Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Spending Cuts to Expired and Unnecessary Programs Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, this rule makes 39 amendments in order to the appropriations bill we have been considering this week.

Unfortunately, this appropriations package is made up of three individual appropriations bills. Also, in what is a surprise to us in the minority, this rule also includes a surprising $15 billion in rescissions--cuts--to programs our communities depend on.

Why aren't we given the opportunity to bring up these bills individually? Considering that nearly 200 amendments were offered to this package while many of us were working in our districts, it is obvious to me that these bills would have benefited from a longer debate.

This rule makes in order 39 amendments to the underlying package, which includes H.R. 5895, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2019; H.R. 5894, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act of 2019; and H.R. 5786, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2019.

However, 59 additional amendments will not be given an opportunity to be heard, including bipartisan amendments like the Cicilline-Poliquin amendment to prohibit oil drilling on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf or the Foster-Hultgren amendment to increase funding for the Department of Energy's Office of Science or the Issa-Roybal-Allard amendment to support programs that improve veteran access to care at qualified health centers. Don't these distinguished Members of this body deserve to have their amendments discussed, debated, and voted on?

This rule also makes in order H.R. 3, the GOP rescission package. Mr. Speaker, this bill has not received a single hearing--not one. This was a last-minute addition which gave no time for amendments to be considered.

The closed rule, which is how the rescissions package comes to the floor, pushes this Congress further into the record books as the most closed Congress in history.

Before I speak more on that, I do want to take a brief moment to highlight the bipartisan manner in which the appropriators acted in crafting the Military Construction and Legislative Branch bills. This is proof that, when this body wants to, we can work together and produce legislation that results in broad, bipartisan consensus.

The Military Construction and Veterans Affairs bill provides a $4.17 billion increase to the servicemembers we represent--specifically, a $3.9 billion increase to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Legislative Branch bill takes more steps we should have taken a long time ago and provides additional resources for training and to help with complaints on sexual harassment and violations of employee rights. None of us here are immune to harassers, but at least this bill moves us forward in addressing the bad behaviors of those who walk among us.

This rule makes in order amendments to the Energy and Water appropriations bill. However, this bill does not follow the same bipartisan path. Instead, this bill is full of poison pill riders that will ultimately make our time here a total waste, as those poison pill riders mean that the Senate will ignore this package as it is written.

Incredibly, when most Americans are asking Congress to make commonsense improvements to our Nation's gun laws, this bill goes in the opposite direction. That is right. This Congress is finally acting on guns--in a cowardly way, by expanding where guns can be brought onto Federal lands, ignoring the cries and the calls from our children--our children who are being murdered in their classrooms, our constituents who are being murdered in movie theaters, our constituents who are being murdered in concert halls in Las Vegas, Nevada, where people go to get married, where people go to have fun, and, yes, they make babies sometimes in Vegas too. But yet we are ignoring their calls for help.

It is amazing that we can go on months without meaningful reforms on gun violence and now we take up a giant spending package that forces Members to vote on yet another expansion of gun access. What are we trying to do?

Again, a cowardice act to expand the use of weapons in our Federal lands. For what? So we can go into the dens of bears and kill them--the momma bears and the baby bears--while they are sleeping?

That is what we are doing in this Congress.

Perhaps that wouldn't be such a problem if we had a single open rule on the House floor that would allow the House to work its will on this or any other issue Members have with portions of this legislation.

Finally, this rule makes in order H.R. 3, President Trump's and the GOP's rescissions bill. As I mentioned before, this bill saw no hearings. Zero.

But perhaps just as troubling was Ranking Member Lowey's remarks in our Rules Committee hearing last night about how the minority wasn't even consulted prior to this bill coming to the floor, ignoring the thousands of constituents that we represent. So, not only has this bill skipped the normal appropriations process, Democrats have not been given an opportunity to add the voice of their constituents.

Make no mistake, this is a highly partisan bill which does not reflect the House's will. Instead, this is what our constituents hate the most: a Congress that is most dysfunctional.

This bill makes significant cuts to programs that create jobs, grow our economy, and provide healthcare to millions of children in a transparent attempt to appear fiscally conservative after passing a tax bill that added $1.9 trillion to the deficit and gave most of its benefit to the wealthiest among us.

If we want to rescind something to balance the deficit, how about we start with the $1 trillion budget-busting tax bill that was passed for the wealthy. That irresponsible law is now the cause of Medicare and Social Security going bankrupt decades earlier.

This bill is a political gimmick to hide the Republican majority's gross mismanagement of our Nation's long-term fiscal health. While the GOP tax giveaway benefited the wealthiest among us, almost half of the cuts in this rescissions package are to the Children's Health Insurance Program. Let me say that again, Mr. Speaker: the Children's Health Insurance Program.

We have $7 billion eliminated from CHIP. That is right. They didn't blink an eye at a $2 trillion giveaway to the wealthy, but yet they are squeezing fractional savings from funds intended for children's health insurance.

But that isn't the end of it. So that corporations and millionaires can have a tax break, the House majority has decided to make a collection of cuts that will impact every community: Cuts to economic development; cuts to the Forest Service while the West of America is burning; cuts to Indian housing programs, cuts to foreign assistance; cuts to transportation while our infrastructure is crumbling; cuts to public housing while the growing number of Americans grow homeless; cuts to conservation; and cuts to advanced technology vehicle loans.

What is it that you want to do? Do you want to take us back to the time of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble?

I know that my Republican colleagues will say that they aren't cuts because the funding can't be used, but no Federal agencies were asked if they needed a waiver to utilize this funding where they need it the most. I doubt that my colleagues will say they couldn't use this in their communities.

Well, let me put these cuts in the voice of the Great Gazoo: those cuts are dumb and dumber cuts.

Mr. Speaker, that is why I must strongly oppose this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, we cannot continue to allow the rewriting of history. The majority has blocked over 2,000 amendments, and it is only June.

Mr. Speaker, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act would shortchange our veterans by subjecting funding for their healthcare programs to onerous budget restraints. This would force funding for veterans healthcare to compete with other important veterans programs.

Therefore, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to include Representative Lamb's legislation, H.R. 5805, to fix the VA Choice budget shortfall and Representative Carter's amendment to MILCON-VA which includes more funds for vital veteran healthcare initiatives.

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Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close.

I have no doubt of the importance of the legislation this rule makes in order. However, I struggle to believe that this is the most important work we could be doing today.

Instead, perhaps we can fix the broken immigration laws that President Trump has cited as his reason for separating families and children on our Nation's border. Fear and intimidation are no way to make policy. The Trump administration has picked the cruelest way to punish those who are fleeing violence.

The result is broken families and lost children. Since October, more than 700 children have been inhumanely separated from their parents. More than 100 of these children are less than 4 years old.

Using family separation as a scare tactic to prevent families from coming to this country will never work, and it is in the same cruel mindset as using rape as a weapon of war. These families come here looking for one thing: shelter. Punishing a mother by separating her from her child is not only immoral; it is inhumane. It goes against the fundamental human right of the family unit.

Separating them from their parents is simply anti-American. However, for some reason, President Trump has repeatedly said that he is bound by the law to rip these families apart. Parliamentary Inquiry

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Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

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Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, what is the law requiring the separation of parents and children at the border?

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Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, perhaps the reason the Speaker can't answer is that the law simply doesn't exist. However, this is the United States Congress. We make the laws. But unfortunately, this isn't what we are doing here. No. Instead, we are taking up a bill to put more guns on public lands and cut funding for energy efficiency research. For this reason and many other concerns I have with the number of amendments which were not made in order, I must oppose this rule.

This Congress is now the most closed Congress in history. It is forcing its Members to vote on bills which haven't been given a real debate. It is clear the majority is attempting to rewrite history.

Mr. Speaker, Canada did not burn the White House. The American people know better. None of the work we do today will undo their deficit- busting bill, nor will it reunite the families the administration has destroyed.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

A recorded vote was ordered.

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