Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendments to H.R. North American Wetlands Conservation Extension Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. COLE.
Mr. Speaker, we are here today to consider a rule that provides for consideration of a single item, the Senate amendment to H.R. 925, the majority's second attempt to pass a partisan wish list under the guise of a coronavirus relief bill.
There are two quotes that sum up how I feel about today's rule, Mr. Speaker. The first, widely misattributed to Albert Einstein, is that: ``The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results''; the second, accurately attributed to Yogi Berra, is that today's action feels like: ``It's deja vu all over again.''
Today, the House majority is bringing up again a partisan coronavirus relief package, just as they did in May.
As in May, today's bill was written with only Democratic input.
Like in May, today's bill has a massive price tag. This sits at $2.4 trillion.
As in May, today's bill contains a plethora of provisions that are completely unrelated to coronavirus relief.
Indeed, just like in May, today's bill is more akin to a Democratic policy wish list than to an actual relief bill.
And just as in May, we all know what the end result will be: the Senate will not pass this bill and the President will not sign it into law.
But it doesn't have to be this way, Mr. Speaker.
For whatever reason, the majority is refusing to truly negotiate on a bipartisan coronavirus relief bill that would provide real relief for millions of Americans.
I grant them, discussions have taken place. But when the majority continues to insist that it is their way or no way and refuses to meet Republicans halfway, one begins to understand how we got to this point.
Mr. Speaker, I would remind both this Chamber and the American people that it has been the Democrats who have blocked a second coronavirus relief bill. Just last week, House Democrats blocked Republicans from bringing up a simple bill to extend the Paycheck Protection Program. In the Senate, Democrats blocked the majority from bringing up a clean extension of PPP, and later, Democrats blocked a Republican-led coronavirus relief bill from being considered, not because they disagreed with anything in the bill, but because they just thought other things should be in the bill.
All of these bills are bills that the President would have signed into law.
At a time when so many Americans are truly suffering, why the House majority insists on blocking these measures and bringing up their own partisan wish list instead does not make sense to me.
But what makes even less sense is the egregious process they followed in considering this bill. The process, if you can even call it that, violated House rules and any notion of fairness.
The bill was introduced on Monday night after being drafted in secret in Speaker Pelosi's office without any Republican input whatsoever. No committee held a hearing on it and no committee marked it up. That is violating the McGovern rule, which requires any bill coming before the Rules Committee to have a hearing and a markup in the committee of jurisdiction.
The bill is 2,152 pages long, and I highly doubt that most Members have had time to read, review, and digest it in that short amount of time.
I will say this, though: it does set a record. It spends $1 billion a page. That is pretty remarkable spending.
When your process is that bad, no wonder the output is as bad as the bill we are considering today.
The majority claims that today's bill is a scaled-down version of the Heroes Act, a bill we considered back in May. If the majority's funding calculations on the amount of money we are spending in this bill are accurate, that may be technically correct, but it still has the exact same policies and problems as the Heroes Act.
This bill includes massive spending even in areas where we appropriated funds as part of the CARES Act in March and haven't fully spent them yet: funding for Democratic policy priorities at the expense of bipartisan ones; inclusion of provisions that are completely unrelated to coronavirus relief, like a complicated and controversial multiemployer pension bill, a provision revealing an existing provision of law requiring the auction of T-Band spectrum, massive student loan forgiveness, and the mandating of a national vote by mail.
Some of these may deserve consideration, but what they are doing in a bill that is supposed to be about providing relief to Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic is beyond me.
Mr. Speaker, in any bill this size, it is inevitable that all Members will find at least one provision that they like, but it is the package as a whole that is offensive and objectionable.
Drafted without Republican input and with nothing but Democratic ideas and extraneous policy priorities, it is doomed to the same result as happened the last time the majority tried this approach.
With their actions today, we will not move the ball forward, we will not draw closer to a final deal that actually helps Americans. And what they will do is to continue to pass on the chance to actually work together as a bipartisan institution and to provide real help to the American people.
Just as in May, the majority is putting up a partisan bill, when what we need is a bipartisan deal. We did that four times before, Mr. Speaker. If we chose to, we could do so again.
They are doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.
Mr. Speaker, it didn't have to be this way. There are many areas where we agree: Paycheck Protection Program; additional money for schools to reopen; a one-time payment of $1,200 per individual, $500 per child in households making less than $75,000 a year; additional money to speed the distribution of vaccines.
Those are areas we could bring out one at a time or bundled together and pass. Instead, my friends have chosen to use a formula they know is doomed to failure.
As to the amount, the President has actually been flexible. The original Senate proposal was $1 trillion, no inconsiderable sum of money, I might add. The President moved that up to $1.5 trillion. That wasn't good enough, even though many members of my friend's party actually supported that, the so-called Problem Solvers Caucus.
So I don't want to belabor the point, but I know the difference between a serious effort to pass legislation that has a chance of passing in the Senate and being signed by the President and a messaging exercise, and that is all we are engaged in today. So it is indeed, Mr. Speaker, deja vu all over again.
Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, let me yield myself such time as I may consume just to quickly make a couple of points and then move to my friend from Arizona.
Far be it for me, Mr. Speaker, to defend the upper body. I am a very proud Member of this House, as I know all of us here are.
But it is worth noting for the Record the Senate actually had 52 votes to pass a bill. It was my friend's party that kept them from considering it.
As to the Supreme Court, thank goodness they don't have to deal with the House of Representatives. That is why they are able to move quickly. They could move pretty quickly if they had somebody they could deal with here as well.
It is my friends who have chosen to craft legislation that they know will be unacceptable, that they know the President will not sign, and then rail at them for not passing it and the President for not signing it. That is the height of chutzpah, if you will.
Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to immediately bring up H.R. 8265, a bill to extend the Paycheck Protection Program through the end of the year and release $137 billion in unspent funds for that program.
Mr. Speaker, every Member of Congress can agree we need to enact relief for the millions suffering from the pandemic, but we should only move forward on legislation that can actually be signed into law. The measure the majority is attempting to pass today simply doesn't fit that bill. Absent a comprehensive bipartisan package, we should pass smaller pieces where there is broad consensus, such as the Paycheck Protection Program.
PPP is of great importance to our constituents. It is helping keep millions of Americans employed and receiving a paycheck. Members on both sides of the aisle and in both Chambers agree that this crucial program needs to be extended, and it could be extended today if the majority were to bring a bipartisan bill extending PPP to the floor.
But you don't have to take my word for it, Mr. Speaker. Many House Democrats agree we need to pass a true relief bill now rather than just another political messaging bill.
A bipartisan letter recently sent to the Speaker stressed that ``failing to reach a deal is unacceptable and is a failure of duty to the American people.''
A separate letter sent to the Speaker by eight Democrats last week demanded ``a vote on a clean relief package that has direct assistance for those in need.''
Perhaps the most telling is a third letter sent just a few days ago and signed by 23 Democrats. These Members correctly point out to their leaders that, absent a bipartisan deal, a ``discharge petition is the only potential option for COVID-19-related action on the House floor.''
As my colleagues know, House Republicans have such a discharge petition ready to be signed, and we look forward to these Members joining us.
However, I would point out, Madam Speaker, to my colleagues that we don't have to wait for a discharge petition to succeed. We can take a clear step right now by defeating the previous question and bringing H.R. 8265 up for an immediate vote.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), who is my good friend and the ranking member of the Small Business Committee, to explain more about this critical bill.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I just want to respond quickly to my friends and point out something that is striking to me in listening to the debate. There is almost nothing that any of my friends have mentioned that we don't support--almost nothing. All these worthy programs for restaurants, all this relief for individuals, and all this help, we all agree with that. It is the things my friends don't mention that they have in their bill that we don't agree with.
We don't agree with more money for Planned Parenthood. That has no place in this bill.
We obviously have very serious objections to federalizing the election system of this country, which is State based. That has no place in this bill.
We obviously don't want to give a tax break to millionaires and billionaires in blue States by getting rid of the State and local tax limitations that were placed in.
Those are the things, none of which have anything to do with coronavirus, that we object to. Those are the things that my friends are insisting on that they cannot pass in the United States Senate and that the President will not sign.
If they want to actually pass all these other wonderful things, we agree with them, and we have been very generous in terms of the amount of money. The President has moved up on that.
Money is a negotiable item here. Policy positions--poison pills, as my good friend from Arizona said--are not, and that is what is keeping us from acting.
Frankly, that is a tragedy and a travesty, in my view, Madam Speaker.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge opposition to the rule. Today's bill is nothing more than a Democratic wish list masquerading as a coronavirus relief bill, roughly the same as the partisan bill the majority passed back in May and it was never taken up by the Senate, would never be signed by the President.
As in May, today's bill is ultimately doomed. It will not pass the Senate. The President has made it clear he will not sign it.
Madam Speaker, the majority is missing a real chance here. The American people are suffering as a result of the coronavirus. It is past time for the two parties to do what we did very successfully four times in a row in a 10-week period and work together and actually provide a package that provides real relief for the American people.
There are plenty of things we agree on, such as the extension of the Paycheck Protection Program, such as ensuring that more funds are provided for testing and tracing, such as one-time payments of $1,200 per individual and $500 per child to every household making less than $75,000 a year. We disagree about the exact amount, but we agree every American who is unemployed, through no fault of their own, should get at least $400 more a week.
Frankly, because the Democrats did not take up that offer, those people have gotten zero since the end of July. We absolutely agree that we need additional money for the opening of schools.
Madam Speaker, so why don't we put on the floor--it is a novel suggestion--the things we agree on, the things we know the Senate will pass and we know the President would sign. The only reason we have failed to do that is because the Democratic leadership has made the decision that we have to agree on everything before we do anything. That is no way to legislate in a body that has a Democratic majority in the House, a Republican majority in the Senate, and a Republican President.
The majority is not in the position to dictate to either the Senate or the President what is going to happen, but they are in a powerful position to negotiate, and negotiate in good faith, and focus on the areas where we agree.
Madam Speaker, I think that would move us forward productively. I think that would be in the best interests of the American people. So I call on the majority to end this charade and engage with Republicans in the House, the Senate, and the administration and come to an agreement on a real bipartisan relief package. I know my friends can do it because we did it together four times in a row.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question, ``no'' on the rule, and ``no'' on the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
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