Legislative Program

Floor Speech

(Mr. McCARTHY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.

I did not see or hear ``the budget for this coming year.'' I know the Committee on the Budget marked up the budget yesterday. As I understand it, they completed their work, and they have reported a budget. I do not see it on the calendar for next week, which means that the earliest we could consider a budget would be April.

Speaker Ryan, as the majority leader knows so well, indicated we are going to pursue regular order, which would be the adoption of a budget, the establishment of a 302(a) allocation, which means the overall expenditure level for discretionary spending, and then the markup and consideration in this House of the 12 appropriation bills.

It would appear, if we are not going to do it next week, could we expect to see the budget on the floor, Mr. Leader, in April?

I yield to my friend.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for that information.

As the gentleman probably recalls, back in January Majority Whip Scalise was quoted as saying: ``We will forge ahead with spending bills and other initiatives in the coming year.'' He implied that the House would start early on its appropriation bills.

Now, I can remember, as a long-time member of the Committee on Appropriations, that early for us was early May for actual appropriation bills to be on the floor. In December, Speaker Ryan stated: ``By having this budget agreement that my predecessor put in place, we no longer have a dispute over the sequester.''

Now, it is my understanding, Mr. Leader, that the budget that is being proposed is inconsistent with and does not carry out the agreement that was made between the Speaker and our leader and on which the House voted, a significant majority of the House voted to pass a budget deal. It is my understanding this budget does not carry it out.

After saying: Let's set aside the dispute over the sequester, the Speaker went on to say: ``By getting the slate cleaned now''--Mr. Leader, this was December 22 that the Speaker said this. ``By getting the slate cleaned now''--which meant this argument over sequester, which of course your chairman of the Committee on Appropriations has said is unreasonable and unworkable, in effect, and ``ill-advised'' was the word that he specifically used.

The Speaker said: ``By getting the slate cleaned''--by making that deal--``by getting this behind us, we can start our appropriations process early next year''--now, we are beyond early next year, of course--``and do it the right way, individual bills, all 12 bills, open up the process . . . do it the way the Founders intended in the first place.''

My question to you is, Mr. Leader, do you expect that we will start considering appropriation bills on or before the end of April? Does the majority leader contemplate the consideration of all 12 appropriation bills, as the Speaker indicated he wanted to do, with full consideration open to amendment prior to the July adjournment, for essentially 6 weeks, coming back in September?

I yield to my friend.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time just for a second, it always gives me great pleasure to bring a smile to your face, Mr. Leader.

I yield to the gentleman.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. I will wish you happy St. Patrick's Day, and I congratulate Kelly on that beautiful green blouse she is wearing.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman's comments and observations.

He and I, frankly, have a factual disagreement on whether or not the budget that was reported out does, in fact, reflect the agreement. Technically, he may be accurate.

But, of course, the problem with this budget taking so long to present--which I know the majority leader and the Speaker were hopeful it would have been done either in very late February or very early of this month--clearly, the disagreement, as everybody knows, is that so many of your caucus did not want to abide by the agreement that the three leaders of their party voted for back in December. And we understand there are additional actions going on to placate those on your side of the aisle who don't want to follow the agreement; and, in fact, they are looking for cuts beyond to return to sequester. That is why I referred to the sequester in my opening remarks, although the Speaker said we have gotten beyond that argument. Well, obviously, we haven't gotten beyond that argument. And that is, obviously, why your budget has been delayed and why we are not considering it before we leave here for the Easter break and, therefore, will not consider the budget in March.

So I understand that we have a different perspective perhaps--not a disagreement necessarily, but a different perspective on what the budget process is presenting.

If I can go on, Mr. Leader, let me ask you this. Very frankly, we are concerned about adjourning next week. We are very concerned, Mr. Leader, that we have a brief week. Essentially, in the 2 weeks that we have been here--this week and next--we are going to be meeting 3 full days. We come in at 6:30 on one day. We will leave early today. We will leave early on Wednesday of next week.

We have three crises confronting Americans, and we ought to be dealing with those, Mr. Leader. We would urge that we not adjourn next Wednesday. We would urge that we meet Thursday. Friday, of course, is Good Friday; and Sunday is Easter. Those are very serious holidays for an overwhelming number of us, and we ought to observe those.

But in the spirit of that holiday--of Good Friday and of Easter--we ought to at least sacrifice some of our time in the week following that to address these three crises.

Mr. Leader, I just had the opportunity to meet with a young man, who is in the eighth grade, and his brother, who is in the sixth grade. They are from Flint, Michigan. They have to pay for the water that they drink at school because the water at school is unsafe for them to drink.

Now, the administration has dealt with that, partially. Those of us who have been to Flint, Michigan, have seen a lot of people on the ground--from Health and Human Services to the CDC to the Health Department, from a lot of agencies of the Federal Government there to help. We should be acting on giving some direct help to Flint, Michigan, and assisting.

It is, I think, unfathomable why the State of Michigan that caused this problem by shifting the water supply from Lake Huron through Detroit to the city of Flint--controlled by a receiver, appointed by the Governor, not the mayor or council of Flint, Michigan. It is unimaginable to me that we would be charging children for water that they ought to be supplied, as almost every school in America does.

So, we ought to be dealing with Flint.

Secondly, Mr. Leader, we have a crisis for a large number of Americans. Both of these crises are somewhat related but are separate and distinct issues we ought to be dealing with, and you and I have had the opportunity to discuss them. I appreciate your leadership and concern.

You and I convened a joint meeting with the Department of Health and Human Services; with the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; NIAID and NIH's Tony Fauci; Secretary Burwell; and Dr. Frieden were there talking to us about Zika.

Zika is a health crisis for America and for Americans, and we ought to be dealing with that. We ought to be dealing with it by giving to the administration the resources it needs to respond to this to make sure that America's health is safe and to make sure that the Americans who are living in Puerto Rico have the resources to deal with the eradication of the mosquito that transmits this disease and is a threat to health generally, but particularly the health, as the gentleman knows, of pregnant women or women who may become pregnant.

So Flint and Zika.

Lastly, I would mention that we ought to be dealing with the crisis that confronts Americans in Puerto Rico who are going to be unable to pay their bills. On May 1, they will have another large indebtedness due.

We have been considering for many months now the authorization for Puerto Rico to be able to declare bankruptcy so that it can, in a reasonable, ordered fashion, settle that which they owe in a way that they can accomplish.

All three of these issues, Mr. Leader, we believe are critically important for us to address now. They have been pending for months-- some for as long as a year, in terms of Puerto Rico's prospective bankruptcy.

I would ask the leader if he would consider coming back after Easter and doing the work that we ought to be doing to meet these three crises. I believe if we did so, the American people would say that we are a responsible body doing the work that needs to be done.

Frankly, Mr. Leader, over the last 3 weeks, we have done things that could have mostly been done under suspension. We are filling time. We need to fill that time with policies addressing the crises that confront us.

I yield to my friend.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments.

I want everybody to know that he is correct. He came to me to work in a bipartisan fashion. In fact, we have come to one another at various times to work in a bipartisan fashion. And I am pleased to work with the majority leader.

I think the majority leader--as I have said with him not present and I will say it here today--is someone with whom I can work, have worked, and expect to work. I think he is honest and straightforward when he makes his representations to me, Mr. Speaker, so I want to thank him for that.

But I want to reference all three of the issues that you just discussed. I am going to go in the opposite direction you went. The gentleman started out with the EPA. I am going to start out with the budget.

As the gentleman I am sure knows, there is a $1.5 trillion asterisk in this budget: savings to be determined at some time in the future. Hooray. What courage.

What I am saying about the budget is we had a deal. We agreed, in a bipartisan fashion, an agreement that you and I both voted for.

Mr. Speaker, we both voted for it. It wasn't what either of us probably wanted, Mr. Speaker, but it was an agreement. It was compromise. It was how this body should and does work.

And the problem is we have had such great difficulty saying we are going to implement that agreement, notwithstanding what Speaker Ryan said just a few months ago.

So from the budget standpoint, A, I don't share the gentleman's optimistic view, Mr. Speaker, that it is balanced. It is easy to put an asterisk in there and say we are going to get $1.5 trillion somewhere, somehow, from someplace. It is much more difficult to say where you are going to get it. And what the American people have seen is that asterisk is never realized.

So he and I disagree on the fact that, A, we haven't worked in a bipartisan fashion. We did. It was very tough. The Speaker, you, Mr. Scalise, Leader Pelosi, and I, all five of us voted for an agreement.

Very frankly, it is our perception, Mr. Speaker, that the Leader's side of the aisle has not been able to carry out their agreement because of internal divisions within your party. Frankly, that is reported on. It seems to be self-evident, and that is our view. Our view is we had a number agreed upon.

It is not about spending more money. It is what we agreed to spend, in a bipartisan fashion, that is not being adhered to.

Secondly, when the gentleman says there is money somewhere, of course there is money somewhere, but it is not a zero sum game. Somebody will be disadvantaged and hurt and left behind if we take money from the program that this Congress appropriated to be spent on Ebola.

The gentleman came to me, we did have a bipartisan meeting, which I have referred to and the gentleman has referred to. Tony Fauci was there, Secretary Burwell was there, Dr. Frieden was there from the Centers for Disease Control.

All of them said that the suggestion that we take money from Ebola and put it towards Zika would harm the effort to ensure that Ebola does not come back to our shores and, in fact, is controlled overseas as well, because if it is overseas, it will ultimately come on shore here in America; so that they have asked for the resources to deal with Zika now. The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be.

I agree with the gentleman entirely, that we are finding out new things as each day goes by, as each week goes by. But the fact of the matter is we need to give them the assurance that they will have the resources to deploy the kind of effort that we need to make sure that Zika does not become an epidemic here in this country, in Puerto Rico, in the Virgin Islands, and in other places in the world.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, it is, to me, very ironic. I have heard this year, in years past, EPA, get out of our lives. EPA, stay out of our communities. EPA, we don't need your advice and counsel.

Mr. Speaker, the Governor of Michigan, knowing full well that the water from the Flint River was not the kind of water that we ought to be feeding to our children and to our adults, and refusing to spend the money to treat the pipes so that they would have been lined and the lead from the pipes would not leach into the water and adversely affect the health of the children of Flint, nevertheless, went ahead.

In January of last year, the EPA advised the Governor of Michigan and the Department of Environmental Quality in Michigan, you are getting lead in your water. It is dangerous. January 15, 2015.

Notwithstanding that advice, the Receiver, appointed by the Governor of Flint--the mayor wasn't in charge, the city council wasn't in charge. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, appointed by a Republican Governor, kept feeding the water to the people of Flint. And we have now determined that EPA kept after them after January 15, and their advice was ignored and, in fact, said, look, we have got it. We can handle this. We have experts.

Frankly, a professor from Virginia Tech started testing the children and found that, tragically, the lead levels in the blood of the children of Flint were going up to dangerous and harmful levels.

So, Mr. Leader, very frankly, your party has made it very clear repeatedly on the bills that you have brought to the floor, you don't want EPA involved. I don't mean you personally. Let me make that clear, Mr. Speaker.

But the votes on this floor have been to reduce EPA's authority, to reduce their involvement, to reduce reliance on EPA's wisdom on behalf of the health and environment of our country.

So then on all three of those issues, Mr. Speaker, let me say something in conclusion.

I know it is Holy Week. And what Holy Week teaches us is that we need to care for one another; that we need to make sure, Mr. Speaker, when there are those in trouble and at risk, that we act. If that is not what Holy Week is about, I don't know what it is about.

We ought to be about the business of responding, Mr. Speaker, to these three crises. Now, we don't have to do it on a Saturday, and I agree with my friend, the majority leader.

We say that all the time, ``my friend,'' but Kevin McCarthy is my friend, Mr. Speaker. I have great respect for him. He is hardworking, he is honest, and he cares about our country. Let there be no mistake.

But what I am trying to do, Mr. Speaker, is simply to elevate a sense of urgency to respond to two emergencies that confront Americans; and that we, therefore, have a responsibility to act, act promptly, decisively, and effectively. I am urging that we do that, and I am urging that we not waste time in accomplishing that objective.

I am through, unless the majority leader would like to respond further. I yield to my friend.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. I appreciate his wishes of good luck, and I hope they result in many Maryland victories. I appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, obviously, we don't have a difference on objectives. And yes, the gentleman from Wisconsin did walk across yesterday, yesterday.

The Puerto Rican bankruptcy challenge has been confronting us for more than two-thirds of a year. This is not something new. Zika is new, but Puerto Rico's bankruptcy challenge is not new.

So I am simply saying, Mr. Speaker, that these are matters of urgency, of crisis, and we believe that we ought to work on those. We believe working together, as the majority leader said, we can get that done, and we would hope that we would do so.

Unless the majority leader wants to say something further, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source