Tom Cole

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark), a member of the subcommittee.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chair, I want to begin by thanking my friend. We are classmates, we are friends, and we have served on the Budget Committee together. So I know the commitment to fiscal responsibility is serious and continuing and real. I particularly want to thank her for her kind words about the work of the committee in recent years because we genuinely have tried to continuously lower the amounts of money. My friend makes a very good point about the dangers we face in terms of a skyrocketing national debt, but as my friend suggests, we have already cut this more than 1 percent. I am not suggesting there aren't areas that can be cut additionally. There probably are. But as an appropriator, we prefer to look at things individually, one at a time, because there are always areas that could be plussed-up as well. I don't think anybody here really wants to cut money, even 1 percent, from cancer funding or Alzheimer's research or Pell grants or programs that we think actually help folks have an educational choice, like charter schools, and yet that is always the impact of an across-the- board cut. You cut things that need to be cut, for sure, but you also cut some things that probably shouldn't be. So we would prefer to continue the approach that my friend has singled out and said that seems to work well, and we will do that, and I know she will be helpful in that. I also know my friend knows that the real drivers of our debt, frankly, are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all entitlement programs, our mandatory spending programs. And that is where folks on both sides of the aisle, I think, need to get very, very serious, and the administration. Because we are never going to get to a balanced budget that I know my friend wants to achieve and I want to achieve until we put 70 percent of all spending, which is the entitlement spending, on the table for serious examination to be dealt with. I don't oppose the goals of my friend. I just have a different method of trying to achieve them. So far, in the last 3 years, we have been able to do that. We are going to continue to try and do that going forward. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark), who is my good friend.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I want to, again, thank my good friend for, as he always does, raising important issues, and I appreciate his bringing attention to the mental health of children. The amendment offered--and this is an important point I think many Members in this body don't think about--is actually for a newly authorized program that has not received funding in the past, and our committee actually has a smaller allocation than it had last year. I think most of the public doesn't realize it, and it is sort of helpful, frankly, for my friend to advance this amendment. Just because something moves through an authorizing committee doesn't mean any money comes with it. Now, in some cases--my friend worked on the Cures bill--they sent money with portions of that on the opioid initiatives, some additional money at NIH, and, of course, every penny of that has moved in. They found a way to fund it. But we can end up in a situation where you just simply pile on authorizations and send us less money and think we will somehow work it out. Sometimes we do. That is why we have been able to steadily increase funding at NIH, steadily increase funding for programs like TRIO and GEAR UP, and steadily increase money for charter schools. There are some areas we have been able to do that, but we can't do it everyplace. I want to tell my friend that, while I oppose the amendment, I am certainly going to work with him. Actually, I asked him not too long ago to give me the one thing that is the most important thing, and he mentioned the lack of trained and qualified personnel, that we could have a lot of programs, but until we had a bigger pool of people capable of rendering the services, then we simply are going to be moving from program to program. I think that was a very good point, and it is why I accepted my friend's amendment for $10 million to begin to do that. That is another area. I think we have to pick a few pressure points here. I agree with what my friend is offering here in terms of the need for emphasis. We just simply have to work harder either getting the funds or finding other places to take the funds from. So while I oppose the amendment, I want to be very clear that I intend to work with my friend going forward. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark), who is my good friend.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark).

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. COLE. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding and for his excellent work in this area. Yes, we would look forward to that. Frankly, we have pretty regular exchanges with a lot of the committees under our jurisdiction where they have done the hard work of authorizing an investigation. That can be used to guide appropriations. So I look forward to working with my friend to make sure we can eliminate the type of abuses that he is talking about and redirect funds where they need to go for the care of patients. I thank my friend for his work and his kind words, and I certainly pledge that I will work with him going forward, as I have in the past.

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

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's amendment, and I know the sincerity of his view on the issue. This amendment, in my view, mirrors, to some degree, the last administration's regulation on so-called Fair Play and Safe Workplaces, also known as a blacklisting rule, which has recently been withdrawn. There are existing requirements for reporting and addressing violations of labor laws by Federal contractors. Indeed, hundreds of companies every year are barred from doing business with the Federal Government. While bad actors certainly should face consequences, I believe blanket prohibitions circumvent proper administrative review under the existing procedures. Agencies already have many requirements related to the award of Federal contracts, and imposing a new across-the-board requirement, in my view, is not the right approach to address this issue. Mr. Chairman, I oppose the amendment, and I urge its rejection. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. I thank my colleague from South Carolina for raising this important question. I agree that the National Emergency Grant program is an important bipartisan program to train workers and help them find new careers. Current year funds for the Dislocated Workers National Reserve are increased by $109 million and advance appropriations for fiscal year 2019 are eliminated, for a total of $130 million. Within that total, the National Emergency Grant program is approximately $70 million each year. It is expected that, after fully funding the National Emergency Grants, the Department of Labor will use additional funds from the Dislocated Workers National Reserve for other authorized purposes, such as technical assistance and grants to help workers dislocated from the coal industry find new employment. So the short answer to the question is, yes, the National Emergency Grant program is fully funded in this bill.

Mr. COLE. I thank the gentleman for raising this issue. Along with Congressman Woodall and Congresswoman Handel, you have been leaders in this effort. I appreciate what you are doing and will stay in touch as progress is made.