Tom Cole

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, pursuant to House Resolution 838, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this bipartisan en bloc amendment which represents amendments from both sides of the aisle. The en bloc includes 25 noncontroversial amendments that reiterate our collective support for the Nation's transportation and housing needs. Mr. Chairman, I thank my good friend Ranking Member Quigley and all Members who have worked with us on this en bloc, and I ask my colleagues to support the amendment. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), who is the chairman on the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in support of his amendment. There is no question that the CRISI program is incredibly popular and improves the safety and efficiency of passenger and freight rail. It is the most in-demand program, and despite having over a billion dollars, we quite often get more requests. Mr. Chair, this is a very good and thoughtful request, and I am happy to support it.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mast).

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's support. I also, obviously, support the en bloc amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, the Thriving Communities Program is duplicative to the technical assistance already provided by the DOT's Office of the Secretary. I recognize the burdens that rural, Tribal, and disadvantaged communities face in obtaining Federal grant funds, but a $25 million office focused on providing additional technical assistance is unnecessary. DOT should focus on simplifying the grant application process as opposed to a slush fund for additional grant consultants. I understand that this program has received a total of $50 million in funding over the last 2 years. However, even the Senate recognizes that this program does not need any more funding. They detail in their report that they are also not providing any funding for this program this year because the program still has $28 million in unused balances. I simply don't think it is necessary, and I urge the rejection of the amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I thank my friend for yielding. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to my good friend from Pennsylvania's amendment for a simple reason. Actually, I will start with where my friend, the ranking member, was. These decisions are too often made by faceless bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., and there ought to be an opportunity for Members to advocate. We all know the top lines are set long before any of these projects are awarded, so this doesn't add a single dime. It just allows Members to advocate under a structured process for things that they think will make a difference in the lives of their constituents. We are not spending one cent more than we would have spent. We are giving Members the opportunity to influence decisions that are important to them and their constituents. We do take our vetting responsibilities very seriously. These were vetted by the Republican Appropriations Committee and staffers in cooperation with our friends from the other side of the aisle, and we don't approve them all. About a third of these things never make it, and a lot of them don't get as much money as they ask for. This is a good tool, an important tool. Congress went without it for a decade and decided after that experience, we need it back. Overwhelming majorities in both conferences made that decision, not one or the other. We voted on this rule in our conference multiple times. The margin has gotten bigger every time. Mr. Chair, I urge defeat of the amendment.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker pro tempore, I rise for the purpose of placing in nomination the name of the Honorable Jim Jordan for the position of Speaker of the House at the direction of the Republican Conference. Mr. Speaker pro tempore, 2 weeks and 1 day ago, I was on this House floor and in this Chamber defending my very good friend and our former Speaker, Mr. McCarthy, from an effort to vacate the Chair. In the course of that speech, I made the remark that those who did this, whether intentionally or unintentionally, were going to put the Congress in a state of chaos and the country into a state of uncertainty. I think the last 2 weeks have vindicated that observation. We have a chance today to end that chaos and to end that uncertainty. When these races happen, there are always a lot of hard things said on both sides of the aisle. There is a lot of finger-pointing that goes on. I don't intend to be involved in any of that today. I think the decision in front of us is far, far too important for that. I am very proud, very proud, to place in nomination the name of our good friend, my good friend, our Republican candidate for Speaker, the Honorable Jim Jordan of Ohio. I have had the privilege of knowing Jim Jordan for a long time. I have been in Congress for a long time. For his entire period in the House, I have had the honor of serving with my friend. My friend is not exactly a shrinking violet. You don't win national championships in college; you don't come to this floor with a sincere set of beliefs and a desire to make a change and be shy about it. My friend is not a shy person. I have learned some things about him over the years. He is a person of absolute personal integrity. I have never once had to question something that he told me. He is an honorable man. I also think we all know he is a pretty direct man, too. I don't think anybody in here on any issue of any substance would have to guess where Jim Jordan is going to stand. He doesn't deceive. He doesn't dissemble. He simply tells you straight up that this is what I believe; this is why I think it is the right thing to do for the country; and that is what I am going to try and accomplish, and I am going to work with you in any way that I can to do it. The other thing I think we have found in the last couple of weeks is what it takes to be a Speaker. The one thing I know--never having been one and never having aspired to be one--is that it takes a spine of steel to do this job. My friend has that kind of determination, has that kind of character, and has that kind of spine. I think the next Speaker is going to need that quality, and I know my friend has it in great abundance. If you are a Republican, it ought to be a pretty easy decision, my friends. This is somebody who believes what we believe and has fought for and shown that over and over again. When I first got to know him, a lot of his focus was on spending. That is exactly where the focus of this House ought to be. Now, he has laid out a plan, not just a short-term plan, as to how we deal with the appropriations process. I am an appropriator. I think I know that that is not the root of the problem. Unlike any other Speaker we have had, he has had the courage to talk about a long-term plan and to get at the real drivers of debt, and we all know what they are. We all know it is Social Security. We all know it is Medicare. We all know it is Medicaid. No President of either side has been willing to deal with this. No Speaker of either side has been willing to deal with this. My friend, our former colleague John Delaney, and I offered a plan. I still file it every year--John is not here anymore--which is to go back to 1983 and do what we did then and address Social Security. We can never get any help. This is a guy that wants to create a debt commission, a bipartisan debt commission, and get at the roots of our spending problem. That takes courage. Republicans ought to support somebody with that kind of courage. He is not only focused on one thing. I don't know anybody that has done more to highlight and talk about the border disaster that is underway right now as we speak. I had the privilege of serving here when Jeh Johnson was Secretary of Homeland Security. I have a very high opinion for Jeh Johnson. I think he is one of the finest public servants that I ever met. He was asked on one occasion to define what was a crisis on the southern border. He said: Any time that you have more than 1,000 illegal entries a day, you have a crisis. We have 10 or 11 times that every single day. In that tide of humanity that is coming across, there is a boatload of fentanyl coming to kill tens of thousands of all of our constituents. There are human traffickers who are taking advantage of young men and young women and, frankly, predators in our own country, and they are bringing them across, not by the 10s or 20s or the dozens, but by the hundreds and the thousands. There are, amongst that flow of people, people that wish us ill. There are people who are not fleeing from oppression. There are people who are terrorists or criminals that are coming into our country for no good reason. That is not an immigration problem. That is a border security problem. They are not the same thing. We can debate immigration. That is a worthy debate. We should never have to debate border security. Nobody has highlighted that issue like my friend Jim Jordan. Nobody has done more as a committee chairman to move legislation that would meaningfully deal with this problem. This, my friends on both sides of the aisle, but with all due respect, particularly this administration and my friends on the other side, need to look at this. You need to look at this seriously. Don't confuse it with immigration. You are not going to have immigration reform until we have border security. It cannot be done. He has been the number one champion of that. It is one of the number one issues that we have. Finally, I want to talk about something that can bring us together. There are a lot of things we disagree on, legitimately so, but most of us do not disagree about the security of the State of Israel. All of us on both sides of the aisle reacted with horror and with deep sympathy and with legitimate outrage at the crimes that were perpetrated against the people of Israel in the last week. All of us know that they are within their rights to respond forcefully and swiftly to defend their people and punish those who brought that upon them. In a moment of crisis--and we are in a moment of crisis--we should come together and act. We know we can't do that without a Speaker of the House. Now, it is a narrow majority, but my friends and I are in the majority. We need to produce a Speaker. We have a candidate who we know where he will stand on issues that are important. We know where he is going to stand on spending because it is where he has always stood. It is not like he changed over the course of his career. We know what he is going to do on the border. We read H.R. 2. We have seen what his committee produced. It is not just money; it is policy and change that will provide security for the American people. Finally, and I say this on a bipartisan basis, I know he will stand up for Israel, and I know in that area we can come together. That crisis is on us now. We may get a request at almost any time to act. We need to be able to act. My friend will act on that crisis. He has shown it his whole career. It is with a great deal of pride that I have the privilege of nominating my friend, our chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but a person whose principles you know, whose actions you can trust, and who in a time of crisis will respond with the leadership we need, Jim Jordan.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I share one thing in common with my friend from Virginia. This is a very sad day and certainly a day I never expected to have to live through. I think, broadly speaking, as I look across this floor, you can divide Members into three groups. I am very happy to be in the first group, the overwhelming majority of my party who supports the Speaker that we elected. We are proud of the leadership he has shown. We are proud of the manner in which he has been willing to work with everybody in our Conference, and I believe in this Chamber. There is a second group, a small group. Honestly, they are willing to plunge this body into chaos and this country into uncertainty for reasons that only they really understand. I certainly don't. Then there are friends on the other side--I mean friends, honestly, with great sincerity--I have a lot of friends over there, and I recognize that my friends on the other side have a very complex set of partisan, personal, and political calculations to make. I certainly wouldn't presume to give them any advice about that, but I would say think long and hard before you plunge us into chaos because that is where we are headed if we vacate the speakership. I personally think there are really three reasons why we have come to this point, and that is because at each three of these critical minutes, the Speaker did the right thing. First, there was a Speaker vote. He got 85 percent of the vote in our Conference; 90 percent of the vote from Republicans on this floor. Yet, we had a small group that decided no, they would dictate what they want. He didn't let that happen. He fought. Now, he fought for himself, but he fought for 90 percent of us too that wanted him to be the Speaker, and I appreciate that. Then, of course, we had the debt ceiling deal. Nobody here thought he could pass a bill. Nobody in America thought he could pass a bill. He did what Speakers are supposed to do. He passed the bill. Then he sat down and negotiated with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President and came back with a good deal, a deal that will limit spending. He did the right thing. Finally, last Saturday on this floor, we were on the verge of a government shutdown, a government shutdown that the vast majority of Members in this Chamber did not want, a substantial majority on my side and an overwhelming majority on the Democrat side. He put his political neck on the line, knowing this day was coming, to do the right thing--the right thing for the country without a doubt. My friends and I agree on that, whether or not we agree on the Speaker. He did the right thing. He did the right thing for this institution. He showed it could function in a time of crisis. Finally, he did the right thing for our party. He made sure that we could continue to negotiate and achieve some of the very objectives my friend from Virginia laid out, and achieve them in divided government, which calls for some degree of give-and-take. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of this Speaker. I am very proud to stand behind him. Tomorrow morning, whether I win or lose, I am going to be pretty proud of the people I fought with and I am going to be extraordinarily proud of the person I fought for, the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Stefanik), my very good friend, and our distinguished Conference leader.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to table at the desk.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer), my very good friend.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), my very good friend.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), my very good friend.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), my good friend and fellow member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), my very good friend.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Hinson), my very good friend.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gimenez), my very good friend.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), our distinguished majority leader and my good friend.