Providing for Consideration of HR 527, Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act

Floor Speech

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the majority for bringing up a bipartisan bill. It's not often that this majority works in a bipartisan way on legislation. In fact, it's a rarity. But, in this case, Chairman Hastings worked with Ranking Member Markey to produce a bill that should pass the House with very, very little opposition.

In fact, we have a streamlined process here in the House for noncontroversial bills like this. It's called the suspension calendar. This is a perfect bill for the suspension calendar. We could be done with this bill in 40 minutes. We could debate, vote, and send it to the Senate so they could send it to the President.

But, instead, the majority is stretching this bill out over 2 days--2 days, Mr. Speaker, to consider a bill that isn't controversial and will pass overwhelmingly, 2 days to consider this bill when there are so many other urgent challenges that this majority continues to ignore, 2 days on the Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act. That's a lot of hot air even for this House. So while we're spending a ridiculous amount of time on this bill, the Republican majority continues to ignore the economy.

The gentleman from Utah is right when he says that this could potentially be a problem if we don't address this issue of helium, but that's not until the end of the fiscal year. We have some major problems right now this very second that the majority of this House continues to ignore, challenges that impact our constituencies all over this country.

This sequester that my friends on the other side embraced is still going into effect. We've already seen cuts to programs like Meals on Wheels and on food pantries and WIC recipients and Head Start facilities, just to name a few.

I would like to enter into the Record, Mr. Speaker, a news item that appeared on a Fox affiliate out in Utah entitled, ``Sequestration forces food pantry closure.''

We started hearing reports about airport delays because of the sequester's impact on the FAA. And I really got a kick out of my Republican colleagues coming down here kind of expressing their astonishment that there were airport delays as a result of sequestration. They actually had the temerity to complain about those delays.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to thank the gentlelady from Florida for her comments. I appreciate the fact that she has a beautiful district in southern Florida, and I appreciate the fact that she's going to spend her recess going to a student awards ceremony to honor kids who have a good attendance record.

But with all due respect, Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague's time, and in effect all of our time, would be better spent trying to solve the sequestration problem, trying to avoid deep cuts in medical research that will cost jobs, that will delay advancements in medical science, that perhaps could find cures for diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or diabetes. By the way, if we found a cure for one of those diseases, it would help make Medicare and Medicaid solvent forever and ever and ever. So investment actually does pay off.

I appreciate the fact that she brought a guest on the floor here today, a young student. But I would simply say that the sequestration cuts education. Sequestration actually cuts education. It will be more difficult to fund our schools. It will be more difficult to be able to provide students with the financial aid that they need to go to college because of the sequestration.

So with all due respect about all of the wonderful things that my colleagues will be doing during their recess, it is still a recess. It is a week that we are not dealing with the budget. It is a week we are not dealing with sequestration.

And by the way, I understand that it has become fashionable to blame the Senate for everything, but when it comes to the budget, the House has passed a budget. The Senate has passed a budget. We're waiting for the House to go to conference. So we're going to vote in a little while, and then that's it for the day. We're done. We're done for the day. Why aren't we going to conference with the Senate on a budget? Why are we not doing something meaningful?

So with that, Mr. Speaker, I again respect the itinerary of my colleague from Florida, but I'll tell you, there are lot of workers who are being furloughed who are expecting us to come to some sort of solution so they don't lose a week or a month's pay, which will make it more difficult for them to pay their mortgage and their utility bills, and for their kids. This is urgent, and we're not dealing with it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I'll close, but I would be interested to know whether anybody on the other side can tell me when we might go to conference on the budget? The House has passed a budget. The Senate has passed a budget. I thought the whole point of getting the Senate to pass a budget was to go to conference and try to work out the differences. I don't know whether anybody on the other side of the aisle has any information on when we might go to conference. It's the House's responsibility to ask for a conference. I'm just trying to get a sense. If not today, will it be tomorrow? Surely it won't be next week because we're on break next week. Anybody?

Okay, thank you for that informative answer.

Mr. Speaker, let me close by saying I have no problem with this helium bill. There is value to passing this bill. It doesn't have to be passed today. It could be passed anywhere up until the end of this fiscal year, but I'm fine with passing it today. It's not controversial. This could pass really quickly, but we are stretching it over 2 days for reasons that none of us can quite fathom.

But the problem is not with the helium bill. The problem is with what we're not doing. And as we speak, there are people who are losing their jobs. There are people who are being furloughed. There are cancer patients who are not getting access to their treatments. There are poor women who benefit from the WIC program who are not getting that benefit. There are food banks that are being closed all around this country.

There is medical research that is being curtailed. There is scientific research that is being curtailed, all while we speak. And all this is vitally important to our economy. All this is vitally important to our economy. And yet we're doing nothing. We're doing nothing. We're just going to kind of wait it out.

And what we're saying on this side of the aisle is we ought to do something. We ought to be debating what is urgent right now before the American people, and that is the cuts that are impacting them as a result of sequestration. That's what we should be talking about right now. That's what we should be debating. I don't know why that's such a controversial idea.

But we're not. We're going to do this bill, which is not urgent, and we're going to go home for a week, the sixth week of recess since January, the sixth week of recess.

And, again, I appreciate the fact that we all have busy schedules when we go home--I do as well--but the idea of leaving here while people are being furloughed, while families are being hurt, I just find unconscionable.

And so our complaint is with the fact that we're not addressing the central issue before the American people today, and that is these devastating cuts. And I would like to think that we could get some clue from somebody that, at some point in the near future, we would be able to deal with it.

Just one final point. My friends on the other side of the aisle embrace this idea of sequestration, so my friends own it. I think it's your responsibility to at least provide us the forum to find a way out of it.

I will close by saying, Mr. Speaker, that, again, we have no problem with the helium bill. We could do this in an hour, with all the amendments. That's how noncontroversial it is.

But the idea that we're stretching it over 2 days, and we're not dealing with these devastating cuts and sequestration, I think, is just wrong.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I asked my friends on the other side of the aisle: What did you think would happen when you voted for unnecessary, arbitrary, senseless across-the-board cuts? My Republican friends remind me of Claude Rains in ``Casablanca.'' They are shocked--shocked--that voting to slash funding for air traffic controllers would result in their flights being delayed.

Well, I want my friends to understand one thing. There are consequences to their actions. There are consequences to the sequestration.

The truth, Mr. Speaker, is that deficit reduction is an important goal, but deficit reduction alone is not an economic policy. We know that mindless austerity budget cuts like this stupid sequester are not going to help our economy grow and help people get jobs and help get our economy back on the kind of footing we all want it to be on.

When Bill Clinton was President, when he rescued the economy in the 1990s, he did so through job creation, investing in our economy. We expanded the tax base by increasing the workforce, bringing more revenue into the Federal Government and thereby reducing the deficit.

And here's the funny thing. Despite the apocalyptic gloom and doom of some on the other side of the aisle, believe it or not, the deficit is actually shrinking faster than expected. And the best thing we can do is to help speed up that process by investing in our people and creating jobs. We should be promoting growth through infrastructure projects and job-training programs. We should be creating long-term demand through research and development, not cutting the National Institutes of Health's research budget, not cutting the National Science Foundation. We should be supporting these areas that create innovation and opportunity. We should be investing in our young people, preparing our students for the 21st century economy, but we're not doing any of that today--any of that today.

And, yes, the bill before us that we're dealing with right now is fine, no problems. Yes, Republicans and

Democrats worked together on this in a way that is sadly uncommon for this current Congress, but we aren't doing enough to solve our biggest problems.

Tomorrow, when we adjourn after this overlong debate on this helium bill, we're going to take another week off--the sixth week of recess that this House of Representatives has taken since January--the sixth weeklong recess with all that's going on. With all of the difficulty that people all across this country are dealing with because of the sequestration, we're taking another week off.

Mr. Speaker, I think we should do more, we can do more, we must do more, and we certainly can do better. So while I have no problem with this bill, and while, if we don't deal with this helium issue come the end of the fiscal year there may be a problem, we'll deal with it fast enough. Right now there are urgent issues that we need to face, not just airline delays. There are people in this country who have fallen through the cracks. There are people in this country struggling who are seeing their benefits slashed because of the sequestration. There are research facilities all across this country that are terminating important medical research programs because of the sequestration. We ought to deal with that.

And one other thing, Mr. Speaker. My friends on the other side of the aisle a few weeks ago made a big hoo-ha and sent all kinds of press releases about how they were going to force the House and the Senate to pass budgets, otherwise we would lose our salaries.

Well, the House passed a budget, a lousy budget, but the House passed a budget. The Senate passed a budget, as well. So you have two budgets. Why doesn't the House move to go to conference? Why aren't we trying to reconcile the differences between the House and the Senate to try to get our budgetary situation under control? We're not doing that. We're not doing anything, quite frankly, that we need to do at this moment.

So I would urge my colleagues, this is a fine bill, vote for it, bipartisan support. Mr. Hastings, Mr. Markey, it's all good, but we're spending 2 days on this? Give me a break.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would just like to remind my colleagues that, again, as we are debating this bill--which I'm not saying we shouldn't pass--even with all of the amendments, we could probably spend, maybe, a total of an hour on this bill and get all of those things taken care of. I have no problem with passing the bill.

What I do have a problem with is the fact that this Republican majority continues to ignore the economy. This Republican majority continues to ignore the very, very harsh consequences of the sequestration that they thrust upon this country, that they voted for, that they will not allow us to bring up an alternative to fix.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me respond to my friend from Utah by simply saying that I think going on a week-long recess while people are being furloughed, while cuts in medical research go forward, while we see cuts in programs like WIC and cuts in programs like food banks and scientific research, I think going on recess with all of this happening, quite frankly, is unconscionable. That's running away from our responsibility here in this Congress and running away from our responsibility to our constituents.

The Democrats have had an alternative to sequestration. Mr. Van Hollen has tried on countless occasions to have the Rules Committee allow him the opportunity to bring his alternative to the floor. He's been turned down every single time.

Again, I really appreciated my Republican friends who came down here and were upset about the flight delays. They're upset about the flight delays because, quite frankly, that impacts them directly. What was missing from their outrage were the cuts in WIC, the cuts in food banks, the cuts in medical research and the furloughs. Why aren't they complaining about that as well? Maybe because it doesn't affect them directly.

But I think the idea of leaving here for a week with this sequestration in play is an absolute disgrace, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, once again, a nice conversation. We need to have that conversation with my friends in the Senate. We've already sent two bills over there they haven't addressed. I don't know how many more we need to address, but it would be nice if the Senate did something.

With that, I yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), a member of the Rules Committee.

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