Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1732, Regulatory Integrity Protection Act of 2015; Providing for Consideration of Conference Report on S. Con. Res. 11, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2016; and Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. 43, Disapproval of District of Columbia Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule, which provides for the consideration of three unrelated pieces of legislation: a Republican budget conference report, an anti-Clean Water Act bill, and a resolution to interfere with the decisions of the District of Columbia's city council and a bill that limits women's reproductive health rights.

The budget conference report was filed only minutes before the Rules Committee met yesterday, only minutes before the committee formally convened. It was a 100-page conference report that was negotiated in secret by the Republicans, and it was brought before the Rules Committee before anybody had a chance to read it. What ever happened to ``read the bill''? Whatever happened to the pledge for a more open and transparent Congress? It would be nice if all Members, Democrats and Republicans, had the opportunity to carefully review the legislation they are asked to vote on, especially when it comes to a document that provides a blueprint for funding the Federal Government and reforming our social safety net programs.

If that weren't bad enough, the majority claims that this budget conference report is something to be proud of. Mr. Speaker, this is nothing to be proud of. It is shameful. It is shameful in terms of process, and it is shameful in terms of substance. Budgets should be moral documents. They provide our constituents with a clear picture of who we are, of what our priorities are, how we should govern, where we want this country to go. They represent our values, but the values that this budget represents, I would argue, are not the values of working families in this country, and they are not the values of those who are struggling to get out of poverty. They may be the values of corporate special interests or of very wealthy individuals in this country, but they don't represent the values of the majority of people in this country.

This partisan Republican budget takes us in the wrong direction. It cuts $5.5 trillion in funding through a series of unrealistic spending cuts, math magic, and gimmicks. It asks nothing of the wealthiest among us, proposes no elimination of special interest tax breaks, and continues us down the terribly misguided path created by sequestration. In fact, to be honest, Mr. Speaker, this budget basically provides us a pathway to do not a lot of anything, really.

We already know that, unless we deal with the issue of sequestration, our colleagues in the United States Senate are going to block all of the appropriations bills. We know that the President will not sign any appropriations bills that lock us into sequestration. Maybe what we should be doing, rather than wasting time, is fixing sequestration, but my Republican friends have been very good at wasting time and at wasting taxpayer dollars, and that is what we are doing today.

The Republican budget conference report proposes to end the Medicare guarantee and turn it into a voucher program. It turns Medicaid and CHIP into a capped block grant. It eliminates $85 million from Pell grants. It cuts investments in research and in infrastructure. The budget resolution builds upon the draconian $125 billion cut to SNAP, which is the Nation's premier antihunger program that was contained in the House budget. To achieve a cut of that magnitude by block granting the program and capping its allotment means that States will be forced to cut benefits or kick eligible individuals and families off the program.

Boy, isn't that a nice value that we are promoting here--throwing poor people off of a food benefit. Just because the conference report is vague on some details or leaves out a few key buzzwords doesn't mean that it protects programs for the poor. Unfortunately, this Republican Congress has shown time and time again that it plans to balance the budgets on the backs of the poor and working class Americans.

The conference report also includes reconciliation instructions to repeal the Affordable Care Act without proposing an alternative to ensure the 16 million people who have gained health coverage under the ACA are able to remain insured. That is right. If the Republicans get their way, being a woman is, once again, a preexisting condition, and preventative care goes away. Simply, the progress that we have made over the past few years disappears. Senior citizens will see their prescription costs increase. In budgetary terms, we will be worse off when repealing the Affordable Care Act because it will result in higher medical costs and sicker people. It is just that simple. It is a bad idea, but it is a good sound bite, I guess.

Despite claims by my friends in the majority, this budget does not balance. It nowhere near balances. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it is filled with gimmicks and contains the very dangerous addiction Congress has for deficit spending by further increasing funds for the overseas contingency operations account, or OCO. Not only does this budget increase the OCO's war spending, but it also facilitates using the OCO as a slush fund for items that should be funded in the base budget. Everything in OCO is on the national credit card. None of it is an emergency. It is deficit spending, pure and simple.

I commend my colleagues on the Republican side who are raising a little hell about this kind of budget gimmick that is going on. This is outrageous. While we continue to pump up the deficit and to pump up the OCO account, we watch our roads and our bridges and our water systems crumble for lack of funding, and we starve our education and our job training and innovation programs.

Mr. Speaker, those are just a few of the outrages contained in the Republican budget. We are still in the process of combing through the 100-page document that was just filed yesterday, and I am sure there will be additional issues that we will want to raise.

In addition to this awful budget, today's rule also provides for the consideration of H.R. 1732 and H.J. Res. 43.

H.R. 1732, Mr. Speaker, would basically force the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw its proposed rule on Clean Water Act jurisdictional boundaries and start the rulemaking process over again from scratch. Mr. Speaker, the current rulemaking process should be allowed to move forward. The EPA and the Army Corps have painstakingly engaged in an extensive stakeholder outreach and public comment process. They are doing their jobs. The rule is grounded in sound science. H.R. 1732 would cause further confusion, and it would end up delaying essential clean water projects for future generations, not to mention, Mr. Speaker, that a rider in the Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which is being considered by this House today, would prohibit the Army Corps from spending any money to propose a new rule.

In one bill, my friends basically null and void what the bill we are going to debate today is intended to do. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed in this partisan approach that the majority has taken with regard to clean water legislation and environmental protection legislation.

There is another bill in here, Mr. Speaker, and I just want to say a few words about that. It is H.J. Res. 43, disapproving the District of Columbia Council in approving the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act.

Mr. Speaker, the D.C. Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act is scheduled to take effect this Saturday. The law passed unanimously by the D.C. City Council. This would protect employees who work in the District of Columbia from workplace discrimination based on their personal reproductive healthcare decisions. The bill is about basic fairness. People should be judged at work based on their performances, not on their personal, private reproductive healthcare decisions. But House Republicans cannot pass up an opportunity to meddle in personal reproductive decisions or in D.C.'s right to govern itself.

The resolution before us, H.J. Res. 43, would prevent the law from going into effect. In doing so, it would allow an employer to fire a woman because she used in vitro fertilization or to demote an employee because she used birth control pills or because her husband used condoms or to pay an employee less because his daughter became pregnant out of wedlock.

In other words, we are a few months into 2015, a year-and-a-half away from the Presidential election, and the Republicans are already restarting their war on women. Sometimes it feels like this Congress is stuck in the mindset of 1815 rather than 2015.

Let my colleagues make no mistake about this: H.J. Res. 43 is about legitimizing discrimination. Enough already.

Mr. Speaker, earlier the gentlelady from North Carolina, my colleague on the Committee on Rules, came on the floor and said we in Congress need to protect the citizens of D.C. Protect them from what? From their own democratic process? Give me a break. Let me tell my Republican colleagues, the citizens of D.C. don't want your protection or your interference. They want this Congress to respect them and their decisions.

Mr. Speaker, this is another lousy piece of legislation that really shouldn't be here on the House floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlelady from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me just say for the record, I strongly disagree with what the gentlelady just said, and we will have some more time to talk about that, but I want to go to kind of a different subject right now.

For those who are watching these proceedings, it may be a little confusing because we are jumping around to different subjects, but my Republican friends have this new kind of ploy to limit and stifle debate, and that is pack as many bills into one rule at a time so that you can limit the amount of participation and debate, which, again, runs contrary to what the people's House is supposed to be about.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask at the end of all this that we defeat the previous question, and then I will offer an amendment to the rule that would grant the House an opportunity to consider a budget that rejects the mindless sequester cuts in critical services and instead adopt a plan to put the budget on a fiscally responsible path by making responsible, targeted spending cuts, and by closing special interest tax breaks that benefit only the very wealthiest. It would make necessary investments to boost the economy and create jobs, protect national security, and preserve the Medicare guarantee.

To discuss this proposal, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth), a member of the Committee on the Budget.

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Mr. McGOVERN. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question and vote ``no'' on the rule. I just wanted to make that clear before I continue here.

Mr. Speaker, it is frustrating to come to the floor and have to squeeze into a very short period of time three different bills on one rule. These are three very controversial bills.

You have heard about the bill that essentially is a war on women in the District of Columbia, that denies women and men their privacy and their right to reproductive health care. We have a bill in here also that essentially tries to gut the Clean Water Act, which is very controversial and has a very direct impact on the health and well-being of the people of this country. And then we have this budget that was filed minutes before the Rules Committee met. Nobody read it.

I should also point out that the Rules Committee reports that, although the resolution waives all points of order against provisions in H.J. Res. 43, the committee is not aware of any point of order. Well, one of the points of order is the 3-day layover, which is being violated, so the committee is waiving a point of order with regard to that.

Look, we should be debating an immigration reform bill. We should be debating a pay equity bill. We should be debating an increase in the minimum wage. We should be debating a comprehensive long-term highway and transportation reauthorization bill to help rebuild this country. There are so many important things that we should be debating, and, instead, we are bringing these wedge issues to the floor. We are bringing an anti-environmental bill to the floor that is going nowhere, and we are bringing a budget to the floor that paves the way for a lot of nothing.

Unless we fix the sequestration problem, the Senate is not going to take up any of these appropriations bills, and neither should we.

We ought to put the American people first and put the electioneering off. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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