Tom Cole

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend, frankly, for his response on the VAWA issue. And I don't pretend to speak for all Republicans. I will point out to my friend, actually the last time we did a reauthorization, I voted against the Republican bill to bring the Senate Democratic bill to the floor because I thought it was a better bill. It was a stronger bill. It had Tribal provisions and it had areas we had not addressed previously. I thought those were good changes. It is pretty unusual for me to break with my own team and bring down the Republican bill and pass the Democratic bill, but I was proud to do it because it was a better bill. I don't think simply having money in place is the same as having the authorizations in place. This is an opportunity, in my view, to just have continuity while we do exactly what my friend suggests. Let's find a way, and come together. I think we will. That has traditionally been a bipartisan bill. I hope we do it. But I don't see a reason why we should have a lapse in authority. This is something we tried to put, actually, in conference in the base bill, and it would not have prevented my friends from going on and offering a new authorization. It was just simply, let's keep this going. So to me, the previous question that we will offer should the rule be defeated, will have that opportunity, and I hope my friends avail themselves of that. In addition to that, I want to thank my friends genuinely for the cooperation in this process on the appropriations bills themselves. As I said, six of these bills were essentially agreed to in December in a bipartisan way between both the House and the Senate. So we will hear the argument or could hear the argument tonight. All of this is new, and there is a 1,000-plus page bill, and what have you. The reality is, there are probably about 75 pages, I am told from the conferees, of new text here. Most of this is actually something that this House has voted on and passed in December. Not reopening old issues and settling them where we could and then moving forward is something my friends ought to be proud of. I think it was absolutely the right thing to do. It let us get on to the important business of fiscal year 2020 more quickly and more expeditiously. And my friends are in the majority, and if they want to make changes there, additions or subtractions, they will be in a position to do that. But I think closing the book here is a good one. I hope all of us, honestly, as Republicans and Democrats--I have been around here long enough to be in the minority, in the majority, and in the minority again. It tends to move back and forth. But as my friends have pointed out, these are important funding bills that provide for the continuity of government. And in these negotiations nobody ever gets everything they want. It is not possible, even when one side or the other controls both Chambers and the White House. I have been here when that has happened on our side and on my friend's side. You still never get everything you want in appropriations. But I think there is going to be a premium placed on cooperation and negotiations going forward. There is no question. We have a Democratic House, we have a Republican Senate, and we have a Republican President. Everything that we are going to accomplish in the next 18 months for the American people will have to be a compromise where we work together. I actually think this is a good first step in starting that process. I think my friends are to be commended in doing that. We won't get every vote for this underlying legislation on our side. I doubt my friends will get every vote on their side, but we will have a pretty substantial bipartisan majority in favor of moving forward, fully funding the government and, hopefully, that sets the example for what we do in fiscal year 2020. Again, I look forward to working with my friends going forward. I look forward to beginning that process here tonight by working together to pass a bill the Senate has already passed in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion and that the President has said he will sign, and I assume that he certainly will. As difficult as this road has been, Madam Speaker, I think this is actually a hopeful moment for this Chamber and maybe the beginning of good habits of negotiation, compromise, and cooperation, because we are certainly going to need those habits going forward. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, and, again, I thank him quite sincerely for his work. We have had the opportunity to work together now in the Rules Committee for a little while. We hadn't had that opportunity previously. He is always a thoughtful and an interesting voice in that body and certainly here on the floor. While we will disagree over the rule and might well disagree over the previous question, on the underlying legislation, I suspect my friend and I will be voting on the same side tonight. That is something I hope that the American people take note of. We will have lots of Democrats and lots of Republicans voting on the same side. Yes, we have our differences about how we got here or what we would have liked. But at the end of the day, we have come together and given the American people what they deserve, and that is a fully funded, operational government, and we have resolved our differences in conference. I, too, want to join my friends in congratulating the chair of the conference committee, Chair Lowey; congratulating our ranking member, Kay Granger; and congratulating their counterparts, Senator Shelby and Senator Leahy for the work they did in working through these knotty issues and bringing us together. Yes, I wish it happened more quickly, but they are not the only players. I think all four of them worked in good faith and served our Chambers well in their deliberations. Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge support for the underlying measure. While the process of finalizing full-year funding for fiscal year 2019 may have taken longer than we expected, today's measure will complete the process. I expect the House will pass these seven bills today, and I expect that the President will sign them in the very near future. I applaud and commend my colleagues for their hard work and hope that we will carry this spirit of bipartisanship with us as we move forward into the fiscal year 2020 appropriations process. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask for immediate consideration.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Zeldin), my good friend.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time to close. Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to this rule and the underlying measure. The majority has brought up a resolution under the War Powers Resolution instructing the President to remove the United States Armed Forces from hostilities in Yemen. Unfortunately, this resolution is misguided. United States Armed Forces are not currently involved in hostilities in Yemen, and it is unclear exactly what this resolution will accomplish. Further, passage of this resolution would likely damage our relationships with our allies, who would have reason to question our commitments to them, and embolden our potential adversaries in the future. I want to take just a moment to, frankly, reaffirm and thank my friend for his strong assertion of Congress' powers under war powers. I think he has absolutely been a leader in this area, and I have tried to work with him on many occasions. I want to state for the Record, I look forward to working with him in this area again, because I think this body, under both Republicans and Democrats, has far too often abdicated its responsibilities and simply left it to the executive branch to determine when we were at war. Frankly, when President Bush 41 went to war in the Gulf, he came to Congress and asked for its permission; when President Bush 43 went to war, he came to Congress and asked for its permission in both Afghanistan and Iraq--and they received it. President Obama never bothered to do that. Whether it was in Libya or whether it was extending the mission, in many cases, he simply did not choose to do that. And, frankly, it was President Obama who began the actions that concerned my friends in Yemen. So, again, my friend has appropriately tried to pursue, over the course of his career, the reassertion of congressional war powers, and I commend him for that. This case is not one of those cases. The President of the United States does have legitimate powers as Commander in Chief to support friends and allies short of war without congressional approval. That has happened time and time and time again in American history. We have 117 security agreements with various countries around the world. Some of those are with countries we have formal alliances with, some of them are not. They do not commit the United States to hostilities, but they do say, in certain situations, we will be there to render support. I agree with my friend that there have been atrocities in Yemen. I think he is absolutely right about that. I think, unfortunately, we didn't talk very much about the Iranian role in that. We didn't talk very much about the Houthi role in that. We didn't talk very much about who overthrew a legitimate government and what other countries were involved in that. This is a lot more complex than that. But, in this case, unlike Libya, for instance, where President Obama did commit us to military activity without coming to this Chamber and asking permission, somehow stretched the NATO alliance to cover our participation in a conflict within a country that had not attacked any member of NATO, let alone the United States of America, that was a time we should have done something like this. Right now, in my view, whether you agree with him or not, the President is exercising his legitimate authority as Commander in Chief. And it is worth noting for the Record, he is actually doing less than his predecessor, President Obama, did. He actually is the person, President Trump, who ordered the cessation of aerial refueling operations with the Saudi Air Force. Again, there is room for disagreement here. I know, on the underlying issue of congressional war powers, my friend and I agree. I look forward to working with him on that issue as we go forward, as I know we will. But, in my opinion, this is the wrong place and the wrong time to have this debate. I think the President is operating well within his rights. He has made it clear he will veto this legislation should it pass the United States Senate. None of us know whether it will. But I can assure you this: that veto will have more than enough votes to sustain it. So, again, I thank my friend for the spirited debate and discussion. It is always thoughtful. Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question, ``no'' on the underlying measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wyoming.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Cheney), my distinguished colleague and the chair of the Republican Conference.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and then I will turn to my friend from Texas. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend for his comments. And we do; we just disagree. I do not see this as appropriate for the War Powers Resolution, because we don't have troops in common; we have not committed anybody to hostilities. But the Commander in Chief historically has had broad authority to assist countries that we have agreements and arrangements with that he thinks are important in our own security, short of committing troops into combat. I think that is precisely what he is doing. Frankly, that is what his predecessor did. It would have been nice if our friends were as equally concerned when President Obama actually was committing us to the kinds of activities we are talking about. I don't recall hearing a lot about it then, but I am happy to discuss it now. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul), the former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and the current ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I want to thank my good friend, Chairman McGovern, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Normally, Madam Speaker, I would be agreeing with my good friend, Mr. McGovern, on the issue of congressional war powers, and, frankly, I want to applaud his efforts over the years to reassert congressional war powers. It is a responsibility, in my view and, I know, my friend's view, that Congress has abdicated and one which we must work to reclaim in the weeks and months ahead. I commit to work with my friend, as I have in the past, to do just that in the future. But, in my view, this particular issue is not about congressional war powers. Madam Speaker, we had a spirited debate on this joint resolution in the Rules Committee Monday night, and I expect that today's debate will be just as spirited. The reason is because this measure concerns one of the most important of Congress' powers: the power under Article I of the Constitution to declare war and to say when, where, and with whom the American Armed Forces will be committed to combat. In 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which is intended to give Congress and the President procedures to follow when committing U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities and to give Congress a method to instruct the President to remove U.S. forces from hostilities. Today, the majority is bringing up H.J. Res. 37, a resolution ostensibly arising under Congress' powers under the War Powers Resolution, to instruct the President to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in Yemen. Specifically, this refers to United States support for key allies, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia in their intervention in the civil war in Yemen against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Unfortunately, Madam Speaker, I believe this resolution is fatally flawed, misstates the facts, and will not accomplish what the majority is promising. For that reason, I oppose this rule and oppose this joint resolution. Let's start with the text of the resolution. Section 2 of the resolution directs the President to ``remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in or affecting the Republic of Yemen except United States Armed Forces engaged in operations directed at al-Qaida or associated forces.'' Of course, the problem with this resolution is that, under the terms of the War Powers Resolution, American Armed Forces are not currently engaged in hostilities. Hostilities, under the War Powers Resolution, means firing weapons or dropping bombs. As we heard on Monday night at rules, the United States is presently providing assistance to the Saudi-led coalition that falls short of actual hostilities. We are providing intelligence and logistics support to an ally, but that is a far cry from the threshold necessary to be considered hostilities for the purposes of the War Powers Resolution. This came up during Monday night's Rules Committee debate. I note that even Representative Connolly, who spoke in favor of this resolution at the Foreign Affairs Committee a few weeks ago, stated that ``the United States is not technically involved on the ground in hostilities.'' If we are not ``technically involved'' in hostilities--we don't have troops on the ground, we don't have flights in the air, and we are not engaging in combat missions of any kind against the Houthis in Yemen-- then what does this resolution actually accomplish? The majority attempts to get around this by redefining hostilities to mean ``in-flight refueling non-United States aircraft conducting missions as part of the ongoing civil war in Yemen.'' Even if I did accept, for the sake of argument, that this is a legitimate definition--and I don't--this is still a false statement. The United States is not currently providing Saudi Arabia with in- flight refueling assistance and has not since early November of last year. That fact is just one of the many problems with the resolution. I do point out the last administration certainly did that. It is actually this administration that canceled that procedure, which it inherited from the Obama administration. But even if the statement, again, were accurate, I believe the majority's resolution raises significant questions that should give us pause. Across the globe, the United States has security agreements with 117 countries, including Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Saudi-led coalition. We as a nation and the President of the United States have obligations under those security agreements, including to provide them with support when they find themselves in combat situations. The resolution the majority is asking us to consider today is putting all of those security agreements--all 117 of them--into jeopardy. When the President provides assistance short of hostilities to allies and to countries with whom the United States has a security agreement, the President is generally well within his or her rights as Commander in Chief to do so and well within his or her statutory authority to do so. It is only when American troops enter hostilities that the War Powers Resolution applies, and today, in Yemen, American forces are not involved in hostilities. I think that the majority should sit back and think about the possible consequences of this resolution. For allies around the globe, this resolution should give them pause; and, for our adversaries, this resolution should give them hope. For the first time, the United States Congress would be saying that the President of the United States no longer has the authority to provide assistance short of hostilities that we have agreed to under our security agreements with these countries. For our allies and NATO, this would put in jeopardy our commitment to the collective defense of Europe. For our allies in the Pacific, like South Korea and Japan, it would put into question our ability to continue to provide support in the event of a conflict with North Korea. For potential adversaries like Russia or Iran, this resolution provides the hope that America will not live up to its security commitments and will not support our allies during their time of need. Perhaps most disturbingly, it would put our ongoing security arrangements with the state of Israel in question. In 1973, shortly before the War Powers Resolution was passed, Israel was subject to a surprise attack. During the resulting Yom Kippur War, while Israel was fighting for its survival, the United States launched an effort to resupply Israel. The United States military airlifted supplies, ammunition, and vehicles to Israel, helping to ensure their continued survival. However, we were never engaged in hostilities. We never committed forces to combat. If the majority has its say, U.S. assistance to Israel under similar circumstances could be put in jeopardy. Under the type of resolution the majority is putting forward today, Israel would have good cause to question the U.S. commitment to that nation and to question our commitment to providing Israel with support in the future. Should the United States provide Israel with the support it needs, our allies would have good reason to fear that a portion of the House of Representatives would try to shut off the tap by putting forward a resolution like this. I suggest to my friends that they rethink whether the War Powers Resolution should or even can be used in this way. Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule and the underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My friends talked a great deal about human rights, and I just want to make the point that I don't believe--I surely don't believe they think that the Houthi rebels in Yemen are great defenders of human rights or that the Iranian forces who are on the ground in Yemen are actually there to advance human rights and are defending them. Frankly, I think this issue has more to do with whether or not we are involved in hostilities, which we clearly are not. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), my good friend, a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up the text of H.R. 336, the Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019. One of the four constituent parts of this bill has already passed the House by voice vote in this Congress, and three of the four constituent parts passed the House by voice vote last Congress. The four parts of this bill authorize assistance and weapons transfers to Israel, extend defense cooperation with Jordan, establish additional sanctions related to the conflict in Syria, and allows States to divest from entities boycotting Israel. On the whole, unlike the resolution on the floor today, it will preserve and strengthen our relationship with our allies and reaffirm America's commitment to a peaceful and more secure Middle East. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend again for the time; I thank him for participating in the debate; and I congratulate him on being close to finishing his first rule. Madam Speaker, in closing, I want to respond to a couple of things that my good friend said. First of all, he said he brought ``their'' bills to the floor, meaning our bills, I presume. He didn't bring our bills to the floor. He brought Senate bills to the floor. Actually, those bills are nothing like the bills that the House had passed and, in many cases, are quite inferior to the product that had been jointly compromised between the two bodies. Just speaking from something I know very well, which is Indian healthcare, the bill that he presented to us had absolutely no House input from either Republican or Democratic Members, had $135 million less for the Indian Healthcare Service, had $26 million less for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I can go on and on and on. The bills actually that, frankly, we were pretty close to having conferenced and done were, honestly, quite superior. They had many Democratic and Republican suggestions in them and many Member suggestions. If we passed what the majority is presenting, all we are doing is just turning over the appropriations function of the United States House of Representatives to the United States Senate and saying: We don't really need a House; anything you guys do is fine. That is the product that has been presented to us. It is not acceptable to our side to simply throw away House prerogatives and positions. Again, my friends have the majority here. We respect that. They will almost certainly prevail on the rule and on the vote, and I certainly accept that. That is the way this institution works. But what he fails to tell me is whether or not he is ever going to get the Senate to ever pick this up. So far, he hasn't. This is the fourth attempt. We will see another one tomorrow. Whether or not he can actually produce legislation that the President of the United States will sign, so far, he hasn't. And they are the majority. Under our constitutional system, passing legislation through the House is simply not sufficient. It has to be able to pass the United States Senate. It has to be signed by the President of the United States, unless two-thirds of the House and the Senate are willing to override his veto. Frankly, I don't think my friends have two-thirds majority here either, and they certainly don't in the United States Senate. So I have a modest proposal. Probably the people who are producing this legislation here should sit down and talk with the United States Senate ahead of time and say: Can we split the difference here? Can we find some common ground? Actually, the President did that in December, literally sent the Vice President to the negotiation to say: We would like to get $5 billion. We think that is the appropriate amount. But what if we settle at $2\1/ 2\ billion? The answer was no. That is a normal, reasonable compromise. It is called splitting the difference. The President tried to do that. I do commend my friends, because I know they are serious about wanting to reopen the government. We would love to work with them on getting that done, but it is going to entail some compromise. Frankly, over the next 2 years, if my friends want to get anything done, and I know they do, they will have to compromise. Been there before. We were in a situation where we were the majority in the United States House of Representatives with a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democratic President. It took, I will say, some of my colleagues a long time to figure out that we had to have help in the United States Senate, and we had to have a President that would sign bills, and we were going to have to compromise on some things that we thought were fundamentally very, very important. I suggest my friends learn from our experience in that regard. Again, I respect the effort to reopen the government. I would love to participate in it. This bill, quite frankly, could have been something that I think would have started us down the right direction, and it almost was. We had Members on both sides of the aisle that very much wanted to vote for this legislation. Frankly, and again, I commend the chairman of our committee, Mr. McGovern. He set up a process so that we could provide amendments, Member input. We had full consideration of those amendments in the Rules Committee. I would have liked a few more to be made in order, but I can't complain about the ones that were. I think it was a fair process. Only the Democratic leadership's insistence on putting something that they knew the Senate would not pick up, and they knew the President would not sign, stopped that disaster relief bill. That is all. That literally could have been passed out of here today, could have been passed immediately by the United States Senate, would have been signed by the President, would have gotten us out of this cycle at least a little bit, would have shown us what functioning government actually looks like. But I guess the theater of the moment is more important than actually getting disaster relief to people, so we will go through this exercise yet again. Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge opposition to this rule and the underlying measure. The majority has taken a noncontroversial, bipartisan, supplemental disaster appropriations bill and has turned it into a political football. Today's bill was originally intended to provide relief for disaster victims, and, instead, the majority has turned it into yet another continuing resolution that is not going anywhere. This is the same continuing resolution that the House previously passed and that the Senate refused to consider. Whether the Democrats like it or not, they need to engage with Republicans on border security. Instead, they are now bringing up their fourth attempt to pass a government funding bill without border security. And this time, they are using disaster victims as leverage to push their policies. The majority would be better served to undertake serious negotiations with Republicans over the need for border security and find a way out of the crisis of their making, rather than pushing the exact same bill again. Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' on the previous question, ``no'' on the underlying measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I wish to notify the House, Madam Speaker, that if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will bring up the appropriations package the House passed in December, including full funding for the government through February 8, $7.8 billion for disaster relief, and $5.7 billion for border security. Madam Speaker, that is a bill that the Senate will actually take up and pass. That is a bill that the President has said he will actually sign. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Rutherford), my very good friend and former law enforcement professional and sheriff.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser), my good friend and a new member of this body.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Newhouse), my good friend and former member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), my good friend, for yielding the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating my friend on his recent appointment to the Rules Committee, where we have already had the opportunity to interact with one another. And I want to again congratulate him for bringing his first rule to the floor as well. I know we are going to have a good relationship in the next couple of years as we work together. Madam Speaker, we are back here in appropriations; only this time, the majority has taken what was an important, likely bipartisan disaster relief appropriations bill and turned it into a partisan football. Last night, the Committee on Rules was scheduled to meet on a $12.1 billion supplemental appropriations bill. At the last minute, the majority chose to make in order and self-execute an amendment that would tack on an additional measure, a continuing resolution to fund the government through February 8. I don't know if I can fully convey how disappointed I am that the majority is seeking to play politics with this important issue and use an otherwise noncontroversial disaster appropriations bill as a vehicle to pass a controversial spending bill that is going absolutely nowhere. Last year, the Nation faced a wide variety of disasters, from wildfires in the West to hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and the Southeastern United States, and the volcanoes in Hawaii. When disaster strikes, we have an obligation to help each other. I don't think there is a single Member of the House who would disagree with that fundamental principle. Before the Rules Committee acted last night, we were on our way to a bipartisan bill that fulfilled that principle. But today, we are considering a partisan bill that will not resolve the shutdown, and it holds up crucial aid for disaster victims. To that end, Madam Speaker, I have to say that the original version of the bill was actually very good. It took roughly what the House had passed at the end of the last Congress and added to it. In December, we passed a bill that provided $7.38 billion in disaster relief. The original bill up today would provide $12.1 billion in disaster relief, with additional money going mostly to increase existing accounts and to provide nutrition assistance to Puerto Rico. Frankly, I was prepared to be fully supportive of that measure. Moreover, I was especially pleased that the majority took the steps toward an open process. They issued a call for amendments, considered them, and made some very good amendments in order. I want to commend Chairman McGovern for taking these steps and giving Members on both sides of the aisle an opportunity to present the case for their amendments to the Rules Committee and, in many cases, to the full House. But instead of moving forward on a joint disaster relief bill, the majority decided at the last minute to turn this noncontroversial piece of legislation into a controversial one by attaching a self-executing manager's amendment which adds a continuing resolution to fund the government through February 8. Madam Speaker, I want to be clear. I want to end the government shutdown as well. I have said countless times on this floor and elsewhere that the primary responsibility of legislators is to fund the government and keep it open. Our constituents deserve no less than the full amount of government services we have promised them. At the end of December, I voted in favor of a bill that would have done exactly that. It would have funded the government through February 8. It would have funded disaster relief, and it would have provided funding for border security. A majority of the Senate favored that bill, and the President had said he would sign it. Unfortunately, the Democratic minority in the Senate blocked consideration of the bill, a bill that could have stopped this shutdown before it ever happened. This, now, is the fourth proposal by my friends across the aisle to reopen the government. Tomorrow, we will be likely considering a fifth proposal. Unfortunately, each of these items has in common the same flaws. The Senate made it clear that it will not take up any spending bill that the President cannot sign, and the President has made it clear that he will not sign any bill that does not address border security. Yet my friends across the aisle continue to put forward measure after measure that simply do not provide funding for border security. Today, the majority is seeking to one-up itself. They have taken a disaster relief bill to provide funding for victims of hurricanes, wildfires, and volcanoes, and they are attaching to it the same funding bill the House previously passed. The House may have passed it, but the Senate won't, and the President won't sign it. Why, then, does the majority insist on using disaster victims as leverage to avoid addressing border security? Madam Speaker, I want to reopen the government. I want us to provide for disaster victims, and I want us to provide for border security. We can accomplish all three of these things. The House can do all three of these things. In fact, the House has done all three of these things as recently as December. Why the majority only wants to accomplish one of those and wants to do so by using disaster victims as leverage is beyond me. I know my friends think they can force the Senate and the President to bend to their will, but they cannot, and they will not. In divided government, negotiation and compromise are indispensable in governing. So far, my friends have engaged in neither. Madam Speaker, today, we should be happy to provide needed relief to disaster victims. Instead, we are here on the fourth proposal from the majority on government funding and a fourth proposal that does not address fundamental problems, does not negotiate with the majority, and does not put forward a bill that can become law. To quote the baseball legend and philosopher Yogi Berra, ``it's deja vu all over again.'' So I would suggest my friends go to the bargaining table with the United States Senate and with the President of the United States and see if they can actually work with the other bodies and help us come to some resolution, the differences between the two. Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time

Mr. COLE

Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend not only for yielding, but for his distinguished 4 years as the chairman of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. I want to congratulate my good friend, the former ranking member and now the new chairman of the House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee as well. They worked very well together over the last several years. I know they will continue to work well together, and I know that we will continue to do good work on that committee. Mr. Speaker, to quote the great baseball player and American philosopher, Yogi Berra: ``It's deja vu all over again.'' We considered this bill last week. The Senate told us at the time that if we sent it to them, they weren't going to take it up; and the President said, by the way: I am not going to sign it. So what are we doing this week? We are sending the exact same bill. The Senate has told us the exact same thing, and the President has told us the exact same thing. If anybody thinks this is accomplishing anything, it is not. Quite frankly, we should be embarrassed as Members of the House of Representatives to bring this bill to the floor. There is not a single speaker in this Chamber today who had a single thing to do with anything in this bill--no appropriator, nobody-- totally a Senate product. So every speaker who gets up and talks about how important this is, literally, had nothing to do with writing it. As a matter of fact, in many cases, they had to give up things that they succeeded in getting into the House bill, both Democrats and Republicans. I think, frankly, candidly, honestly, any of us would admit the House bill and the conference product that was finished is a much better bill than this. If we are going to bring something to the floor where we disagree, why don't we at least bring something we are proud to bring here. Nobody should be proud to bring a bill that actually cuts what the House did in Indian healthcare by $135 million. Nobody should be proud to bring a bill to the floor that cuts $26 billion out of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which we all agreed on, collectively, and were concessions, frankly, that we were going to win in the course of a conference. So the bill is an embarrassment, and the outcome is going to be predictable. The Senate is not going to pick it up. The President would not sign it if it were sent to him. So we have wasted an entire week. We have wasted the week because our friends can't sit down and split the difference, which, by the way, the President offered us in December. He asked for $5 billion. He told the negotiators: I will take $2.5 billion. Splitting the difference is usually a definition of compromise. Instead, we hurtled on into a government shutdown that nobody in this Chamber wanted, but we have a standoff at the top level. I don't think anybody particularly looks good in this: the President, the Senate, and certainly not the House. I would hope after we go through this charade--and it is a total charade--that we get back to work. If we are going to present something here, let's at least present something we are proud of and that we actually participated in writing. Again, this will end another sad week in this Chamber. I urge the majority to get to work. Produce something that a Senate that is of the other party will pass and that a President will sign. If you don't, you are not governing. To just be immovable and then point fingers as if other people are responsible, people who actually offered you a compromise to split the difference in December that would have avoided the entire shutdown, I think the responsibility is pretty clear as to who brought the government to a close, and that is our friends' failure to sit down and negotiate seriously with the United States Senate and with the President of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I will oppose this measure and certainly will look forward to voting against it in the hope that we will eventually get back to the product that we wrote and produced and would actually serve the American people better than this piece of legislation.