Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3354, Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018; Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule for consideration of H.R. 3354, the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018, also known as the Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act of 2018. The rule provides for 2 hours of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, the appropriations package in front of us is the second installment of the House's effort to pass all 12 appropriations bills on the floor for the first time since 2006. The overall package will consider the remaining eight bills, covering $416.3 billion in total spending. It represents many months of work by the Appropriations Committee.

Today's rule covers four divisions of the bill: the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act; the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act; the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act; and the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
Together, these four divisions encompass $168.2 billion of discretionary Federal spending. This represents a decrease of $7.8 billion from fiscal year 2017, as Congress seeks to fulfill its obligation to the American people to be fiscally responsible stewards of the taxpayers' hard earned money.

Most importantly, it represents the next step in fulfilling the greatest responsibility we have as legislators: to fund the Federal Government and keep it open each year to provide our constituents the services they deserve while ensuring that we appropriately prioritize where and how to spend taxpayer dollars.

Mr. Speaker, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies division will provide approximately $20 billion in appropriations, a decrease of $870

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million from fiscal year 2017. The division will fund critical programs for farmers and ranchers, which is of critical importance to my home State of Oklahoma.

The bill also supports conservative priorities, including language rolling back regulations that harm businesses, industries, farming and ranching operations, and rural and urban communities alike. In particular, the bill includes language allowing schools to get waivers from particularly problematic Obama administration regulations governing school lunches, and prevents the Commodities Futures Trading Commission from imposing harmful de minimis levels of trading activity that would force thousands of end users to comply with onerous regulatory requirements.

The bill also includes language changing the Food and Drug Administration's predicate date rules for premium cigars, e-cigarettes, and vaping products, thereby preventing the FDA from regulating these industries out of existence.

There is much to like in the Agriculture Appropriations division, and I look forward to considering the bill on the floor.

On the security side of the ledger, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations division provides $44.3 billion, an increase of $1.9 billion over fiscal year 2017. Of importance, the bill provides $7 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an increase of $620 million. These funds will be used to enforce immigration laws and combat illegal immigration, which our constituents have repeatedly told us they oppose.

The bill provides $13.8 billion for Customs and Border Patrol, an increase of $1.6 billion, to ensure the continued security of our border. It also provides $1.6 billion for physical barrier construction on the Southern border, thus fulfilling the first step of one of President Trump's key promises. It provides $10.5 billion for the Coast Guard and supports FEMA's disaster relief fund at $7.3 billion.

As with the earlier security appropriations package the House passed at the end of July, the funds in this division will help ensure America's national security and go a long way towards funding key Member priorities.
The State and Foreign Operations Appropriations division provides $47.4 billion, a decrease of $10 billion from fiscal year 2017. Even with this decrease, the committee has funded key priorities. Security assistance is funded at $8.8 billion, and full funding is provided for battling international organized crime, antiterrorism programs, and combating cybercrime. The bill also fully funds the $3.1 billion Memorandum of Understanding with Israel.

The Appropriations Committee has prioritized programs of importance and de-prioritized programs that are not in the best interests of the United States, such as reducing funding for the U.N. by $939 million, eliminating all funding for UNESCO, and eliminating funding for the Global Climate Change Initiative.

In producing this division, the Appropriations Committee made difficult choices about the Nation's priorities, and made them well, and ensured that taxpayer dollars are going to the most important, critical, and efficient programs.

Finally, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations division provides $56.5 billion, an increase of $1.1 billion over fiscal year 2017. That number does not include $45 billion also authorized to be spent by the highway trust fund for America's highways. Of note, the bill provides $16.6 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration, an increase of $153 million, to maintain and promote air travel and security. This sum includes $1 billion for so-called NextGen for more efficient air traffic control, and $162 million for the contract tower program, a crucial safety net that covers many districts across the country, including facilities like Westheimer Airport in Norman, Oklahoma, as well as towers in Lawton and Ardmore in my own home district.

It provides $38.3 billion in net discretionary funding to Housing and Urban Development. Critically, it sustains Section 8 and Public and Native American housing programs at $27.5 billion. It also includes increases in funding for programs benefiting vulnerable citizens, including $573 million for housing for the elderly, an increase of $70.6 million over fiscal year 2017, and $47 million for housing for Persons with Disabilities, an increase of $800,000 over fiscal year 2017.

In all, T-HUD Appropriations covers important priorities and ensures that our Nation's housing and transportation infrastructure will be adequately funded to meet our needs.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bill. The package before us represents a fulfillment of our most important responsibility as Members of Congress, and provides appropriate funding in four areas: Agriculture; State and Foreign Operations, Homeland Security, and Transportation and Urban Development.

I applaud my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee for their months of work in making this bill a reality, and I cheer their efforts on moving forward to the completion of the fiscal year 2018 appropriations process.
Mr. Speaker, I urge support of the rule and the underlying legislation.

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

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

I want to begin by discussing process with my good friend from Massachusetts, where I think he makes some good points, but I think he fails to recognize the progress that this bill represents.

My good friend knows, because we have the privilege of working together on the Rules Committee, I have thought for many years, frankly, that we needed to get back to regular order. I remind this House the last time we actually operated under it in an appropriations process was in 2006. My friends were actually in the majority when we got rid of open rules on appropriations bills. My friends never brought all 12 appropriations bills to the floor and where they were subject to amendments by various Members.

I would agree with my friend, this is not a perfect process that we have. If I had my way, we would go back to the way we operated in 2006, before the last Democratic majority, actually bring the bills down individually and, frankly, give every Member an open shot at amendment.

I think that is the appropriate way to proceed.

Again, my friends thought differently when they were in the majority and never made a move to restore regular order--quite the opposite. We have actually fought to do that. We did have a period of open rules on appropriations bills. We didn't get every bill down here, I regret to say, but we got quite a few of them down. But my friends decided they would engage in poison pill tactics.

I regret, honestly, personally, that my conference gave into that; were more worried about casting tough votes. I think you are sent here to cast tough votes.

So I will make this commitment to my friend. I will continue to work with him and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who would like to return to that process. However, I do recognize this is significant progress toward doing that.

This is the first time, since 2006, that all 12 bills, in one form or another, will reach this floor, and, frankly, every single Member has been free to offer amendments on any portion of those 12 bills that they care to. Now, not all of them were made in order by the Rules Committee, and I would hope we get past that again some day.
But, again, before my friends decry that too much, they need to remember the role they played in actually getting us out of that process.

I also would like to talk just briefly with my friend about his thoughts about DACA, and I am sure we will have a good discussion on that in the course of the day, and, honestly, I think the discussion is helpful.

But I think the President of the United States did the right thing when, number one, he recognized that he does not have the constitutional authority, something even his predecessor wondered about, to actually engage in law and put this issue back in the hands of the Congress. The Congress now has 6 months to deal with it. The Speaker has assured us that we will do that.

I think the appropriate way to proceed is to have the committee of jurisdiction actually hold hearings and move forward, but we will see which way we go. But I think there is a better chance for a long-term solution, as even my friend agrees, if we have a legislative fix to the problem. I think that will involve some give-and-take, but my hope is we will end up at a place where all parties are satisfied. But we will see. That is what the legislative process is all about.

Final point to make, Mr. Speaker, I think we need to recognize that what we are debating on here today, in terms of these four appropriations

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bills, and we will have another tranche of appropriations bills down here later, is actually a process.
What we are really doing today is defining the position of the majority party as to where it stands on funding the government. I don't expect my friends to agree with that. There will be elements of these bills that they agree with without a doubt. I don't think they will oppose a lot of things that we do in regard to T-HUD, or in regard to some of these other various programs that we will deal with.

But at the end of the day--and my side needs to recognize this--we are going to end up in a negotiation with the United States Senate and the administration some time probably after the 1st of October, and that negotiation has to be bipartisan.

As my friends know, the other body requires 60 votes, and that would mean there has to be Democratic participation. And quite frankly, the appropriations bills that have moved across the floor here in fiscal year 2015, fiscal year 2016, fiscal year 2017, have all been bipartisan. They have all been the product of negotiations.

At the end of the day--and I remind my friends, in May, a majority of them actually voted in favor of the omnibus spending bill for FY 2017 in the House and in the Senate, as did, by the way, a majority of Republicans in the House and Senate, and President Trump signed it. So we know how this process ends, and we know how to make it work appropriately. This is simply another step in the process.

It is my hope that, at the end of the day, we arrive at a bicameral, bipartisan process that actually funds the government, and we are able to accomplish, in concert with one another, things that we think are important to the American people. I have a great deal of confidence we will get there because that is what we have done the last 3 years. We are actually doing it a little better this year.

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

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