Earl Blumenauer

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I will vote against H.R. 3219, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2018, also ironically named the, ``Make America Secure Appropriations Act'' (Roll no. 435). I commend House appropriators for their work on this bill and realize that putting it together was no easy task. However, due to several poison pill provisions and deep budgetary issues, I could not support it. Most concerning, the bill contains $1.6 billion in funding to begin construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. A border wall serves only to instill fear and puts United States taxpayers on the hook for something that is unrealistic, costly, and unnecessary. It's immoral and goes against our values as Americans. There are also severe budgetary concerns. The bill would increase defense spending more than $72 billion above limits set in the Budget Control Act. House Republicans have refused to work with Democrats on a new budget agreement, and without a budget resolution, the funding levels in this legislation would be subject to a sequester. H.R. 3219 is an affront to smart spending and a testament to misguided governing. The legislation increases funding levels for several redundant weapons programs, including certain dangerous nuclear weapons programs. The prioritizing of weapons systems over our troops and veterans is wrong and will result in the hollowing out of the Army, Navy, and Air Force conventional forces. We need to set clear spending priorities. In addition, the bill contains a number of provisions that ignore basic environmental policy requirements and important investments in renewable energy. It includes a rider that would prevent the federal government from protecting clean water and even exempts discharged dredged or fill material from clean water act requirements. The bill would also eliminate the Department of Energy's advanced energy research program and the energy loan guarantee program and would slash energy efficiency & renewable energy investments by nearly $1 billion. The so-called Making America Secure Act even prevents agencies from collaborating on federal ocean policies. There was a bright spot. The House passed an amendment to defund painful experiments on dogs conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is critical that Congress work to strengthen animal protections, which is why I've laid out an ambitious agenda to help animals and crack down on abuse. I hope we can work together going forward to pass a budget resolution that prioritizes appropriately.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, this administration has made attacking the environment and rolling back progress we've made fighting climate change one of its top priorities. The most recent example is the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. They're taking us backwards. Future generations will shoulder the devastation of increased temperatures, rising sea levels, and environmental degradation. We can't deny modern science. Human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels, are contributing to climate change. The United States is a major contributor to global carbon pollution and shows little sign of stopping. We have a moral responsibility to reverse this trend and place sensible limits on emissions. In the absence of leadership from the White House, Congress must step up. That's why this week, my colleague Representative David Cicilline and I are joining our colleagues, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Brian Schatz, in introducing legislation to finally put a clear price on carbon pollution and begin to drastically lower our emissions. The American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act would place a $49 fee on every metric ton of carbon emissions starting in 2018. This fee would increase every year to ensure that polluters pay their fair share. It also levels the playing field by pricing dirty energy accurately--so clean energy can better compete. To ensure that the American people aren't hurt by this price on carbon, part of the fee would be returned to the public every year as a refundable tax credit. Additional funds would be used to help vulnerable communities who might be impacted by higher heating and electricity bills. Putting a price on emissions is a crucial element of our transition to a low carbon future, helping us not just stave off the worst impacts of climate change, but also grow the ``clean economy,'' create jobs, and save money. Reducing the amount of carbon that we put into the air is just one part of the fight against climate change. When paired with investments in public transit, affordable housing, and clean energy jobs, particularly in those communities most impacted by climate change, this bill can kick-start much needed climate action. I am under no illusion that this bill will move to the floor as is, but this is an important step to engaging in a bipartisan, bicameral discussion on how to best put a price on carbon. It's time to wake up, and I urge my colleagues to join us in finally taking meaningful Congressional action to address climate change.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, this is really an amazing time on Capitol Hill. The Republican internal battles and inability to deliver a coherent, effective alternative to fulfill all their contradictory campaign promises on healthcare has done more than just expose their political and policy dysfunction. They are obviously flirting with a serious political backlash. They have managed to make the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, with all of its shortcomings, popular with the majority of the American public for the first time ever, including so many small business people. They made the public more aware and concerned about Medicaid, that has expanded and made such a difference in Kentucky, in Oregon, in States all across the country, providing care for people otherwise who had not had it. They have managed to accelerate the move towards single payer by more than a decade: Medicare for all, Medicaid for more. I don't know the exact form, but we are going to be moving in that direction, and the Republicans have helped raise the awareness and accelerate that progress, but I hope that we are going to be able to take steps to make progress sooner. In the meantime, I suspect that the Affordable Care Act, the core reforms and structure, are going to, in fact, stay in place. This is because there aren't the votes in the Senate to do anything more; and frankly, it doesn't look like there are votes to do much in the House, the so-called skinny bill notwithstanding. But I hope that we can pivot towards modest, bipartisan actions that are consistent with the Affordable Care Act, but don't depend on it. We have a number of bipartisan initiatives that are teed up and ready to go. I have worked for years with Congresswoman Diane Black from Tennessee, on value-based insurance design. This bipartisan legislation would reward value over volume and make insurance much more effective in paying for what we need. I have an initiative with Congressman Jason Smith and with Senator Todd Young dealing with kidney health. This would enable providers to leverage those weekly sessions for dialysis for some of our most vulnerable Americans in terms of their health. Dialysis costs 1 percent of the entire Federal budget. We should be able to use that time and attention to deliver wraparound services, more care and less strain on people with multiple health needs. We ought to be able to act on empowering our citizens and their families to know what they are facing at end of life. I have bipartisan legislation with my friend and colleague, Congressman Roe from Tennessee, along those lines. Congress ought to accept the challenge from President Trump to deal meaningfully with prescription drug costs. There is support on both sides of the aisle. We can save billions of dollars for Americans and the taxpayers, and we can provide better care. There are mental health initiatives with our friend Tim Murphy. Bipartisan progress was made in the last Congress, but there is much more that needs to be done. In fact, we can work together to overcome the opposition of Chairman Sessions and the Rules Committee denying the House the right to vote on extending our veterans access bill to allow consultation about medical marijuana. No one can listen to the heartbreaking stories of veterans and their families about what medical marijuana has done to sufferers of PTSD, chronic pain, traumatic brain injury. It is legal in 29 states, but the Rules Committee denied the right of the House to vote on extending that service to our veterans and their doctors, despite the horrible record that the VA has in preventing veteran suicide, and where the opioid addiction rate for the VA is twice the general population. These are things we can do tomorrow, not dealing with denying millions of people care through the Affordable Care Act and the various permutations that are spinning around now. Do our job, work together, follow regular order, deal with bipartisan initiatives that will benefit the American people, save the taxpayer money, and improve the health of all Americans.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, today, Donald Trump announced via Twitter, how else, that he is going to reverse the Obama-era decision and deny transgender people the right to openly serve in our military. I think it is shameful to divide Americans, in the face of their service and sacrifice, for his political gain. This is not about national security, it is not about saving money, and it is not about fabricated claims of disruption. What is disruptive is discrimination against an entire class of Americans who are or who want to protect and defend America. That is the same argument that was used against women in the service, against gays and lesbians. We ought to welcome any American who is qualified and willing to serve to protect our great country, to protect America and our values, even as the President undermines both.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule. I had a real bipartisan amendment that had been in order repeatedly in recent sessions, gaining bipartisan support, to be able to deal with the crisis that our veterans face in terms of addiction, opioids. The VA, sadly, has a horrible record in terms of how they deal with these veterans. They suffer suicide 50 percent higher than the general public. The opioid addiction rate is twice the general population. Mr. Speaker, I have been working for years in the area of medical marijuana. Twenty-nine States have now legalized it. I wish my friends on the Rules Committee had taken the time to listen to the stories of veterans and their families about what difference it made for people suffering from PTSD, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injury. Medical marijuana has helped change their lives, and it is not addictive and doesn't kill them the way the abuse of opioids has. Yet the VA, in its infinite wisdom, doesn't even allow VA doctors to talk to veterans about medical marijuana in the States where it is legal. Our amendment is simple. It would eliminate that prohibition. It wouldn't dispense marijuana on public land. It allowed the VA doctor to work with the patients--the people who know them best. It passed last year with 40 votes on a bipartisan basis. There were 18 bipartisan cosponsors for the amendment, 9 and 9, Republican and Democrat. It has already passed the Senate by a 3-to-1 margin in committee. It was actually approved by the House last Congress, but in conference committee, it was stripped out, led by former Senator Kirk. I sincerely believe that one of the reasons he is a former Senator is because Illinois veterans and their families were outraged about that action to reverse what Congress did. Now we are not even allowed to vote on it. I think that is incomprehensible. I don't think it is fair to our veterans. My friends on the Rules Committee are on the wrong side of history. In Florida, last November, 71 percent of the people voted for medical marijuana. Our veterans deserve the right to work with their VA physicians to do what is right for them and their families and, hopefully, avoid the epidemic of opioid overdoses, overprescriptions, and not being able to treat them with a methodology that is not highly addictive and not dangerous. Mr. Speaker, there is no reason on God's green earth that we shouldn't have been allowed to at least vote on this bipartisan amendment to protect our veterans.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I would just say this was an opportunity to bring us together. It passed last Congress on the floor of the House with a 40-vote margin. There is more support now, today, in the public and in the other body. This was an opportunity to avoid unnecessary controversy, to send a signal to our veterans, to change a destructive policy from the Veterans Administration that is overwhelmingly supported by the American public. If you would have allowed us to vote on the floor of the House, I will guarantee you we would have had even more votes this time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, we begin an unusual week here on Capitol Hill, although unusual is sort of the new usual in Washington, D.C. The Senate begins deliberations on an 8-year Republican mission to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and they don't fully know what it is exactly they are voting on. There is uncertainty in the House over both the budget and appropriations, but, you know, there is an opportunity for Congress to take a step back, to do something that will make a huge difference for everybody from coast to coast, something that can bring together a wide coalition of support and meet unmet needs. I am talking about addressing the unmet infrastructure needs for a country that is falling apart as we fall behind. We haven't raised the gas tax in 24 years. And in the course of that 24 years, we have watched the value of the Federal gas tax actually erode 40 percent, due to inflation and increased fuel efficiency, while our needs continue to go up each and every year. Congress has put together a series of stopgap measures--gimmicks here and there--which have not adequately met those needs, and they have actually increased the budget deficit. I think back to Ronald Reagan making his Thanksgiving Day speech in November of 1982, when he called on Congress to come back from their recess and more than double the gas tax because, he pointed out, it would put people to work and improve road conditions that were actually damaging people's cars more than what modest increase they would pay. Well, Congress did it, and we were better off as a result. I think each of us would do well to look back at that speech that Ronald Reagan gave, calling on Congress to step up and do its part. The States are not sitting back. Since over the last 5 years, more than half of the individual States have gone ahead and raised their transportation funding. So far in 2017 alone, California, Indiana, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, West Virginia, and South Carolina raised the gas tax. In fact, South Carolina raised the gas tax by overriding a Republican Governor's veto. There are opportunities here for us to be able to step forward and build on this vast coalition. It really isn't a profile in courage to support legislation that is endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, contractors, a variety of labor unions, road builders, engineers, trucking companies, and AAA. The widest coalition of people supporting any major issue before us deals with increasing the fuel tax. And it is interesting, for those who are worried that maybe there is some political downturn, despite the fact that the States have been able to summon the courage. The American Road and Transportation Builders Association did an extensive survey about who were those intrepid legislators that voted to raise the gas tax since 2012. What they found is that those legislators who had the courage and the vision to do what was right for their States were reelected by an over 90 percent rate. But this shouldn't be about elections. It should be about what is right for the American people. Stepping up, meeting our obligations, so that the Federal Government is a full partner, working with State and local governments, working with the private sector, to be able to meet the over $1.1 trillion of critical transportation needs between now and 2025 ought to be the order of business. I would hope that my friends in Republican leadership would allow us to have just 1 week of hearings on this issue so that we can hear from the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the president of the AFL-CIO, the truckers, AAA, Republican legislators of principle, people across the country who talk about the need to rebuild and renew America, make our communities more livable, our families safer, healthier, and more economically secure.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, today I voted for H.R. 3364, the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (Roll no. 413). This legislation is an important step forward in punishing Russia for its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and for the country's alleged interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. The bill also updates and expands sanctions on North Korea at a time when the country continues to pursue dangerous weapons programs. Further, I commend leadership and committee members in the House and Senate for ensuring that the Iran sanctions portion of this legislation does not violate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached between Iran, the United States, and five major world powers, including Russia and China. While the Iranian ballistic missile program is deeply concerning and must be addressed, undermining the nuclear agreement, which has forced Iran to remove thousands of centrifuges from service and halt all uranium enrichment, would be a mistake of tragic proportions. The bipartisan support for the bill should be a signal to the administration to refrain from taking action that would encourage Iran to change course. To be sure, Iran has some unsavory hardline people in key positions of leadership, but these hardliners just suffered a major defeat in the Iranian elections. President Hassan Rouhani has been a voice of and a force for moderation--and people voted for him. We must proceed with the utmost caution and develop a thoughtful approach to ensure we continue to keep Iran away from the nuclear threshold, while also countering the regime's nefarious activities.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, America is in the middle of a bikeshare revolution. More than 100 communities have bikeshare systems, supporting a network of 4,800 stations and over 42,000 bikes. Since 2010, riders have taken more than 88 million trips, with the number of trips and systems increasing each year. Today, my community is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its BIKETOWN bikeshare launch. In the last year, more than 75,000 Portlanders and visitors have taken hundreds of thousands of trips, covering more than half a million miles and removing untold numbers of automobiles from city streets. The system's success has already led to its expansion, giving more communities access to efficient, carbon-free transportation. The increased commercial investment around bikeshare stations and networks is driving economic development across the country. Systems are opening in communities of all sizes from Los Angeles and Cleveland to Topeka and Birmingham. While some existing bikeshare programs received federal dollars to develop their systems, the lack of an established funding source has proved an impediment to many other projects. Since the term ``bikeshare'' is not defined in U.S. code or described by law as a form of transit, existing bikeshare systems and departments of transportation are forced to operate in a gray area, creating challenges for funding, maintaining, and administering these programs. Today, I am introducing the Bikeshare Transit Act, legislation that will eliminate this gray area by defining bikeshare in statute and making bikeshare systems eligible to receive funding to enhance related public transportation service or transit facilities. The bill allows federal funding to be used for acquiring or replacing bikeshare-related equipment and constructing bikeshare facilities. Bikeshare systems will also be listed as eligible projects under the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Improvement Program. The Bikeshare Transit Act will remove significant barriers facing new and existing bikeshare projects applying for federal funding while underscoring that bikeshare programs drive economic development and are an important part of bringing choice and adding value to America's transportation system.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I will vote against H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2018 (Roll no. 378). I commend the House Armed Services Committee for tackling some difficult issues, but I remain concerned about several components of the bill, including its lack of fiscal discipline and use of budget gimmicks. There are provisions of this legislation that I support. I am pleased this bill includes a provision expressing the sense of Congress that climate change is a direct threat to the national security of the United States. The bill would also support a 2.4 percent military pay raise and would require the Pentagon to report to Congress any attempts by Russian actors to hack the Defense Department's system. However, by authorizing a total of $621.5 billion in base budget authority, exceeding the $549 billion cap set in the 2011 Budget Control Act, and using $10 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding for base defense requirements, Congress and the administration are misusing budget mechanisms to pad their accounts in an era of fiscal uncertainty. The bill puts off making tough decisions about our defense spending. The legislation also keeps intact funding for several unnecessary weapons programs and undermines key international nuclear nonproliferation efforts. The bill authorizes full funding for the Air Force's next generation air-launched cruise missile, known as the Long- Range Standoff weapon (LRSO), even though Secretary of Defense Mattis has stated numerous times that he is skeptical we actually need it. I offered an amendment to keep funding for the LRSO at FY17 levels until the administration submits a Nuclear Posture Review to Congress, but it was unfortunately not accepted. The bill also requires the Department of Defense to develop a missile system that, if tested or deployed, would violate U.S. obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. I offered an amendment to prohibit this system's development until military experts, diplomats and our NATO allies certify that they agree with this approach, but this amendment too was rejected. Additionally, the legislation caps funding for nuclear weapon dismantlement at $56 million for FY19 through FY21, making us less safe. Beyond nuclear weapons and treaties, the legislation maintains a prohibition on transferring detainees in Guantanamo Bay detention facility to the United States and bars the construction or modification of facilities within the U.S. to house detainees for another year. It's past time that we closed this military prison. We can safely and securely imprison anyone we need to without the extraordinary expense of this recruiting tool for ISIS. The bill also prohibits a new round of base realignment and closure (BRAC), rejecting the Department of Defense's request for flexibility to implement BRAC for the sixth year in a row. The best way to support our troops is to fight for common-sense budgeting and spending these sums out properly.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, every time I visit Israel, I have such mixed feelings. It is a land of positive opportunities surrounded by intractable controversies. The big question looming is how to achieve a two-state solution for the Israelis and the Palestinians with appropriate integrity so that they are actually separate countries. This has raised additional questions because of the ambiguity from the Trump administration about whether or not what, for years, has been American policy supporting a two-state solution is any longer a priority of theirs. For several years, I have been deeply concerned about the looming environmental crisis in Gaza. This is a small strip of land about twice the size of Washington, D.C., but it is home to 1.9 million people, most of whom are leading a wretched existence, even more so since Hamas, the political faction, has seized control. That is Israel's implacable enemy which now controls Gaza. They have little regard for their own people, using them as pawns, spending scarce resources, digging tunnels to try to kidnap Israeli children and soldiers, and launching rockets to terrorize Israeli communities in the surrounding areas. Gaza has reached a crisis point in dealing with water and sanitation. The groundwater is so polluted that virtually all the water is unfit to drink--polluted by sewage, waste runoff, and seawater encroachment. They are pumping four times as much water out of the aquifer than can be replaced naturally, and seawater from the Mediterranean is encroaching. We are told that, by the end of the year, there will probably be no sources of drinking water that are fit to drink. By 2020, the entire water system will be permanently damaged. Because of problems with drinking water that is not fit and raw sewage that is not treated, there is a real likelihood that we could have an outbreak of something like cholera, threatening not just the people in Gaza, but the Israelis as well. Several times recently, sewage from Gaza has washed up on Israeli beaches and forced the shutdown of water treatment plants from desalinization. The Israeli military thinks this is a security threat. In the course of this visit, I had an opportunity to put the question directly to Prime Minister Netanyahu; Jibril Rajoub, the number three person in the Palestinian Authority; and United States Ambassador Friedman about this pending crisis and the need for urgent action. Sadly, each of those conversations revealed I won't say indifference, but certainly a lack of urgency and no willingness for anybody to take the lead and break the impasse. This is not a problem that is beyond our ability to solve. There are opportunities to increase electricity for pumping water and treating sewage. There is the capacity to build some smaller reservoirs to be able to mix saltwater with freshwater and extend the supplies. For Israel, water is a mystery they have solved. They are the most water-rich country on the face of the planet, with very sophisticated technology. They could provide additional resources. Around the edges, the United States does some work with USAID, but it is not a priority for the United States at this point. Mr. Speaker, I return perplexed. We will continue to push with the Israelis, the United States Government, the Palestinians, and with NGOs whenever we have the opportunity. But it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, if we cannot bring people together to solve a pending crisis with tools that are available to us now, at a relatively modest cost, what hope do we have of being able to work cooperatively to implement the two-state solution and be able to bring peace and security to Israel and the Palestinians? I would hope my colleagues would lend their voices to this question.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, my amendment deletes language in this bill that would mandate a program of record, green lighting this proposal for road-mobile, ground-launched cruise missiles with ranges that, if tested or deployed, would violate the United States' obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. For more than four decades, the United States and Russia have worked through bilateral agreements to reduce their nuclear weapons stockpiles, saving money, and making the world safer. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush were at the forefront of this effort with the START 1 and START II treaties. There is a longstanding precedent of carefully negotiating these treaties in a bipartisan fashion because these leaders knew that a world with less of these weapons meant a safer world for all of us. Yet over the last several years, our nuclear weapons proliferation has continued on autopilot. Right now we are on track to spend $1.2 trillion on unneeded nuclear weapons. In fact, the Pentagon has concluded that already the United States' security needs could be met with one-third fewer strategic warheads deployed than New START limits of 1,550. We can and should safely right-size the arsenal as envisioned by Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush. That is why these treaties are so important. They hold us and our adversaries accountable. We see some confusing signals from the administration, at times appearing to favor nuclear escalation, but at the same time being deeply concerned about managing costs. President Trump has demonstrated a lack of clear understanding of these treaties, but even his administration is fearful that the language undermining the treaty in this bill ``unhelpfully ties them to a specific missile system.'' Congress should be playing a lead role in getting us back on track with smarter defense spending, not working to abandon this nuclear nonproliferation legacy that Ronald Reagan and Bush, Sr., fought so hard for. We can't simply fund every weapons program on the list while fulfilling other critical obligations like providing for our military personnel, ensuring we have adequate cybersecurity protections, strengthening our command and control infrastructure, not to mention our non-Defense Department programs like foreign assistance and diplomacy. We have a poor track record when it comes to carefully managing and budgeting implementation of our weapons programs. The House continues this poor record now. Why would we establish a program of record for something that our military, our diplomats, and our NATO allies haven't asked for? Rather than rushing to adopt this program and abandoning a key international treaty in the process, let's think this through. Let's do our homework to make sure our allies, the Departments of Defense and State are all on the same page, and develop a coherent approach to bring Russia back into compliance, rather than throw money at yet another unnecessary weapons program and undercut that regime. This takes our eye off the ball and could have unintended and, I think in some instances, devastating consequences. Mr. Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote in support of this amendment for smarter defense spending and the protection of a landmark treaty that is part of the legacy of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to the amount of time I have remaining?

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chair, the question is how to get Russia into compliance. Walking away from our obligations? I think not. The amendment allows going ahead if the Department of Defense certifies to Congress that it has completed a new nuclear posture review to make sure this program fits in the overall strategy; that it certifies that it prefers this program to ensure that NATO's overall deterrence and defense posture remains credible; that the Department of Defense certified it prefers this missile for maintaining strategic stability; that State certifies the program of record is necessary to help verifiably return Russia to compliance; that at least one NATO member state has proven it is serious about hosting the missile; and State certifies that the full Atlantic Council has endorsed deployment of this missile. Those are the conditions in the amendment, and I would think they are reasonable conditions that the gentleman should not object to. If he truly believes in the merit of his argument, there is no reason that that cannot be complied with. And if not, it should not proceed.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, it is time to insert fiscal sanity into our nuclear weapons planning. We are set to spend $400 billion over the next decade and $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years to recapitalize our entire nuclear arsenal. This nuclear escalation will build a force far exceeding what the Pentagon and security experts have said is necessary to deter a nuclear threat. A stronger nuclear program is not going to help us deal with the strategic challenges we face today, like the fight the against Islamic State, but it will result in having to crowd out Army, Navy, and Air Force conventional priorities. We need to revisit the strategy. We are here in Congress to make hard decisions about how to spend taxpayer dollars. The Pentagon should provide long-term cost reports and tell us what certain weapons will actually add to our existing capacity. My amendment deals with one particular outrageous piece of this unsustainable escalation: the long-range standoff weapon, or the LRSO. Now, this weapon is projected to cost $20 billion to $30 billion. This amendment would lock the LRSO funding at fiscal year 2017 levels until the administration submits a Nuclear Posture Review to Congress that includes a detailed assessment of why we need this weapon. It wouldn't prevent it. It would just keep the funding at the current level until they can tell us why we need it. Until the administration carefully examines the utility of the LRSO, why should we rush its development? After all, the father of this device, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, has argued there is scant justification for spending tens of billions of dollars on that weapon. General Mattis has stated numerous times that he is not sold on the LRSO. We shouldn't risk making tens of billions of dollars in commitments like this with potential failure to follow through all while forfeiting other critical priorities. Before we continue this nuclear escalation on autopilot, let's make sure. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. Smith), who is the ranking member.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I am stunned to think that this is somehow the equivalent of unilateral disarmament. The amendment says that the funding level for this new program would remain at the current fiscal year level until the administration submits a nuclear posture review to Congress that indicates a detailed assessment of why we need the weapon. If what the gentleman says is true--and I get mixed signals from the Secretary--then they can easily do that. They are not cut off. It has nothing to do with unilateral disarmament. We have more than enough nuclear weapons to destroy these countries many times over. My friend, Mr. Smith, talks about other priorities, from cybersecurity to what is happening with ISIS. Lavishing funds on programs that have not yet been justified and can't meet this test is not worthy. You have other things that you want to help the Department of Defense do, which I think we share. Mr. Chairman, I strongly urge approval of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I listen to my friend from Ohio, and I am just kind of wondering how he gets to his position. The Affordable Care Act didn't do away with health savings accounts, and that is a fact that can be easily verified. Or the notion that somehow Medicaid is a negative because it was expanded, and the gentleman's own Governor has been arguing here against the Republican plan because it would eviscerate Medicaid. Medicaid provides more healthcare than any other program in America. Sadly, what we have seen is that the proposals that have been coming forward are way off the mark, just like my friend from Ohio a moment ago. The claims that it would not cut Medicaid, claims to make the system better, and save the Affordable Care Act from collapse are mythology. The Congressional Budget Office report--these are the independents scorekeepers, and, in fact, the head of the Congressional Budget Office was appointed by the Republicans, their 49-page report that is available online to any Member of Congress, to the public--pointed out that the health exchanges are not collapsing. They are actually in pretty good shape and they could be made stronger with relatively simple changes, because what we have seen for the last 7 years, the Republican plan has been to chip away at the Affordable Care Act, to make it worse, to create more uncertainty. Recently, the administration refused to advertise to help people join this year's enrollment period and eliminated enforcement of the mandate, making the market even more unstable. How do we have such an alternative universe? Well, I suggest that one of the problems is that my friends on the Republican side of the aisle who crafted the House bill and who are working in secret in the Senate crafting the Senate bill listen to the wrong people. They listen to a small group, some of whom benefit from the Republican approach because there are extra subsidies that go to them, or people who benefit from massive tax cuts that, frankly, they don't need. They listen to people who are all about political talking points and not about the facts of healthcare in America. Most of all, they don't talk to real people on the ground who would be affected. In what universe is a $773 billion cut over the next 10 years to Medicaid not a reduction? Tell a 75-year-old widow who is looking at being in a nursing home for the rest of her life--6 percent of our Medicaid funding goes to people in nursing homes. It is almost half of the total funding. Tell them that that is not going to be a cut, that that is not going to reduce services, maybe not make it available at all. Sixty-four percent of people in nursing homes rely on Medicaid. There are 15 million people who are not going to have healthcare if the Republican proposal goes into effect, according to the objective independent scorekeepers. But you can look at the calculations yourself as a member of the public. The Kaiser organization has a calculator where you can figure out if people are better off under the existing plan or under the Republican alternative. A person in Utah making $15,000 would pay $400 after tax credits, but have a $6,000 deductible. They are not talking to real people. A situation in Baker City, Oregon, a 40-year-old is going to face a 128 percent increase if the Republican proposal goes into effect. A 60-year-old woman in Strong, Maine, making almost $40,000 a year is currently eligible for a credit of about $7,000, which means she gets a comprehensive policy in 2020 for $4,500. But the Republican Senate plan would result in her costs in 2020 being $15,000 a year, one-third of her income. Mr. Speaker, I invite the public to investigate for themselves and see who the Republicans aren't listening to.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I deeply appreciate the gentleman convening this Special Order this evening. It has been fun working with him in the past on creative, bipartisan efforts to try and make sure the Federal Government is a better partner on this. I look forward to working with him on legislation that will make it easier to be able to have the information available that people need for integrated treatment and his commitment to trying to bring people together to understand the problem and the fact that we are agreed more than we are divided on these things. I look forward to working with him on some progress in the months ahead.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, this week, the Senate is poised to completely break Donald Trump's promises on healthcare. Remember, he promised insurance for everyone, it would be less expensive, and it wouldn't touch Medicaid. Well, the CBO report, out yesterday, makes it devastatingly clear that the Republicans are ready to repudiate all three of those promises. Next year alone, 15 million Americans will lose their healthcare coverage. Over the course of the decade, that number will swell to 22 million Americans. And because they have disguised the impact to appear later in the next decade, we will watch those numbers skyrocket. Less expensive? Well, under their proposal, a 64-year-old with a $56,800 income--not upper middle class by any stretch of the imagination--will, by 2026, face an annual insurance premium of $20,000. Impacts are most pronounced on low-income and older Americans. Won't touch Medicaid? Their proposal anticipates $772 billion over the next decade to be slashed from that budget, a 26 percent cut for the health insurance provider that gives care to most Americans, 16 percent fewer people, people with higher costs, less coverage, and poorer insurance. They take a stab at the concern about the destabilization of the insurance market, which their proposal will do, by taking away the mandate that people have coverage, allowing people to wait until they are sick but still requiring insurers to cover them. There is an escape hatch. They don't have to provide that if there has been a break in coverage. Then there is 6 months' delay required before people can sign up. Think about what a 6-month delay could mean for somebody who is just diagnosed for cancer. It is the equivalent of a death sentence. The people you trust for your healthcare do not support this bill. The American Medical Association, hospitals, people who deal with rheumatism, cerebral palsy, cancer advocates, across the board they express reservations or outright opposition. Who do you trust with your medical care--who do you rely on who supports it? No one you rely on supports this measure. And make no mistake, healthcare in America will be worse. That is why the people you trust don't support it. Seniors in nursing homes and disabled children will suffer and, yes, we ought to admit it; people will die. There is very good research available that is logical, suggesting that for every 20 million people who do not have insurance coverage, an extra 24,000 people a year die year after year. And why are we doing this? To fulfill a campaign pledge and to be able to cut taxes for those who need it the least. This massive reduction in healthcare finances massive tax reductions. This is immoral. There is a reason that it was hatched in secret, keeping it away even from Republican senators while it was being formulated, and why they are trying to jam this through in 1 week--a parody of Republican complaints about not enough process for ObamaCare. This is unprecedented and it is wrong. It is our job, each and every one of us, to make sure the American public knows what is at stake before it is too late.

Mr. BLUMENAUER

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to share the Chamber with my fellow Northwesterner. We have gone through this in the Ways and Means Committee with one of the least productive hearings I can remember, and that says a lot in my 10 years on the committee. We do it good natured, but, frankly, it is beside the point. And my friends from the Ways and Means Committee have documented the fact that this is a solution in search of a problem. The real outrage ought to be what is happening now behind closed doors to take a flawed bill that came from the House, was actually made worse in order to get the votes for it, and passed through on a narrow party-line vote--actually, a number of Republicans voted against it-- lodged in the Senate, no public hearings. In fact, we are told that they are not enabling people to actually get ahold of the documents to know what is going on. You know, it is stunning to me to have heard some of my Republican friends complain about the process of the Affordable Care Act. I was in the middle of that. We took a year. Three committees in the House had multiple hearings, work sessions. There were actually some Republican amendments adopted out in the open. CBO scored the bill so people knew. Now we are on the verge of, we are told, having that sneak through the Senate without the glare of publicity, without an open public process, which will deny healthcare to millions of people--millions of people-- and shred much of the good work that has been done through the Affordable Care Act. We have been told and we acknowledge there are little things that we could do to fine-tune it, but in 7 years of Republican crow and crow, we have never had an opportunity to do that. Instead, this administration and my Republican friends consistently made it worse, destabilized, sent conflicting signals to the healthcare industry, to the insurance companies. And you don't have to take my word for it. News accounts quote people in the industry about what the Republicans have done to destabilize it and try to make it fail. There was a reason that virtually everybody in the healthcare space was opposed to the Republican approach. It is not thoughtful. It is not fair. It is not effective. It is not necessary. But today we are looking at some provisions that will make it a little more burdensome.