Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3, Keystone XL Pipeline Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 30, Save American Workers Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and both underlying bills, particularly the misnamed Save American Workers Act.

I would like to just cite very quickly from the Congressional Research Service, which is one of the gems of quality, neutral, nonpartisan analysis for this body, which took a look at this bill and said very clearly:

Changing the cutoff from 30 hours per week to 40 hours per week would not eliminate the incentive for employers to shift more workers to part-time status and could actually provide a greater incentive for firms not to offer health insurance to their employees.

In theory, changing the definition of a full-time worker to 40 hours a week would shift, not eliminate, the incentive for employers to reduce workers' hours. Additionally, more employers could be inclined to shift more workers to ``part-time'' status under a 40-hour definition because the disruption to their workforce is smaller from 40 to 39 hours per week than 40 to 29 hours per week.

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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Speaker, I had an amendment, which is being shut
off today, which I think actually really addresses the problem. Under
the structure of the employer mandate that came out of the Senate, when
an employer goes from 49 to 50 employees, the employer is taxed for 20
employees. Again, that is a cliff. There is just no denying that fact.

When the House passed the Affordable Care Act, we had a smooth,
gradual, incremental increase based on payroll which, again, did not
create a cliff.

My amendment would simply say that the exempt number of employees
before the tax kicked in would be raised from 30 to 49, so that when an
additional employee was hired above the 50 threshold, there would be a
tax, there still would be an incentive, but there would not be a cliff.

Unbelievably, the committee just totally refused to allow this
amendment to be considered. It was a strike-everything substitute
amendment because the underlying bill does not accomplish the ends that
its sponsors claim--and the CRS has verified that--but in fact, the
Small Business Majority, which represents a large contingent of small
employers across the country, endorsed my amendment.

Madam Speaker, sadly, under this rule--which, again, just completely
shuts off any ability for Members to do their job, represent their
district, come up with ideas that are well-founded in independent
analysis--we are not going to have that opportunity.

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