Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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I want to speak to two things that are not on the schedule, Mr. Leader, but I know that both of us are focused on this and realize that we need to move and we need to move quickly. First of all, I want to speak of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

The leader and I, Mr. Speaker, were scheduled to try to go to Key West and to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands this weekend. I am not sure that that is going to be able to happen, given some of the logistics on the ground, but whether that happens or not, Mr. Speaker, I know the leader and I are going to work very hard on this.

There is a humanitarian crisis that has confronted Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Key West, at least you can drive to Key West still, and we can get relief to Key West and to Florida and to victims of Harvey. Obviously, our fellow Americans who are residents of two islands, or actually more than two islands, but that comprise Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, are in life-threatening distress.

I talked today to Dr. Price, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, about the availability of dialysis on the island. There are people who have already died because they were not able to get to dialysis centers, and those centers don't have all the electricity they need, so there is a humanitarian crisis, as I pointed out, Mr. Speaker, and I know the leader appreciates this.

Mr. Leader, I know we don't have anything on the floor with reference to additional resources that might be and are necessary to meet this humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, but I would urge the majority leader, as I have done and I think he has done, to be in contact with the administration, be in contact with FEMA.

In particular, I was pleased to see that General Kim has now been appointed, as General Honore was for New Orleans and Katrina, to coordinate activities. We have extraordinary resources in the Armed Forces of the United States, and I would urge the President, as Commander in Chief, and the Department of Defense to allocate every resource necessary to get the American people who live in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to a point where communications, the availability of food, the availability of water, the availability of medical services are up and running, hopefully, full bore by the end of this weekend. This is a crisis.

And I know the majority leader shares that view, and if he wants to make a comment on that, I yield to the gentleman from California.

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

Clearly, this is not a partisan issue when an American or a group of Americans or a large number--in this case, over 3.5 million people, all of them at dire risk. We want to act together, we want to act quickly, and we do not want to fail to deploy any resource that is necessary to help our fellow Americans.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring up an act, which although not the crisis that Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, in particular, confront us with, as did Harvey and Irma in Texas and in Florida, but, Mr. Speaker, I notice that the Dream Act is not a part of next week's schedule.

The leader and I have discussed the Dream Act, along with Speaker Ryan. I know that the President has said, if we pass the Dream Act, he has said publicly that he would sign the Dream Act. He is obviously concerned with security at the borders. We share that concern about security at the borders. But this is an item that, now, one-sixth of the time that was available has run, and we have 5 months left to go.

I will tell the majority leader that I am very hopeful. I know the majority leader and the Speaker have formed some task forces to look at this issue, but I am very hopeful, Mr. Speaker--and I ask the majority leader to perhaps comment on this--that before the end of this work period--there are another 14 days left after this week in this work period--that we might be able to bring the Dream Act to the floor.

A discharge petition has been filed. I would hope that the discharge petition not be necessary for either the rule or for the Dream Act itself. The discharge petition on the Dream Act itself will be mature as of October 5, and I expect a discharge petition to be filed on that, as well. But I am hopeful, Mr. Speaker, that that will not be necessary.

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Given the fact that the President has said that he thinks DACA was issued beyond the authority of President Obama, we disagree with that conclusion. But whether that conclusion is correct or not, the President observed that we need to fix this legislatively.

So my question to the majority leader is: How soon does he believe that we could address this issue in regular order?

We continue to pursue a discharge petition, as we did, frankly, for the Ex-Im Bank, which, when it was called to the floor, had over 300 votes in favor of it, including the majority of the majority party voted for that bill.
We believe, Mr. Speaker, strongly, that if the Dream Act is brought to the floor, which over 8 in 10 Americans agree with, frankly, we believe large numbers on both sides of the aisle agree that these young people are not to be sent home.

Lastly, let me just quote Senator Orrin Hatch, who is a senior Member in the United States Senate and the chairman of the Finance Committee.

He said: ``I've urged the President not to rescind DACA. . . .'' He did, and gave us 6 months to solve this, legislatively.
Senator Hatch observed that if DACA were rescinded, it would be ``an action that would further complicate a system in serious need of a permanent, legislative solution.''

He was referring then, Mr. Speaker, to a comprehensive immigration reform.

``Like the President, I've long advocated for tougher enforcement of our existing immigration laws. But we also need a workable, permanent solution for individuals who entered our country unlawfully as children through no fault of their own and who have built their lives here. That solution must come from Congress.''
And I agree that that decision must come from Congress.

Rush Limbaugh said--and I don't usually agree with statements that Mr. Limbaugh makes: ``Nobody's gonna win anything by deporting a bunch of kids that we let in, whoever did, Obama, whatever. If we can get the strict enforcement of existing immigration law . . . then the DREAMer thing may be an acceptable payoff,'' he went on to say.

I don't think this is a payoff. This is responding. And that is why the overwhelming majority of the American people support the Dream Act.

As I say, over 8 out of 10 Americans.
So I ask the majority--and I know that was a relatively long statement. This is a critical issue, however, as I have expressed in private to the majority leader, because we have but 5 months left to go.
Hopefully, we could do this in this work period to allay the fears that these young people have, who are making such a positive contribution to America, to their communities, and to their families.
So I am hopeful that we could resolve this issue as soon as possible.
I yield to my friend, the majority leader.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I welcome the majority leader's thought that he wants to do it sooner rather than later. I will support him, of course, in that effort.

I would say on his comment, Mr. Speaker, with reference to a comprehensive solution, we are for a comprehensive solution. We would like to see that because that is the only way we will stop this from coming back.

The Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill 3 years ago. We have not seen that on the floor as of yet. Again, we think that that would have a substantial vote and, perhaps, I think, a majority vote. I am not as confident of that as I am with the Dream Act, which I think clearly would enjoy the majority of the House's support.

But I am glad that he wants to move this quickly. We will work with him to get that, I would hope, as I said, by the end of the work period, to allay the great fears and anxiety.

Very frankly, we have had some young people thinking of going back to a land they do not know, a language they do not necessarily speak, and a culture they have, as adults, never been exposed to and don't know.
This, for all intents and purposes, in anything other than having the paper that says so, is their country. They have gone to school here, they work here, and they have been positive citizens here. And, hopefully--as the President said, he loved these children--we could relieve their fears and, in effect, redeem the American Dream for them.

There are other issues, obviously, with which we have to deal, and I would urge the majority leader, as well, at some point in time, to make a path forward for comprehensive immigration reform, because it is a system we all agree is broken and needs to be fixed and is part of the problem.

Two more issues, Mr. Speaker. The majority leader mentioned the budget would be coming to the floor. This is the 2018 budget. This is obviously late, but, nevertheless, it is being brought to the floor, and we will be able to consider it.

Can the gentleman tell me: Will this include reconciliation instructions and, if so, what those reconciliation instructions will deal with?
I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Leader, will it assume the repeal of the ACA in fiscal
year '17 or fiscal year '18, either one of those years, which clearly has not seemed possible at this point in time?
I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader for that observation.

Obviously, we disagree, as he knows, on the success or failure of the ACA. As a matter of fact, every health organization in America, every major health organization in America opposed the repeal, a bill that came to the floor.

Senator McCain, I thought, gave a very powerful exhortation to all of us when he said, on July 25, we ought to do this in a bipartisan way.

We found, now, three efforts to repeal by the majority party, who control all three--the Senate, the House, and the Presidency--an inability to do that.

Mr. Speaker, I believe--and I would hope the majority leader would pursue efforts, and we would do the same on our side. We believe the ACA has been working.

We believe that 20-plus million more people are insured under the ACA
than were insured before the ACA.

We believe people with preexisting conditions were able to get insurance. We believe seniors saved substantial money in purchasing prescription drugs as a result of that.

We believe that people did not have--we know they did not have the specter of being canceled because their expenses in any one year were above a limit and that their lifetime limits

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would not be imposed when they get a serious critical illness.

So we think it worked.
The majority has tried to repeal it. They have not succeeded at this point in time, but they have created, Mr. Speaker, great anxiety and uncertainty in the marketplace.

And to the extent, for instance, that premiums have risen in our State, the head of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the largest insurer in our State, said the reason for at least 50 percent was the uncertainty that had been created by the administration and by the debates that have occurred in this House and the proposals that have occurred in this House, which have undermined the market.

I talked to him the other day, and he said, in fact, if there were stability, he believes rates would come down significantly because insurance companies, providers, would have an opportunity to have a stable environment in which they could assess the cost of health insurance.
Did the majority leader want to say anything? I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, we could go on, I presume, all day, and our friends who want to do a 1-minute or a Special Order would not be happy with us, and they are maybe not happy now, but the fact of the matter is that this is a critically important issue to our country. When he talks about providers, the providers said they didn't like any of these bills.

We have had three opportunities: one that was offered but not put on the floor; then one that came to the floor and passed this House and then went to the Senate, and the majority of the Senate has not agreed with any of the three alternatives; plus the alternative that Senator Graham brought forward along with the Senator from Louisiana.

The majority in the Senate has not agreed, and, Mr. Speaker, what that has done is provided the insurance industry, providers, doctors, medical authorities with total lack of confidence on what is going to happen tomorrow. Nobody in business believes that you can have proper pricing if you do not know the context in which you are pricing your product. So, yes, there has been a disruption.

What we ought to do, as Senator McCain said, is come together and make sure a system works. We believe the ACA is working--not working as well as it should right now, it is not working as much for the small market or people on the exchanges as it should. It can.

Almost every medical provider and the majority of the American people over these last 8 months has changed from not liking the ACA and not thinking it is good for them, to where the majority of the American people now support it, and 7 out of 10-plus want the ACA fixed, not repealed.

So in that context, it seems to me it is both good politics and good policy for us to come together and to create a system that works for the American people. We believe that is by fixing the ACA, and to that extent, we reflect the majority of the American people.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, the last issue I want to bring up are two items that were not included in the FAA bill, but which are important programs. One is the Perkins Loan Program for students. We know that the cost of education has skyrocketed and that we need to extend that act. That bill, by the way, Mr. Speaker, has 226 cosponsors, so it is not as if there is not a majority of the House that already supports that extension.
The second thing that needs to be done: we need to deal with a comprehensive health system in our communities, the Community Health Centers. We need to deal with the teaching hospitals. We need to deal with the disproportionate share of hospitals.

So there are many things that we did not include in the bill that we passed today that need to be addressed and need to be addressed immediately. They are not on the schedule for next week.

Can my friend give me some idea when we might consider those, which, of course, expire on September 30?
So September 30 will come and go before we start next week's schedule.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I appreciate that.
You mentioned SCHIP. Can you refer to the Perkins Loan Program? Does the gentleman know whether that is also moving forward? Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that SCHIP is on the committee's agenda for next week. Hopefully, that can be brought to the floor before we leave in this work period, perhaps just before or just after the Dream Act is brought to the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Margarida Curtis has been a longtime employee of the United States Senate and, as a result, an employee of the people of the United States.

Margarida, you have always done your work with great ability and clarity. We very much appreciate your service to the Senate, but also to this House, to the Congress itself, and to the American people. They are grateful for all you have done. God speed.

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