Legislative Business

Floor Speech

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

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for legislative business. Members are advised that votes are expected as early as 2 p.m.

I want to repeat that. We are going in at 12 p.m. Votes can be as early as 2 p.m.

This is unusual for the first day of the week. I have advised and urged Members to stay here this weekend--most of them I have talked to are--because, clearly, we are trying to get two critical pieces of legislation done, which we will speak to, I think, in a little bit.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning- hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business.

On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.

I advise Members that we still have to pass an omnibus and we have to pass a COVID-19 relief bill, and we will not adjourn the Congress until such time as we can accomplish those two objectives.

I was hopeful that we would accomplish those objectives by next Thursday. Unfortunately, things are not moving as rapidly as I think they ought to--I would like them to, but as they ought to be moving--so that Members need to be advised that they need to keep their schedules very, very flexible until such time as we pass both of those pieces of legislation.

We will, in addition, consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business today.

I will say something further on suspensions. Somebody said: Oh, well, we are not passing important bills.

That is not accurate. Somehow, when we have agreement, it is not looked as important. On suspensions, it simply means we have an agreement between the parties that we can pass those bills because they are bipartisan and the overwhelming majority of Members agree on them. So we are passing bills that are good bills but not controversial, and that is a good thing.

But we will consider several bills under suspension. As I said, the complete list will be available at the close of business today.

The House will consider the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act conference report. I am very pleased that we have a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on NDAA and look forward to it overwhelmingly passing both Chambers next week and, if necessary, overriding a threatened veto by President Trump.

This is a critically important bill to pass. It always passes, and I am hopeful that we will come together on this bill. It was a tough conference but a good conference, and the result, I think, can be supported by both sides of the aisle, signed, obviously, by the Senate Republican chairman and our chairman here in the House.

As Members know, the continuing resolution expires on December 11; therefore, the authority for spending to keep government running will expire on the 11th. The Committee on Appropriations is hard at work on reaching an agreement on an omnibus, and I hope to bring that to the floor as early as possible. I am hopeful that will be next week.

Frankly, I have had a discussion with Senator McConnell. I am told there is no agreement that we cannot make on the 11th that will be easier to make on the 18th, which is the end of the following week. I would urge Members, however, to ensure that they are available for the week of the 14th if we have not completed our business by next week.

The House may also consider additional legislation to address the coronavirus pandemic, as I have already said. The House has passed two different Heroes bills.

We passed the bill on May 15th, 6 months ago, to deal with this extraordinary crisis placing millions of Americans at risk, causing deep emotional and physical distress and a challenge not only to their health, but also to their psychological welfare, and to educating our children and keeping our schools safe and providing the resources necessary that, if we can get children back in school--which I think all of us want to do--that we can accomplish that objective.

The House has also passed, on October 1, some 2 months ago, a $2.2 trillion bill. That was not taken up by the Senate. The Senate has passed no legislation since May 15th. They did not consider our bill either time, neither the Heroes 1 bill nor the Heroes 2.

It is unfortunate, in my view, that Senate Republicans have failed to act, even if they didn't act on what we wanted to do. I am pleased that the Speaker and Senate majority leader spoke yesterday. I have spoken to him three times this week, and I hope that we can get an agreement. The House stands ready to act next week.

Lastly, as everybody understands, when you get to the end of a session, we don't contemplate everything that might be on the agenda, so other pieces of legislation may be on the agenda next week or the week thereafter.

Again, I reiterate, I am very hopeful that we can get this business done by next week.

Mr. Speaker, the reason I scheduled the 11th as the CR day is because I wanted to make sure we could get Members home. With the COVID crisis, the pandemic has exploded.

Members ought not to be aggregating here on the House floor or aggregating here in Washington. They ought to be home. And if we got out on the 11th--I want to get through on the 10th so we can send a bill to the Senate. However, if we left on the 11th, it will be 14 days before Christmas, and, therefore, if Members leaving Washington had to quarantine themselves, they would have sufficient time to do so so that they could be with their families on Christmas Day.

I would hope that everyone on the Committee on Appropriations, the leadership--myself included--would feel the urgency of passing this needed legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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Mr. HOYER. It is a vicious rumor that has been spread abroad in the country.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I may get into this next week, and I am hopeful that the gentleman is right that we don't have a colloquy next week, that we would have completed our business, as I have been talking about.

Mr. Speaker, I have been blessed, the House has been blessed, the country has been blessed by Shuwanza Goff's leadership on this floor on my behalf and on the majority's behalf, working closely with the minority. And I know that Shuwanza would want me to say that she looks forward to the same kind of cooperation in her new job that she has gotten in her old job, and if the gentleman wants to assure her of that, I will yield to him.

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Mr. HOYER. The gentleman is most generous.

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Mr. HOYER. Well, I was pleased to schedule this. Obviously, as you know, it passed the Senate the other day. Hopefully, we will pass it on suspension next week and it will be sent to the President. Hopefully, the President will sign it.

Obviously, ALS is just a terrible, terrible disease, and a disease that acts very, very quickly, which means that there is a premium on the government's response to assisting people with ALS be quick as well.

Mr. Speaker, as we know, what this bill does is it provides an acceleration for people who are suffering from and afflicted with ALS to get assistance. So, hopefully, the House will pass it and will send it to the President.

I appreciate the gentleman's cosponsorship of the bill.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his observations. He is right; we are for this.

We are also for making sure that children have food on their tables. We are also supportive of making sure that education facilities have the money to keep their venues safe and to keep education flowing. We are also for making sure that childcare is available to parents who can go back to work, when and if their children go back to school.

We are also for having critical money for testing and tracing and, yes, for delivering the vaccinations. Yes, we are for that, and we are also for States and localities that are hemorrhaging revenue to have the resources to continue to be on the front line of fighting the battle against COVID-19.

We are also for resources, not only to have created the vaccine-- almost all of which is being funded by the Federal Government--but we are also for making sure we can deliver that vaccine and have vaccinations as well as having a vaccine.

We are very strongly for helping the extraordinary number of unemployed, who are on unemployment insurance, and who, at the end of this month, are going to find it goes away. We are for having an additional enhancement of that unemployment insurance, which so many economists will tell you from the CARES Act, was absolutely essential to keep the economy afloat.

And the fact that we have kept the economy afloat, as shown by-- apparently, the stock market thinks we are okay--the millions and millions and millions of families who are in deep distress and are not okay. I am appalled by the fact that we have not acted.

We have acted twice. You say it was partisan. That is true; you chose not to vote for it. It wasn't much different than the CARES Act, which you did vote for. But, apparently, shortly after we passed the Heroes Act, your leader, Mr. McCarthy, said, Let's wait and see what happens. And Senator McConnell said, Let the States go bankrupt.

Well, they are on that road. And we have seen what happened by waiting. We have thousands of our fellow citizens dying every week, now over 260,000 Americans; millions afflicted.

So I tell my friend, Mr. Speaker, that we care about PPP, and we took care of it in both bills we passed. It wasn't a question that they were partisan or not partisan. They weren't taken up in the United States Senate. We passed them. They were not taken up.

Yes, the Senate leader offered a bill that every economist with whom I have talked said was not substantive enough, not sufficient resources to stop the hemorrhaging, and to help fight COVID-19.

So I tell my friend, we are for that bill. What we are not for is forgetting the kids, the families, the hospital workers, the researchers, the States, the localities. We are not for forgetting them. We believe that if we pass one part of a multifaceted response to COVID-19 and the implication for our economy, that will not be what our economy, nor our people, need.

We would ask you to talk to the Senate or to offer your own bill. Offer your own bill that deals with all of those millions of people that I just referenced that are in deep, deep distress. We need to deal with the small businesses, and we do. We need to deal with the unemployed and we do.

We have a lot of things expiring on December 31, PPP--your bill, does not deal with any of that. We need to deal with all of it. We ought to do it. Mr. Chabot's bill ought to be a part of that, and it will be, because we are committed to that. But we are also committed to not forgetting all of those people and elements that I mentioned.

I want to help the airlines. And, hopefully, that will be in any deal that we come to. I want to help the restaurants. These are people who, through no fault of their own, are devastated.

So I tell my friend, he is right, but only partially so. He is right that we ought to be helping the small businesses. But I don't think there is a small businessman in America that would say let the nutrition issue go, as we see lines of cars and lines of people getting food boxes so they can put food on their table for their kids and themselves, people who never, ever, expected in their lives to be in a food line. I think the small businessmen would say, take care of them. I think the small businessmen would say, I haven't been able to pay taxes, and I know the State is still operating hospitals, still fixing the roads, still hiring police and fire, and hiring nurses in public hospitals. They need help, too.

We are all in this together. That is my response to the gentleman, Mr. Speaker.

We want to have a comprehensive bill that will deal with a comprehensive threat to our economy and to the health of our people and to the welfare of our people. We think that is the responsible thing to do.

I am hopeful that we can get an agreement in the near term. When I say, ``the near term,'' by next week. I have been talking to Senator McConnell towards that end. The Speaker is talking to Senator McConnell towards that end.

The Senators are working on an effort to get that done. I am hopeful they are successful. The Speaker and Mr. Schumer said it was a place that they could negotiate from, which means we are closer than we have been, and I hope it gets done.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for suggesting that. I didn't hear him talk about the children who are having trouble getting food on their tables every morning and every evening. I didn't hear him talk about the unemployed, the 12 million American workers who are going to run out of unemployment as of the end of this month.

Mr. Speaker, I did hear him talk about the failed States. Let me tell you, Maryland is not a failed State, and our Governor is a Republican. His name is Hogan. His father served in this body. He, along with Mr. Cuomo, the Governor of New York, said the States, meaning all the States, need substantial assistance or they are going to have to make substantial cuts. In my State, we have made cuts, and we are a wealthy State. We have made cuts, which have undermined the States's ability to respond as robustly as they need to do to COVID-19.

Now, the President wants to talk about failed States. What he really means is blue States, Mr. Speaker. That is what he means--large States like New York; large States like California. By the way, Florida and Texas are in the same position. Now, Texas has a greater surplus. But failed States is a fake news item.

Mr. Speaker, what we should do is come together and have an agreement. Now, we can pass something here, and we did pass something here. The Republicans chose to join us, Mr. Speaker, on the first three bills. One was an $8.3 billion bill responding to $1.2 trillion or $2.2 trillion that the President asked for. In other words, four times what the President asked for. In terms of what we have done, that seems like small potatoes, a lot of money.

But it was clear that the administration's response to this crisis was woefully inadequate, represented by that first bill that they sent to us, knowing full well that it would not even come close to meeting the needs. So we increased it about 400 percent. The Speaker then negotiated with Mr. Mnuchin and came up with two additional bills that were passed in a bipartisan fashion.

And, very frankly, the President told us this was about to go away. Not to worry. It is going to go away. It will go away tomorrow maybe or next week. It is going to go away when the weather gets warm. And Dr. Fauci said: No, Mr. President, that won't happen. So, essentially, the President dismissed Dr. Fauci as a principal adviser. Thankfully, Mr. Biden, President-elect Biden, is going to bring him back as the principal adviser, one of the great experts in the world on vaccines and on infectious diseases.

So I am somewhat frustrated that we focus on one facet. But I will tell you, if those 12 million people become unemployed without assistance, they won't have any money to spend on small businesses. If those States don't have the ability to operate properly, that will hurt small businesses. If the transportation system faltered, it will hurt small businesses.

Mr. Speaker, my point is that we are e pluribus unum: Out of many, one. We are a nation reliant upon one another, and the harm to one results in the harm to the other. Therefore, we believe that there ought to be a comprehensive piece of legislation, as there was overwhelmingly supported.

But the Republicans, after CARES, and when we passed the Heroes Act in May, passed it on May 15, they thought everything was hunky-dory and they walked away.

Mr. McConnell said the States can go bankrupt. Think of the consequence that would have had. And, yes, we gave them some money under CARES. Nobody, when we voted on CARES, thought we would be where we are today. Nobody, except Dr. Fauci, and some other experts, scientists, medical personnel, said: Look, this thing is going to come back, that is what happens with these pandemics. They have an original assault, and then they come back. And they came back with a vengeance, and people are losing their lives.

And the failure to pass a comprehensive bill--we agree, we want to help these small businesses. Heroes 1 helped small businesses. Heroes 2, you didn't vote for those. You said they were partisan. I am not sure what was partisan about them. They were no more partisan than the CARES Act was partisan. Mr. Speaker, the difference was, very frankly, the Republicans decided they were going to vote for CARES, and then they decided, we have done enough. And we have been twisting in the wind now for 6 months since we passed Heroes.

I don't want to make a speculation of how many hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of lives may have been saved had we passed Heroes 1, or we acted much sooner out of the administration. But I am hopeful we can get rid of all this ``who struck John, you did it, I did it, who did it,'' and come to grips in the next 7 days, maybe 14 days. There is no reason why we can't come to an agreement.

There is a bipartisan group in the United States Senate, Republicans and Democrats, who have come up with a bill, $908 billion. Now, that is a lot of money. But what they try to do is deal with all of the issues that I have raised, and they do. Maybe not as much as I think we ought to do, maybe not as specifically targeted as I think, but it is a basis for agreement. And I hope the Senate passes it. I hope they pass it next week and send it over to us.

I guarantee you when they send it over to us, we will act on it. We won't leave it sitting, as Heroes 1 and Heroes 2 have sat in the Senate for 6 months, or 2\1/2\ months. We won't let it sit.

Why?

Because the country is at risk. Our people are at risk. Our children are at risk. Our families are at risk.

Mr. Speaker, as you so correctly point out, the whip points out that our businesses are at risk. He is absolutely right and we need to act. But if we only act on small businesses and we don't take care of the other problems, the small businesses ultimately will not be able to survive either. We are in this together.

We do not have a policy on this side of the aisle saying: You are on your own, children; you are on your own, unemployed; you are on your own, States, localities, municipals, small towns, small counties.

That is not our policy. We are in this together, and we want to help all of those in distress.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know that I will have anything more to say on this particular item, but I am appreciative of Mr. Chabot's bill. I hope that his bill is included, and I hope that we can pass something next week to help all of those in deep distress. That would be good for our country. It is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do, and I hope we do it. I will facilitate it when we get to an agreement. I thank the gentleman.

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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I don't know about your school system, but my school system is still providing meals for kids either as a pick-up at the school or delivery at some site, because that is a critical problem, but they need money to do that. We know that food banks are stretched, and we need to deal with that program. That is my point. It is not just small businesses. It is that nutrition program.

I just wanted to clarify that in my school districts, we are delivering meals, notwithstanding the fact that schools are shut down.

Let me say something else just as an aside. Three of my counties have a majority, if not unanimous, county commissioners who are all Republican. They have all voted to keep the school systems virtual, as have my other counties.

I represent five counties, essentially, or parts thereof. They have all voted. Hearing from parents and teachers, and perhaps some students, they are all virtual. They will need as much money to continue virtuality as they will to get kids back in school. They need extra resources to do that.

The $908 billion bill that is agreed or proposed by a bipartisan group in the Senate has money in that bill for those programs.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say, this business about illegals getting money, let me just give you an example. You have a husband and wife and three children living in an apartment. The husband does not have authorization to be here. What the bill provided for, that the gentleman talks about, is making sure we feed those children even though somebody who is illegal is living in the household.

What they want to have done is nobody in that household got help. It is just a difference of perspective. And I get it.

But let me tell you something. What you can't get away from is, Mr. Speaker, they have not passed a bill through the United States Senate. Why? Because it would require compromise. Because you don't have the votes, Mr. Speaker, in the Republican Party to pass a bill without compromise. So they have sent us no bill.

Now, Mr. McConnell can say all he wants: Well, we need 60 votes, and they won't give us 60 votes.

He is right. And he won't compromise.

Your side, on a regular basis when you were in charge, couldn't pass a lot of pieces of legislation that had to be passed, and what did John Boehner do? Walked over here and said: Madam Leader, Mr. Whip, can you help us?

And we did. President Bush asked for TARP. He couldn't get the votes on your side. Where did he come? To our side. We passed it, which saved the country from a depression.

So when you are talking about all this stuff, we sent two bills. You didn't like them, fine. Pass something through the Senate. But it would have required compromise, and Mr. McConnell offered no such compromise.

I think, frankly, we ought to move on because I don't think we can beat this horse anymore. We are not going to agree. But pass a bill. Have a comprehensive bill that helps those children, that helps those unemployed, that helps those renters who can't pay their rent and are going to be evicted.

Do you think that helps small businesses? Do you think it helps grocery stores? Do you think it helps barbershops? Do you think it helps gasoline stations? It does not because they are going belly up, and they don't have any resources.

We are in this together. What I keep telling him, Mr. Speaker, and what I keep telling my side, as well, we are in this together, and we need to help everyone who is in such distress, not just small businesses. We need to help small businesses.

The airlines continue to say they are going to stop flying. This doesn't help them.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I have nothing else.

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