Providing For Consideration of H.R. 1806, America Competes Reauthorization Act of 2015; Providing For Consideration Of H.R. 2250, Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2016; And Providing For Consideration of H.R. 2353, Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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

I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule and the underlying bills.

We should be celebrating today the start of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals expansion and the Deferred Action for Parents of American Citizens program that President Obama launched in light of the continued failure of this Congress to finally fix our broken immigration system. This Congress hasn't brought forth a single immigration bill, not secured our border, not ensured that employers follow our law and only employ legal American workers; but, rather, at every opportunity, it has sought to thwart the executive branch, doing what they can with the powers they have under our U.S. Constitution to restore the rule of law without the help of this body.

These three bills before us today are yet another way of kicking the ball down the road and refusing to address our broken immigration system, a problem that will continue to get worse until Congress steps up and solves it.

I hope that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program's expansion, known as DACA--already a great success with additional success along the way with the new expansion--and the Deferred Action for Parents of American Citizens program, or DAPA, are soon unclogged by the courts to at least reduce the size of this sometimes insurmountable problem that Congress continues to refuse to tackle. That is the alternative.

If Congress continues to bring up three bills every week and if none of them are about border security and none of them are about immigration, do you know what? Instead of there being 10 million people here illegally, there are going to be 15 or 20 million here 10 years. That is exactly where this Republican Congress is leading us--towards an America where, someday, there might be more people here illegally than there are here legally. Think about that, Mr. Speaker.

This first bill that we are considering before us today is not immigration reform. It is, instead, a 2-month extension of the current surface transportation authorization. Our transportation system is the lifeblood of our country. It dictates our ability to move and manage not only people but information, ideas, products, industries, commerce, jobs. By failing to pass a long-term transportation reauthorization, which will ensure the security of our highways and transit systems for more than 60 days, we are putting our Nation's economic lifeblood in jeopardy.

The second bill we will see before us today is not immigration reform. The second bill, instead, is a partisan attempt to inject the ideological priorities of my Republican colleagues into education and research, priorities that are opposed by the very titans of research for whom this bill is ostensibly designed. I will talk more about that in a moment.

Of the third bill before us today, I am hopeful. Is it immigration reform? I ask the gentleman from Washington: Is the third bill before us today immigration reform? I am happy to yield to the gentleman for an answer.

In reclaiming my time, he is speechless. He is speechless because he knows the truth: the third bill is not immigration reform. The third bill is actually the funding bill for the legislative branch of government. Maybe if the legislative branch of government were actually doing its job we would have an immigration reform bill before us; but, no, my colleague from Washington is speechless because he knows as well as I do that this is not immigration reform, that it is, instead, a funding bill for Members of Congress' salaries and the salaries of our staffs. I guess that is more important than securing our border. I guess that is more important to the Republicans than restoring the rule of law.

Let me get into these three bills.

The Surface Transportation Act would extend the authority of the government to fund our highways for 2 months--only for 2 months. What that means is we risk wasting $51 billion and, in jeopardizing that funding, risk over 660,000 jobs by failing to do a long-term authorization of the highway trust fund.

We all have an interest in this. Any one of us can talk about the importance of transportation in our districts. If you have ever been to Colorado, you will know that there is one major artery to get to our world-class ski facilities and unparalleled 14,000 peaks from the metro area--Highway 70. If you have ever taken it, particularly on a Friday, or have come back on a Sunday, you might very well have sat in your car at a dead stop. If you have been to Fort Collins, which is the largest city in my district and is home to one of our great universities, Colorado State University, you might have found similar circumstances around the long rush hour on Highway 25 north. Waiting 45 minutes in traffic to go 5 or 10 miles is something my constituents do every day--doubling, tripling, quadrupling their commuting time.

These stories aren't unique to Colorado. They aren't unique to my district. I will bet every Member of Congress can share the importance of transportation in their districts. That is why, ostensibly, every Member of Congress says, ``We want transportation. We support roads.''

There are no Republican roads and Democratic roads. There are roads. Yet, by continuing to fail to provide a long-term funding structure for them, we are playing games with the livelihoods of the American people, hurting our own economic lifeblood, wasting people's time as they are sitting in traffic, throwing into jeopardy the status of the jobs of contractors and subcontractors, and risking lives by continuing to repair our necessary bridges and infrastructure that have accumulated safety deficits. I urge my colleagues to consider the irresponsibility inherent in this punt.

I would also like to talk about the America COMPETES Act. Now, the original genesis of this bill, which was passed in 2007, was to help America compete in an increasingly global environment across the sciences and to ensure our innovative spirit.

My district is a hub for scientific research, and we are excited to have the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado State University, NOAA, NREL, and NCAR. Research that is done in Colorado has ramifications and positive effects across the country, like our space weather lab in Boulder, which helps make sure that air traffic controllers and pilots have access to up-to-the-minute information about solar flares that could alter their trajectories in realtime.

This bill, instead of continuing the bipartisan legacy that the original COMPETES Act sets out or instead of replacing our broken immigration system with one that works for our country, seems to cherry-pick winners based on ideology and overturns the historic priorities of the bill. Why else would the dean of Research at CU-Boulder oppose this bill? Why else would our widely respected Secretary of Energy oppose this bill? Dozens of the largest scientific organizations and coalitions--this is supposed to be a science bill--are saying, ``Don't give us this bill. It will hurt science in our country.'' How does that even make any sense?

The efforts of the Republicans to hijack this legislation for ideological interests are utterly transparent. Scientists are saying, ``Go home Federal Government. Don't help us with this bill.'' Again, in yet another instance of Federal overreach, the Republicans are imposing their versions of science on those in the field who are doing work.

Finally, this rule brings forth H.R. 2250, also a bill that is not immigration reform. It does nothing to secure our border, but it does make sure that Members of Congress get paid. I am sure Republicans can go home happy about that. It makes sure our hard-working staff gets paid, the committees get paid, and the buildings get repaired.

No, I am not against those things. Those are fine things. If we had an all-volunteer legislature, we probably wouldn't have the fine caliber of statesmen we have tackling our national problems here today. But it is not immigration reform, Mr. Speaker. It doesn't secure our border, and it will only continue to increase the number of people who are here illegally in our country while Congress continues to punt and to undermine the efforts of the President to do what he can with the powers he has through DACA and DAPA, which were scheduled to start today.

I do want to point out that the underlying draft of this Legislative Branch Appropriations Act is another example of the failure to address many of the needs of our country. There was an effort by my colleague Debbie Wasserman Schultz to put forward an amendment to ensure that House cafeteria workers receive a living wage. You would think we would want to be an example of a model employer. I would hope that we, as custodians of the U.S. Capitol, would take some pride in that we are a model employer; we are a little microcosm of what employers should do, best practices. But there is a Senate employee who is homeless because, on the salary he gets, he can't even afford to rent here in Washington. People who work every day here in the Nation's Capital are living in poverty.

I think that we can do better as a model employer. If this were my company, I would take no pride in that. I would like to think that this is our company. It is the United States of America, and we are the board. Let's have employment policies that we as employers can be proud of.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the rule and to, instead, bring to the floor immigration reform or better versions of these bills: a science bill that, maybe, scientists support, maybe; or a transportation bill that maybe funds our highways for more than 2 months so that people can plan. It is time we begin working for the American people, not against them.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Speaker, I was told the gentleman from Washington shares a desire to address the broken immigration system. I know the chair of the Committee on Rules, Mr. Sessions, has indicated similarly. Just as I have posed to Mr. Sessions in the past, I would like to pose to the gentleman from Washington if he has a timeframe for when we can expect immigration legislation here on the floor of the House.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Washington to answer that.

Well, sometimes silence speaks louder than words.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

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Mr. Speaker, the reason you hear so many people talking about different topics is there are three completely unrelated topics in this single rule. There is the funding for all of the legislative salaries and the people who work in this building, that is one bill; another one funds roads, but only for 2 months, across the whole country; and the other one is the one that they say is for science but all the scientists oppose. So that is why it is so confusing. There are three completely unrelated bills in here, none of which do a thing about illegal immigration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, this rule under this debate covers three significant but entirely unrelated bills. That is why you are hearing people discuss highway funding; you are hearing people discuss the legislative branch, and you are hearing people discuss science.

On the day that DACA expansion and DAPA were scheduled to go into effect to make sure people here illegally can pay a fine, get right with the law, and be employed legally, rather than illegally, we are doing nothing relating to restoring the rule of law and securing our borders or anything to address our broken immigration system.

We are making sure that Members of Congress and our staffs get paid. That is not the wrong thing. Our hard-working men and women who work here should get paid. It is a question of priorities. I would like to see us do something about the 10 or 12 million people here illegally before we start paying ourselves and our staff.

What about the highway trust fund? Again, this is an example of Congress kicking the ball down the road 2 months here, 2 months there, a month here, a month there. All the contractors and subcontractors don't even know how to present bids when they don't know whether a yearlong or 2-year project will be funded for more than 2 months. Taxpayers wind up paying more for the same amount of work because we lack the certainty.

Then there is the COMPETES Act--the science bill--which targets certain kinds of science which apparently Republicans don't like--for instance, the physical sciences and the geological sciences.

Handicapping the physical sciences hurts our ability to recognize the causes of things like wildfires and floods that affect my district in Colorado, foresee patterns leading to events like the great Western drought in California. It seems like, if anything, there should be a focus on a very relevant form of science that impacts quality of life every day.

They also apparently don't like, for political reasons, the social sciences. Again, going after the social sciences would harm our ability to adapt for historic storms like Hurricane Sandy or the flood in New Orleans with Katrina and mitigate against floods like those in Colorado.

There is an interface between the physical sciences and people, and that is the work of the social science programs: how public health looks, how flood evacuations look, how disease control looks.

These are important considerations and should not be politicized by this body, which is why not only I oppose this bill, but dozens of the largest scientific associations and coalitions oppose this bill that ostensibly is for the cause of science.

Having all these bills under this rule is what we call a grab-bag approach, just jamming unrelated legislation into ineffective packages that seem to confuse and muddle the meaningful debate that needs to occur.

Since 2011, when Republicans won the majority of the House, this practice of jamming several unrelated bills together into one rule has increased by 400 percent. This rule is an example of that, and it is why the American people suffer from the somewhat disjointed debate around it--one person talks about highways; another counters a point about science; another talks about the legislative branch. It is because they are all in here. This is a Christmas tree bill.

Now, if it had immigration reform in it, I would support this Christmas tree. I could swallow the others if that was in here. I offered that to the gentleman from Washington, but unfortunately, it is not, Mr. Speaker.

In fact, the very people that should be benefiting from the bills we are reviewing today, like scientists, are actually opposing the bills. That should be a signal that this body is not understanding or heeding the needs of the American people.

We can reject this rule. We can tell Congress to get back on course. We can tell Congress to do a long-term reauthorization of transportation funding. We can tell Congress to pass a COMPETES Act that actually fosters innovation and makes America more competitive and a legislative branch appropriations bill that furthers the ability of this body to deliberate and be a model employer for those who work here.

How do we do that, Mr. Speaker? We do that by rejecting this rule.

If we can bring down this grab-bag, Christmas tree rule, we can set this Congress right.

I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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