get too upset or get too worried.

You are going to see the House very vigorously debating a whole variety of issues. That is good for the institution. I think at the end of the day, the House will work its will and we will pass an NDAA bill out of here. At some point we will sit down and conference it with the Senate, and it will come back, and we will have another pretty vigorous debate.

What we are seeing is a pretty robust democracy working its will and a pretty robust House of Representatives working its will.

Mr. Speaker, today will be a bipartisan discussion. Most of the amendments, indeed, have been agreed to by both sides, but they need to be fully aired and debated. We think that is a good thing. I suspect it will be somewhat of a more contentious debate later on in the process, but the process will work out.

At the end of the day, I am confident we will pass an NDAA bill. At the end of the day, I am confident that once the bill is worked through the Senate and signed by the President, it will, as most NDAA bills are, be a bipartisan bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I will state for the record that I certainly have no objection to defending Social Security and Medicare. As a matter of fact, for, I think, six Congresses in a row, I have introduced legislation, which was originally drawn up with my good friend John Delaney, a former Democratic Member, on doing just that, on trying to save Social Security.

What we proposed is what we did back in 1983 that actually worked, that extended the life of Social Security for almost half a century, which would be to actually do a commission and make a set of reasonable reforms. I would put revenue on the table. Personally, I think that has to be part of it. It certainly was then.

Again, my friends haven't been very serious about reforming Social Security, in my view. To be fair, I don't think anybody has been. We have been trying to get people to look at this problem for a long time.

I invite my friend from New York or any of my Democratic colleagues to look at what we have proposed--again, originally with a Democratic cosponsor. It is the only way we are going to get there. It is going to have to be a bipartisan sort of deal.

That is what Ronald Reagan, Tip O'Neill, and Howard Baker did back in that timeframe. We should do the same thing.

To say we are not interested in Medicare and Social Security is simply wrong. Again, I am the last guy probably to say that to because I have consistently put out a proposal to try and move forward in that regard.

I will say this. In 1983, when they saved it, we were within 2 months of it going broke--not going broke but having to make the cuts that you make to adjust your outflow to the revenue coming in. We have 10 years. We ought to take care of that.

Unfortunately, nobody or not enough people seem to be interested. That includes the President of the United States, who, back in 1983, actually voted for that commission to be created and then voted to accept its recommendations. The current White House says it doesn't want to do any commissions and politicizes the issue.

I see this on both sides of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, where people tell us they want to protect Social Security. If you want to protect it, Mr. Speaker, then you have to legislate on it because it is steadily becoming less solvent over the years.

Also, to my friend from New York's remark about the focus on military spending, I just would point out to the House that the total budget in the NDAA that is proposed this year is actually the one the President recommended. Personally, I think it is too low. I would have gone higher. I will be the first to tell you that, Mr. Speaker.

The number that the committee chose is the President's number. So, for those of my friends who are critical of how much is being spent, I would suggest you direct your concerns to the White House because the Appropriations Committee took the President's recommended number.

Again, if my colleagues think we are misfocused, my friend's first argument is with the President of the United States and not with your colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his thoughtful remarks and helpful suggestions, and I will point out a couple of things quickly in response.

The House Armed Services Committee has actually done a good job on doing what my friend wants to do. They have repurposed over $40 billion in the bill and redirected it more efficiently.

This has been a bipartisan, collaborative process between Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith, who, frankly, have worked quite well together whether one was in the majority or the minority.

I think, as an alum of this distinguished committee that I once served on, it is actually doing a pretty good job of trying to find the savings that I know my friend sincerely wants to find and redirect.

I wouldn't say I disagree, but I would put some things in perspective when we talk about spending. I have been around this stuff for a long time. My dad was a career military guy at the height of the Cold War. At the height of the Cold War, the United States spent 50 percent of its entire budget on defense and spent almost 9 percent of its gross national product because it thought that was what the threat was.

Then, as the Cold War waned, we came down a little bit. We had the great Reagan defense buildup. At that point, defense was about one- third of the total Federal budget, not half. It had already come down, and it was about 6 percent of the gross national product. Currently, it is less than 4 percent, around 3.5, 3.7 percent. I would say that is probably too low. It is only 15 percent of the entire budget.

What has driven spending around here--and we all know it--is really not the discretionary budget. It is the entitlement budget. It is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. That is about 60 percent of all Federal spending. Throw in interest on the debt and the Federal retirement system, and we are around 70, 71, 72 percent.

So, I am all for saving money, and there is certainly money to be saved in defense. If Congress wants to get serious about this, then let's talk about where the money is and sit down in a bipartisan way, maybe in the framework that our former colleague Mr. Delaney and I offered, and get serious about it. This is not where we spend most of the country's money, and frankly, this is an area where we are underspending.

Again, for my friends who are concerned--and efficiency suggestions are always welcomed--the number we have is the President's number. If we are overspending here, then it is probably good for my friends to have a conversation with the President of the United States because, honestly, our colleagues in the majority would prefer, for the most part, to be at a higher number. I know that is true for Chairman Rogers, and I suspect it is true for the majority of the committee's Republican members.

Again, concerns about spending are always appropriate. There is waste in

every part of government, including defense, but I would tell you, Mr. Speaker, broadly speaking, the country certainly is not overspending on defense in this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and I am prepared to close.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would thank my friend, as always, for a thoughtful and robust debate. We covered a lot of ground. A lot of it didn't have a lot to do with defense. We talked about Social Security for a while, and I am delighted to see my friends are worried about the state of the Republican majority. I think it will do fine.

While the process as always in Congress can look from the outside as chaotic or sometimes contradictory, the rally is we tend to work towards things, and we have gotten this bill done for 62 years in a row for a reason. It didn't matter who was the majority and who was the minority or what the administration was. I suspect the same thing is going to happen again this time.

Along the course of that, we will have a robust debate. Today, we will mostly be talking about things we agree on, as we know, and that is a good thing.

There will be things that we disagree on, and that is fine, too. I will remind my friends on my side of the aisle that winning here isn't necessarily winning. It just gets you to the next stage of the contest.

The Senate will be moving on its version of the NDAA. We will sit down in conference, and then we will see what the real final product is. Some of the things that we are watching today, to me, again, are just the normal process and policy working out.

Mr. Speaker, I would also in closing, urge my colleagues to support this resolution. H.R. 2670, the NDAA for fiscal year 2024 is a strong, strong bill. It fulfills Congress' constitutional responsibility to provide for the common defense while also ensuring that we are carefully and wisely spending the American people's hard-earned tax dollars.

It will set appropriate policies for the Armed Services to ensure our warfighters have the equipment, the training, and the resources they need to confront aggression anywhere around the world at any time.

It requires the Pentagon to maintain a laser focus on readiness, and it ensures appropriate oversight of our investments both at home and abroad.

Mr. Speaker, this is unfortunately a dangerous time in the world. American adversaries are on the march, threatening global stability and territorial integrity of our friends and our allies.

These threats range from Russia's invasion of Ukraine to communist China's continued pressure on Taiwan and our Pacific allies to Iran's quest for nuclear weapons and to North Korea's

continued testing of intercontinental missiles.

The United States does not seek armed conflict, but we will be prepared to meet it should it seek us out.

I would remind this House of the words of Ronald Reagan. `` . . . peace is the condition under which mankind was meant to flourish. Yet peace does not exist of its own will. It depends on us, on our courage to build it and guard it and pass it on to future generations.''

In taking up H.R. 2670, we are continuing that tradition. We are continuing to build our Armed Forces to meet and confront any foe at any time anywhere in the world, and it is my hope that in doing so, we will be building a military that is strong enough to deter aggression.

We will, as people have committed throughout our history, achieve peace through strength.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Cole

Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the resolution, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I was unavoidably detained during the recorded vote on H.R. 1548. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 290.