Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I have heard a number of people, including my friend, the minority leader, stand up and say we need to act in a bipartisan fashion, and the next statement is a partisan attack on one of our Members. It is either schizophrenia or a lack of understanding of what this Congress has been doing over the last few weeks.

I don't know about you, Madam Speaker, but I have been working 6 hours, 7 hours on the phone and another 3 or 4 hours reviewing the materials that have gotten us here today.

Why did it take so long? Because it took 2 weeks for my Republican colleagues--and this is a partisan statement, I understand that, but I think we ought to all be realistic.

We are all trying to get to a place where America and Americans are safe and where our economy is working, because the statistics we see are statistics of pain and of fear and of anxiety about tomorrow.

So what have we been doing? We have been on the phone with one another. I have talked to the minority leader numerous times over the last 2 weeks, not only on this particular piece of legislation, but on the process going forward.

So if anybody on that side is saying that Congress is not working, they must be speaking for themselves, because every one of these colleagues on my side of the aisle--and I believe on their side of the aisle--has been working very hard: in touch with their local government, in touch with their Governor, in touch with their healthcare delivery people, anybody who works in a hospital or a healthcare center or a federally qualified health center. They are working hard.

Let us not denigrate ourselves or this institution or our commitment to the American people because that is blatant partisanship.

We waited 2 weeks, Madam Speaker, that is correct. What for? So that the proposal that we made 2 weeks ago--or 3 weeks ago--which has now effectively been accepted by the Republicans would be accepted. That is what we waited for.

And what did we get? $120 billion additional money for small business. And be assured, we are talking about for the small business. What this bill does is puts $120 billion, in addition, $370 billion, for small business.

Now, we are talking about bipartisanship. The first bill we did dealing with coronavirus on this floor passed 415-2. It doesn't sound like partisanship to me. It sounds like we came together and agreed on how we could help. And it wasn't enough.

And then on phase two, which we passed on March 14, 10 days later, is Congress not working? Ten days later, we passed 363-40. It doesn't sound like partisanship to me.

And then phase three we passed on March 27, 13 days later, on a voice vote, with only one Member in the Senate or the House demurring.

It doesn't sound like partisanship to me, Madam Speaker, and I don't think today's vote will be a partisan vote. I certainly hope it will not be.

Why? Because for the last 2 weeks, we have been working with one another to try to get to a place where we think we are giving the needed resources, because we think the initial request was shortchanging hospitals, shortchanging testing. It still shortchanges our States and local government, and so we will need another bill to try to get there.

Madam Speaker, on Tuesday, the Senate came together to pass this legislation in a bipartisan way. Now, unlike the House, no Senators came to the floor except three or four. They did it by unanimous consent. We are not able to do that--although I think this bill will pass overwhelmingly--because some of our Republican friends wanted to vote.

Fine. We are here. We are wearing masks. I am not wearing a mask while I am speaking, but as soon as I stop speaking, I am going to put my mask back on as I turn around to go among us. Congress is doing its job.

And I want to tell the American people one more time: Members are working daily to respond to the coronavirus that is putting our people and our country and our economy at risk.

Last month, we enacted emergency legislation that included more than $2 trillion in assistance for workers, veterans, small businesses, healthcare systems, and communities dealing with the spread of coronavirus. One of the programs we created together was the Paycheck Protection Program to try to keep people on a payroll, even if they could not go to work because health professionals say don't congregate.

The Paycheck Protection Program provides loans to small businesses that will be forgiven--that will be forgiven--if they keep their workers on the payroll. The need was so great that the initial $350 billion, as has been pointed out, in funding, Madam Speaker, was exhausted in a matter of days. So, today, we are providing another $310 billion for that program, and an additional $60 billion for the most at-risk small businesses.

Critically, $60 billion of that, as I just said, will be set aside for smaller banks where they focus on community development financial institutions that service businesses in rural and minority communities that were left out of the initial program.

I bet if you ask your small businesses or rural people, your hospitals or those State officials who are saying testing is essential, I bet they would say: I am glad you waited because you got us resources that we needed.

That wasn't in the initial proposal, of course, that came from the administration, and it was objected to, and the leader in the Senate would not provide for such sums.

More help is still needed, of course, for nonprofits as well as small and minority-owned businesses, those in underbanked communities and the self-employed. Those must be, Madam Speaker, priorities in the next bill that, clearly, is going to be necessary.

In addition to the increased funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, Democrats insisted on recapitalizing economic injury disaster loans as well, providing an additional $60 billion for this program, which can be leveraged to $300 billion.

Yes, we asked for, we worked for, we negotiated to get small businesses, minority businesses, businesses that couldn't get into the system that the other bigger businesses got in--some so big that they were ashamed and gave the money back.

We are also providing an additional $75 billion for hospitals and, crucially, $25 billion for testing.

I guarantee you, not one of your hospitals is going to call you up and say: You should have acted sooner and not had the hospitals in there--not one of them. And no Governor or county executive or mayor or county commissioner or county council person is going to say: Gee whiz, we didn't want that money for testing.

We will not be able to return our economy to normal operations, Madam Speaker, without a robust testing system in place to know we can safely go to work without putting workers at risk and to identify those who have coronavirus so we can take necessary steps to isolate them and trace those with whom they came in contact, because that is how we win this battle.

This bill is an interim step, the fourth interim step as we continue to work on the next major piece of legislation. I hope we can include, by the way, Madam Speaker, in the next bill, provisions that, unfortunately, we were unable to secure in this bill.

First of all, we shortchanged--we are all in the Nation's Capital. Millions of Americans come here, and we gave Wyoming and Vermont--small States, less population than the District of Columbia, the Nation's Capital, to which millions of your constituents will come. We shortchanged them by giving them 40 percent of what we gave the smallest States, smaller than the District of Columbia.

We wanted to add that $700 million in this bill. Unfortunately, we couldn't get agreement on that. I think that was penny-wise and pound- foolish for those of us who want our constituents to visit Washington to see their government.

We also must include more help for State and local governments. They have been on the front lines of fighting this scourge and, as a result, have spent a lot of resources they budgeted for other issues, including employees, including police and fire and health workers. We need to do that. We wanted to do it in this bill. But those of you who argue for delay, I will bet that you are going to vote in the next tranche for additional State and local help--maybe not all of you. Why you are delaying that help is beyond me.

This, by the way, is not an abstract accounting problem. We are talking about States and counties across the country being able to keep teachers, first responders as tax revenues collapse due to the necessary social distancing.

This pandemic, Madam Speaker, has shown a spotlight on the stark disparities in health status and treatment of African Americans in particular and minority communities in general. That reality is an indefensible and unacceptable one.

While we do include new ways of tracking certain data relating to racial disparities in this pandemic, there is more we must do, not simply for those who are at greater risk, but for all of us who wear a mask; not because we don't want to be with one another, but because this pandemic has made us a risk to others, to our neighbors, our friends, our family.

Furthermore, we need to do more to protect our elections. My Governor has ordered that an election that is coming up next Tuesday be all by mail. Now, in Wisconsin, the Governor tried to do that and Republicans fought us. The Republican speaker of the Wisconsin House was covered from head to toe in a gown, super mask, and gloves.

Do we want to ask all of our citizens to be so at risk because they are exercising their franchise to vote in America? I surely think that is not the case.

And so we need some additional money to facilitate, because they didn't plan on it, because they didn't plan on this pandemic, to allow our citizens to vote, to encourage them to vote, to facilitate their vote, to welcome their vote, and to provide for a way that they can do it safely without endangering themselves or others.

Furthermore, we need to do more to protect our elections in this administration. I am glad that the House is moving forward today with the creation of a select committee to oversee the coronavirus response.

Now, my friends on the other side of the aisle had eight different partisan commissions overseeing what happened in Benghazi where four American lives were tragically lost. 44,575 Americans have lost their lives. Is it too much to ask that we would have a special committee to make sure that the money that we are appropriating in historic amounts is spent correctly?

Congress has a responsibility to ensure that the extraordinary sums we have authorized and appropriated are disbursed efficiently and consistent with our intent. Such great sums can not only be a source of economic recovery, but, surely, everyone on this floor knows that that sum of money on the table can also be a magnet for waste, fraud, abuse, and, yes, criminality. We owe the American people, as we appropriate unbelievable sums, to make sure that the American people are the ones advantaged.

Any time Congress spends taxpayer money, particularly in such large amounts, we owe it to the American people to know where that money is going and to ensure that it is being spent as directed.

Now, I know the President of the United States said he is going to do the oversight. I don't think that is what the Framers had in mind in terms of checks and balances.

And in the most efficient and ethical ways possible, we must know which programs are working best, which aren't, and that way we can modify what we do in the future.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank Speaker Pelosi. I want to thank the chair of the Small Business Committee, and I want to thank the chair of the Financial Services Committee. I want to thank the chair of the Education and Labor Committee.

I want to thank Mr. Neal, who is on the floor, and many other chairs, Mr. Peterson, who is very nervous about not having a nutrition program in this bill, which we wanted. That would have delayed it further because, of course, we didn't get support on the other side of the aisle for that. But people are in incredibly long food lines because their nutritional health, as well as their psychological health, is at risk because they can't get food.

I thank Speaker Pelosi for having the courage and the wisdom to stand up and say, ``We need these items.'' And we have gotten a lot of them. We asked for $500 billion total. This is $484 billion total.

My, my, my, you held out for 2 weeks for a $16 billion savings.

I also thank our Members who have been working--let me repeat this once again, Madam Speaker. These Members, those Members, have been working round-the-clock to make sure their communities are safe, to make sure their hospitals are getting what they need, to make sure that their teachers are teaching kids at home. Everybody has been working hard. You may not see us, but millions and millions and millions of Americans are working at home. They are teleworking. That is essentially what we have been doing--teleworking. And don't tell them they are not working, because they know they are working. They have been a credit to their districts. Every Member--Republican, Democrat--I presume, and I only know about the Democrats--225 of our 234 have been on the phone 2\1/2\ hours a day talking back and forth between one another to see what policies we need. They have been a credit to their districts, to the institutions of the House and this Nation, spending hours on the phone, through videoconference, making sure that Congress is doing its job, and talking to State and local leaders and healthcare providers.

Let me thank the Members and staff who volunteered to be here on the floor. We will go off the floor and we won't be as exposed as they are. They are all wearing masks. They are wearing masks because they know there is a risk. Perhaps not as great a risk as those courageous individuals who work in our hospitals and our healthcare providers in many different modes, but courageous and patriotic, nonetheless. Thank you, staff.

I thank those who are working in our grocery stores, our police, our fire, our truck drivers, who are getting food and products from here to there; EMS personnel who respond to emergencies; delivery workers. And every time I go to the grocery store--and I hope all of you do it--I thank those people who are stocking the shelves. I thank those people who are checking us out. I thank those people who are putting the carts where they need to be. They are the best of America, and we owe it to them to do all we can to bring this pandemic to an end as quickly and safely as possible. We all want to go back to work in the regular fashion. The Democratic-led House will continue to do everything possible, working with our Republican friends, who we believe want the same objective, a safe America, a working America.

We want to help small businesses, workers, and their families get through this crisis, and to ensure that our courageous healthcare workers who are on the front lines have all the support necessary to win this fight against COVID-19.

Madam Speaker, I hope, and I pray that every Member of Congress will vote for America and Americans, and vote for this bill. We may need more, but we certainly need to do this this day and get more assistance to the American people.

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