Providing for Consideration of H.R. Require Evaluation Before Implementing Executive Wishlists Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Empowering Employees Through Stock Ownership Act; and Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules

Floor Speech

I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

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

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the House is scheduled to be in session for 7 days before yet another 6-week-long recess. Instead of addressing the most pressing issues facing our communities, we are on this floor with yet another Republican messaging bill to undermine the Federal rulemaking process.

With all that needs to be done, with all the crises we are facing, this is what they bring to the floor--a bill, by the way, that is not going anywhere. It is going nowhere. The President is going to send up a veto message. The Senate is not even going to take it up.

So what we are spending our time doing, what we are spinning our wheels about right now is something that, basically, I guess my friends can use in a press release, but this is not real legislating. And I get it. Attacking Federal regulations has become a favorite sound bite for my friends on the other side of the aisle. They are always quick to remind us of the costs associated with these regulations, but completely dismiss the very real and typically much larger benefits of protecting consumers, the environment, public health, and safety.

I am against duplicative regulation. I am against warrantless regulation or needless regulation. It would be nice if we could actually function in a bipartisan way to identify where we have common ground and where there is agreement so that we can make some progress, but that is not the MO of the Republican leadership in this House. It is their way or the highway.

H.R. 3438 automatically freezes any covered rule when any lawsuit is filed, regardless of how frivolous that lawsuit may be, instead of relying on the discretion and expertise of the courts.

Now, let's be honest with ourselves, Mr. Speaker. This isn't about good governance and it isn't about ensuring high-impact regulations pass legal muster. This is yet another election year giveaway to Republican special interests, and it is that time of year--lots of fundraisers, lots of political activity. People go home and say they voted for this bill that is going nowhere. Therefore, vote for them.

This is just yet another Republican effort to indefinitely delay regulations that they don't like--regulations that protect consumers, regulations that protect public health and that protect our environment.

In fact, one of the most troubling aspects of this bill is that it fails to include any exceptions for rules responding to public health emergencies.

Can you believe that?

I am disappointed that the Republicans in the Judiciary Committee rejected Democratic amendments to the bill that would have ensured lawsuits could not tie up responses to public health emergencies.

Why would anybody be against that?

This is especially troubling as we face major health crises, like the Zika virus, and rely on our government to protect our public health. We should be doing everything in our power to find a solution to this terrible emergency, not passing legislation that can make finding that solution even harder.

I strongly oppose this misguided and unnecessary legislation, which does nothing to promote an efficient regulatory process, but delays regulations needed to protect our public health and safety.

This week the House is also set to consider H.R. 5719, the Empowering Employees through Stock Ownership Act. By allowing rank-and-file employees of private companies to defer payments on their stock options for 7 years, this bill makes it easier for these employees--often lower-income earners--to receive equity as part of their compensation.

Our economy is recovering, but not for everyone. More and more wealth is becoming concentrated in the top 1 percent and income inequality is at its highest levels since the Great Depression. Meanwhile, working families struggle to make ends meet, often needing several jobs just to get by.

So I support efforts to allow rank-and-file employees to truly share in the long-term success of their companies and our greater innovation economy. I think the majority of us share in that belief. But I do share the concerns that have been expressed by my Democratic colleagues during the Ways and Means Committee markup and in the Rules Committee last night that this bill isn't paid for and adds $1.03 billion to the deficit. This bill not being paid for adds over a billion dollars to our deficit.

The Republican leadership in this House routinely refuses to bring up funding legislation that adequately addresses public health crises. They demand offsets anytime there is an emergency. When it comes to increases in our social safety net, we can't do it because we have to find offsets. But when it comes to tax breaks, there are no limits. They don't require offsets.

Just last week this House passed an unpaid-for tax cut that, if enacted, would add almost $33 billion to the deficit. The Ways and Means Committee has marked up nearly $54 billion worth of unpaid-for tax cuts just this year.

There was a time when caring about the deficit and the debt was something my Republican friends would talk about, but I guess that is no longer the case. So when my Republican friends talk about their commitment to fiscal responsibility, I have to ask: Why the double standard?

We can't help the people of Flint, Michigan, but we can pass tax breaks and tax cuts and not have to pay for them. By the way, the vast majority of tax cuts that my Republican friends support go to the wealthiest people in this country, not to the middle class.

We are told we have to fully offset emergency responses, as I said, to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan; the opioid epidemic; flooding disasters; and the growing threat of the Zika virus, but yet we don't have to pay for tax cuts. I just don't quite get it.

Last night, in the Rules Committee, my friends and colleagues, Joe Crowley and Anna Eshoo, Democratic cosponsors of this bill, offered an amendment to offset the over $1 billion cost by increasing a tax on oil barrels by two cents. That is just two cents that they would increase the cost. But what is important for people to remember is that what that means for the consumer is five one-thousandths of a penny on a gallon of gas.

So in order to offset something that we think is a good benefit, and to pay for it, it would cost consumers five one-thousandths of a penny on a gallon of gas. Most people that I talk to I don't believe think that that is an unreasonable thing, the choice between adding to the deficit, which, by the way, we all pay for anyway, or basically paying for things as we go. And so five one-thousandths of a penny on a gallon of gas, in order to offset the cost of this bill, I don't think, is unreasonable.

Now, this amendment was not made in order for consideration on the House floor because my Republican colleagues insisted that the offset was not germane to the bill.

But the House Rules Committee has the power to waive germaneness and other rules, and frequently does so, when it suits the needs of the majority. And during this Congress alone, Republicans on the Rules Committee have granted 245 waivers; 242, or 98 percent of them, have been for Republican initiatives. So they do it all the time when they want to.

So, Mr. Speaker, we had the ability to move the Crowley-Eshoo amendment to the floor for consideration, but Republicans in the Rules Committee blocked our efforts to responsibly pay for the costs associated with this change in tax law.

Now, I appreciate the work of my colleagues in promoting employee ownership among all of a company's workers, not just those at the top. But I do have some serious concerns about this majority's insistence that emergency relief and other priorities be offset while tax cuts are able to sail through this House without a second thought and not be paid for. That is the wrong approach.

I am going to urge my colleagues to vote to defeat the previous question, vote ``no'' on the previous question. And if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up the bipartisan no fly, no buy legislation that would allow the Attorney General to bar the sale of firearms and explosives to those on the FBI's terrorist watch list.

Mr. Speaker, the time to act is now. There have been more than 10,000 gun-related deaths in this country this year alone. The country cannot tolerate the indifference on this issue any longer.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, we have only a few days left here before there is another recess, and we have incredible challenges before us. We have an opioid crisis in this country. We passed legislation that said all the right things, but the funding to fund all those nice things wasn't following.

We are confronted with a Zika virus crisis, and the American people are expecting us to do something, and this House has been twiddling its thumbs for far too long. The time for action is now.

We have a water crisis in Flint, Michigan; can't seem to get anything done in this House. Yet, those poor people can't drink the water out of their faucets and have been poisoned for years as a result of the indifference on that situation.

On the issue of gun violence, I mean, every day somebody gets killed in gun violence. We have tried to bring up a bill that would require universal background checks. I don't care what your position on guns is, I think we all should be able to agree that there ought to be universal background checks.

Right now, if you go into a licensed gun dealer, you have to go through a background check. But you get around that if you go to a gun show or buy a gun online.

I think everybody, I don't care what your philosophy is, should want to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals and people who are dangerously mentally ill. I don't know why that is such a controversy in this House of Representatives. Yet, we can't even get the leadership to allow us to bring that bill to the floor.

On the issue that the previous question is about, which is the no fly, no buy list, I don't think there is anybody in this country who can understand why we think it is okay to, on one hand, say to somebody who is on an FBI terrorist watch list: we are concerned about you so much that you can't fly on an airplane. But, at the same time, say: well, okay, but you can go out and buy a gun; you can buy an assault weapon; and you can go out and buy a weapon of war.

That doesn't make any sense. People can't quite get why we can't come together on that. But even if you don't want to vote for that, you ought to let us have that debate and that vote.

These are the kinds of issues that we should be talking about. Yet, we are doing message bills that are going nowhere, again, not just because the President wants to veto them, it is because the Senate won't even take some of these things up.

So in these few days we have left, let's do something radical. Let's actually do the people's business. Let's do something that is going to help people in this country and improve their quality of life and protect them.

Mr. Speaker, again, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and a ``no'' vote on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

A recorded vote was ordered.

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