Providing For Consideration Of Conference Report On H.R. 3183, Energy And Water Development And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010
Floor Speech
Providing For Consideration Of Conference Report On H.R. 3183, Energy And Water Development And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from California, my friend, for yielding me the time. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this closed rule--once again, a closed rule--coming out of the Rules Committee and the process that brought this bill to the floor. My friends on the other side of the aisle for the first time in history shut down the appropriation process by placing extremely restrictive rules on every single appropriation bill that has come to the floor of the House this year. Chairman Obey set an arbitrary timeline to finish the fiscal year 2010 spending bills, which has forced the Democrat Rules Committee to limit every Republican and Democrat's chance to offer an amendment on the floor.
Why? For what reason? There are hundreds of good amendments which were offered by all of my colleagues which were rejected in this unprecedented fashion. Now that this House has finished all the appropriation bills, you would think that my friends on the other side of the aisle would allow for an appropriate time and an appropriate process for consideration of the conference reports, not just come to this House floor but for Members to be heard from and for us to go back to a process which this House was used to in its precedents for so many years.
But no. Last night the conference report was filed after 6 p.m., I believe 6:17, and the Rules Committee met at 7:15 to report out a rule for floor consideration. Our Democrat colleagues in the committee waived the House rule that requires a 3-day layover of conference reports and scheduled a bill on the floor first thing this morning. Additionally, just last week this House voted to adopt a motion to instruct that stated that the conference report, a bill that we are discussing on the floor here today, should be available online in a searchable format for at least 48 hours before it's voted on.
Well, Mr. Speaker, forget the 3-day rule. Forget the 48-hour motion to instruct; this House was given just less than 24 hours to review the conference report and its changes. I don't know when my Democrat colleagues will allow for the open, honest and ethical Congress that they once called for, but we're on the floor once again saying, We have met the deadline that Chairman Obey wanted. Can we get back to a normal process now, a normal process that is not good just for Republicans and not just for our Democratic Members but good for this House to follow?
Mr. Speaker, today we are discussing the Energy and Water appropriation conference report for fiscal year 2010. Today it is my intention to focus on the increase in spending over last year's level and destructive initiatives that the Democrat majority continues to pursue that have only killed jobs and led to record deficits. This administration and this Democratic Congress promised the American public jobs, economic growth, economic recovery, health care, a cleaner environment, better education and just a wonderful, wonderful life, all contained within their appropriation bills. And the list goes on and on with other promises.
Yet the only thing up to now that they really have accomplished is record deficits, record spending and record unemployment numbers all across America. The fiscal year 2010 Energy and Water appropriation conference report provides $33.5 billion in total funding, which is hundreds of millions of dollars above last year's level, and this is in addition to the $58.7 billion provided in fiscal year 2009 emergency funding just from a few months ago, mostly from the stimulus bill.
We have seen massive government spending. Now this bill does not represent any commitment to fiscal sustainability. More promises, more spending, more deficit, more record unemployment. Mr. Speaker, the Obama administration promised America, if Congress passed the stimulus bill, that unemployment would not go beyond 8 percent, that it would create and save millions of jobs. Here we are 8 months later with a record 9.7 unemployment rate, the highest in 26 years, and more than 2 million Americans have lost their jobs since the passage of the $1.2 trillion ``stimulus employment plan.''
This summer when discussing the stimulus, Vice President Biden said the Obama administration--and I quote--``misread how bad the economy was,'' even though as a candidate for President and Vice President both of them had been all over the country. They had seen firsthand exactly the circumstance this country was in.
The Obama administration got it wrong. They got it wrong when it came to the stimulus, and the American people know they got it wrong also. The American people can no longer afford this Democrat-controlled House, Senate and White House. We've got to start getting it right, not guessing and getting it wrong. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars more in addition to the $58 billion additional spending this year is not a way to fix the problem. In June of this year, my friends on the other side of the aisle passed a cap-and-trade bill that will raise prices on energy, goods, and services, and every single hardworking American across the country will pay that price.
In my home State of Texas, the average household can expect to pay more than $1,100 a year extra as a result of that legislation. Additionally, this legislation could ultimately kill over 1.38 million jobs that are in the manufacturing sector of this economy. That's 1.38 million more jobs.
Mr. Speaker, some time this month the Democrat-controlled House wants to pass sweeping health care reform. Effectively, it will diminish the employer-based insurance market and forces 114 million Americans into a government-run program. This $1.2 trillion package raises taxes once again, raises taxes once again, raises taxes once again, which is what this Democratic-controlled Congress is about. Raise $1.2 trillion in taxes on individuals and small businesses that do not participate in the government plan and $800 billion, which the President talks about will be necessary to fund this massive government takeover and will result in 4.7 to 5.5 million more private-sector jobs being lost in America.
In July, the Congressional Budget Office director stated that the Democratic health care proposal ``significantly expands the Federal responsibility for health care costs.'' Mr. Speaker, I thought that the goal of health reform was to bring costs down for Americans, not to increase the cost, further America toward bankruptcy and to cost 4.7 to 5.5 million more enterprise system jobs. By the way, those are jobs that are not in Washington, D.C.
The American people know that you cannot spend what you don't have, and that's exactly what we are doing here today with the Democratic majority. Earlier this month, the Treasury Department released a statement reporting that the Federal budget deficit reached a record $1.378 trillion and that the national debt reached $11.8 trillion by the end of August. This means that since 2007, this Democratic Congress has increased the Federal deficit by $1.217 billion and increased the national debt by over $3 trillion. What a record.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I will continue to point out that our friends on the other side of the aisle should not tax and spend not only this country but also hardworking families into a further economic recession.
My Democratic colleagues need to get a handle on the out-of-control spending which they dogged us repeatedly about when we were in the majority at far lesser levels.
Rising unemployment and record deficits cannot be remedied with massive increases in spending by Uncle Sam. Huge energy and health care costs that raise taxes and kill jobs is not what our economy needs right now. Americans need a balance. They need to listen to what is happening in Washington only to see that Washington is the problem, not the answer. Americans are tightening their belts because they get it. Congress should be doing the same thing.
Mr. Speaker, we have talked today about the process. We have talked today about spending. And we have talked about the overall agenda of this Democratic majority that is about taxing, it is about spending, it is about record unemployment, rather than working on the things that the American people, the people back home who sent us here to do our job, are working on.
I encourage a ``no'' vote on this rule.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, the thought process here in Washington is that we can solve all the problems that our country has, just trust Washington. I think now more than ever we are seeing at the end of this year that the leadership in Washington, D.C., the bills that are on this floor, the votes which we take virtually every single time, every single vote is about more taxes, more spending, more rules and regulations that are thrown to the American people with this package about how great this is for the American people.
Yet what happens is that Members of Congress, lots of them in our body on both sides, go back home and they listen to the American people. And they listen to the American people talk what I think is a lot of common sense: common sense about how to fix our health care, how to fix our spending, how to fix the unemployment, how to encourage manufacturing rather than deleting it.
Then they look up and see the political agenda of the Democratic Party, that in the three biggest political bills that represent the Democratic Party we will lose almost 10 million jobs in this country; and the political agenda of the Democratic Party, one which this body is barreling down that pathway to meet and match, has resulted in disaster for people back home.
So the Republican Party will continue to come to Washington and be faithful after listening, and we will go to our committees and we will throw our ideas on the floor and ask the committees to vote on them. We will continue to have Members come to the Rules Committee that seek time, permission to speak about ideas that will better the bills.
Yet we find that in these instances before the Rules Committee, it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter not just for Republicans, but it really doesn't matter to a Democrat either. They will block the best ideas that come from the heartland.
Mr. Speaker, this is not a way to continue. We are once again coming to the floor, as I have done all year, and my colleagues David Dreier, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and Virginia Foxx, as we explain the rules and explain the Rules Committee, explain what is happening: receiving a bill at 3 o'clock in the morning; getting a bill, as we did last night, 1 hour before the meeting; not even following the rules from a resolution we had just the week before about online availability of bills.
Mr. Speaker, no wonder the American people are up in arms and insisting that Members of Congress read the bill first; that every single Member of this body is given a chance every single time to say, I disagree with the direction that the Democratic leadership is taking us.
We need to read the bills. We need to take the ideas from people in the heartland, through their Representatives in committees and up in the Rules Committee, and make these in order and follow a process that the American people, if they were sitting in, would say, Why not take more time? Why not understand the bill? Why not cut spending? Why not make some commonsense directional issues happen in this Congress? This leadership, these bills continue to follow a process that the American people are questioning.
We will continue coming to the floor and politely, on behalf of people back home, say that we would hope that we would go back to regular processes instead of setting a new record every time for closed rules. I think it's important. I think it's important.
We will keep coming to the floor, and we will dutifully keep speaking up, and we will make sure that we are properly representing those people who are talking about better process, better direction, and doing the things that will work.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding the time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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