K. Conaway

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. No, the pay-for will be added through the Rules Committee.

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman for yielding. There is nothing scheduled for next week, and I would tell the minority whip, beyond that I am not aware of any further scheduling other than I know it is not next week.

Mr. CONAWAY. The specifics of the pay-for have not yet been finalized. There are lots of things under consideration. We, too, want this done in advance of the March 31 date so, like I said earlier, physician offices can continue their billing as is without the interruption that a failure to extend or fix the doc fix would cause. We are keen on making that work, and the specifics of what the pay-for will be are currently under discussion.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 2 p.m. on Monday, March 10, 2014, and that the order of the House of January 7, 2014, regarding morning- hour debate not apply on that date.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the farm bill. This legislation provides much-needed reforms. It is fiscally responsible, saving billions in mandatory spending, promoting market- based solutions, and streamlining and consolidating more than 100 programs. We have eliminated direct payments, which farmers received whether there were good times or bad, and replaced them with a safety net that provides help only when farmers need it. The bill includes the most significant reform to the food stamp program since welfare was reformed in 1996. While I am personally disappointed that we didn't fix the COOL and GIPSA issues--and I am committed to continuing to work on those--I do believe that this bill provides a balance of opportunity and security, and it strengthens our Nation's agriculture safety net for years to come. I would urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the safety net, vote ``yes'' for these modest reforms to food stamps, pass this conference report. Give our farmers and ranchers across this country the 5 years of stability and security they need to execute their business plans to allow them to continue to provide the American people with the most affordable and abundant food and fiber supply in the developing world. Vote ``yes'' on the conference report.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the inspiring life and contributions of Mrs. Barbara Boozer to her hometown of Granbury, Texas. She is being honored by her friends, family, and the people of Granbury for her 40 years of tireless and selfless service to the community. Mrs. Boozer and her family have been pillars of the community for many years. She comes from the Carmichael and Cash families of Granbury who were some of the first to settle in the area in mid-1800s. It was an era when folks leaned on each other to make it through hard times. The origins of her giving and charitable character are easy to find when you glance back to her pioneer roots. While we are many years removed from the hard life and ways of those pioneers, we all, including my colleagues in this House, has experienced hard times. At one point or another, we have all sought and relied on the kindness of family and friends, and Mrs. Boozer has continually been that person in Granbury. The fruits of her life-long commitment can be seen by the smiles on the faces of all the people gathered around her to celebrate. We are blessed to live in a country with individuals like Mrs. Boozer. Her actions embody our nation's greatest ideals. She proceeds without hesitation to help those around her while asking nothing in return. With her lifetime of service and sacrifice she has proven to be an invaluable treasure to those around her. As she gathers with family and friends who honor her dedication to Granbury, may they be blessed by her wisdom and learn from her experiences. I congratulate Mrs. Boozer on living a life so worthy of our praise and admiration. I am honored to call her a constituent and share her story with you all today.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, on December 9, the weather delayed my arrival to Washington DC for the afternoon votes, and I missed rollcall No. 630, or H.R. 3521. Had I been present I would have voted ``aye'' on H.R. 3521.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, on December 9, the weather delayed my arrival to Washington DC for the afternoon votes, and I missed rollcall No. 631, or H.R. 1402. Had I been present I would have voted ``aye'' on H.R. 1402.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, on November 18th, I was attending a funeral and missed rollcall No. 588, on H.R. 2061. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, on November 18th, I was attending a funeral and missed rollcall No. 589, on H.R. 272. Had I been present I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, Peter Ertling is a 24-year-old from Midland, Texas, who has done everything he is supposed to do. When he was 18 he began working in the oil fields as a roustabout; and through hard work and perseverance, he eventually worked his way up to field operations manager. Four years ago, he married a beautiful young lady and they started a family. He now has three small boys, and there is a fourth one on the way. But, Mr. Speaker, he is now in a bad position because of bad calls made by those lawmakers who voted for the Affordable Care Act and the President who signed it into law. Thanks to ObamaCare, his company, in the force of a 40 percent increase in rates, has switched their health insurance plan. The kicker is that Peter's wife is halfway through the pregnancy with their fourth child. His wife's doctor is not a part of the new insurance plan, and they are going to have to spend an extra $18,000 out of pocket to stay with the doctor they like and the doctor they were promised they could keep. This is a broken promise that has turned what should be a joyful and momentous occasion into a nightmare. As he said to one of my staff: I am 24 years old. At my age and at this point in my career, this is not something that I should have to worry about. Mr. Speaker, this is not an intellectual exercise we engage in. ObamaCare is causing major problems for hardworking people like Peter and his wife in the 11th District of Texas. His wife is in tears over this issue. The American Dream that he was working so hard to provide for his family has turned into a nightmare because of a bad law. This is unacceptable, and it is inexcusable.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis), a member of the committee.

Mr. CONAWAY. I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford).

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is left on both sides.

Mr. CONAWAY. I have no further requests for time. I will be the final speaker.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act, H.R. 922, is a commonsense, bipartisan bill that changes the application of Dodd- Frank, but does not undermine the systemic protections the law was intended to create. H.R. 992 amends section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act to correct an unintended consequence of a poorly vetted provision that was dropped into the Senate version of the bill late in the process, with no notice and no debate. Section 716 prevents banks that write certain types of swaps from utilizing any type of Federal banking assistance, including accessing the Federal Reserve's discount window and obtaining FDIC insurance. It would have the practical effect of requiring banks to push important swap activity into special-purpose, separately capitalized entities. While in theory section 716 may seem like a reasonable response to the 2008 financial collapse, in practice, these entities are less well capitalized, less well regulated, and unable to officially reduce risks by netting the effects of multiple hedging transactions. Across our Nation, farmers, ranchers, and other businesses rely on the risk-mitigating tools of the financial industry. Commodity price exposure, interest rate risks, and other business uncertainties are routinely managed through swaps and other derivatives products. Requiring banks to separate some of these swaps into special-purpose, affiliate institutions will wind up costing the end-users who rely on these tools more for no actual reduction in system-wide risk. Moreover, the swap push-out requirements adopted in section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act have not been considered in any other foreign jurisdiction, putting our banks and end-users who rely on them at a competitive advantage throughout the global economy. H.R. 992 restores an appropriate balance to risk-mitigation services allowed by banks. It continues to prohibit structured finance swaps-- like those that were made famous by AIG--from the books of banks, but it ends the need for banks to push commodity and other swaps with significantly lower risk profiles into separate legal entities. As I said earlier, H.R. 992 has broad bipartisan support. I would like to thank two members of my subcommittee and coauthors of this bill, Congressman Richard Hudson and Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, for their good work in finding a bipartisan solution to this significant problem. I wish that all of Congress was as hardworking, deliberative, and cordial as the members of the Ag Committee. As I close, I would like to do so with the words of one of our former colleagues and a man who is widely regarded as knowing a thing or two about Dodd-Frank, former Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank. In remarks made about an earlier version of this legislation, he said: I want to reassure people passing this bill, particularly as amended, will not in any way, shape, or form reduce sensible regulation in derivatives; it will not increase any exposure to the financial system from derivatives. If this legislation made good sense to the coauthor of Dodd-Frank, it ought to be a no-brainer for this House to pass. I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation. It is a bipartisan piece of legislation that will put an end to the needless uncertainty that section 716 is causing our farmers, ranchers, and small businessmen across this Nation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hudson), my colleague on the Ag Committee and coauthor of the bill.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler), also a member of the committee.

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank my good friend, David Scott, who is ranking member on the committee that he and I lead, for the good work on this bill, supporting it today, as well as the other work that we have done with respect to our committee. I also want to thank Richard Hudson and Sean Maloney for their work on bringing this together. A couple of points, and then I will close. One, the ``London Whale'' has been mentioned more than one time as a reason why we should not go forward with H.R. 992. That shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the trades associated with the ``London Whale.'' Those trades are on cleared exchanges and occur within the bank and would have been unaffected by section 716 had it, in fact, been implemented. One of the telling points is the prudential regulators on this particular section of the law have put off the actual implementation of this law until at least July of 2015. So if time is of the essence, if the disaster is around the corner, then I think the prudential regulators would have recognized that and would have moved a little more hastily than to put it off for 2 years. There is no bogeyman here, Mr. Speaker. This is good sense, bipartisan--we hope it will be bicameral--legislation that corrects a really unintended consequence--poorly drafting a bill in 2010, when Dodd-Frank was passed. It didn't intend to have these kind of consequences, and this simply addresses that. With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the bill. Let's pass this on and get it done over in the Senate. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONAWAY. I object.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, just how unworkable is the Affordable Care Act, or the ``Unaffordable Care Act,'' as I am often corrected back home in District 11? Let's take a look at some recent headlines about the launch of the new Web site: The Orlando Sentinel called it a ``hit-or-miss proposition.'' CNN said: Americans are still having a tough time. Wow, what an understatement. Yes, we all know about how the ObamaCare Web site--built with taxpayer dollars--is riddled with glitches. But is a bad Web site the only problem Americans face? Not by a long shot. How about those premiums that are shooting up all over America for affordable health care? Last month's mediocre jobs reports show our economy is still struggling, and higher insurance costs will not help hardworking Americans solve those problems. This is not what we were promised, but it is exactly what we are getting under the Unaffordable Care Act.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, as Chairman of the Committee on Ethics, and with and on behalf of my colleague, Representative Sanchez, the Ranking Member of the Committee, we rise today so that we may recognize the dedicated service of Daniel A. Schwager to the House of Representatives. Dan has served as the Chief Counsel and Staff Director to the Committee on Ethics during the 112th and 113th Congresses. Dan has a long and admirable career as a nonpartisan public servant, much of it in the field of government ethics. During his tenure with the Committee, he has continued to demonstrate his commitment to ethics, to public service, and to ensuring that public servants meet the highest ethical standards. The Committee on Ethics is the only standing committee of the House whose membership is evenly divided between each political party. The Committee includes five members of each party. Also, unlike other committees, the day-to-day work of the Committee on Ethics is conducted by a staff that is nonpartisan by rule. Under House rules, the Committee has the jurisdiction to administer travel, gift, financial disclosure, outside income, and other regulations; advise members and staff; issue advisory opinions; and investigate potential ethics violations. As Chief Counsel and Staff Director, Dan led the Committee's nonpartisan professional staff and helped the Committee fulfill these vital responsibilities to the House and to the American people. Dan's commitment to integrity and rigorous open-mindedness have been an asset to the Committee in advising the Committee and its Members as they carry out the Committee's important service to the House. His advice and counsel have greatly assisted the Committee as it achieved such milestones aimed at continuing the Committee's commitment to providing excellent customer service to the House community as issuing new privately sponsored travel regulations, updating the Committee's financial disclosure systems and guidance, and launching the Committee's new Web site. On behalf of a grateful Committee and community, we thank him for his service and wish him and his family all the best in his transition to the next phase of his career.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Pitts-Goodlatte amendment for a number of reasons. First of all, we have already voted on the Pitts-Goodlatte amendment provisions during the farm bill, and the House voted to reject it. I am not sure why we are here again today to retread all of these issues. Even if this resolution were to pass--which hopefully it doesn't--I hope our Members remember how they voted in July and understand why they voted the way they did in July and stick with that this week. But because the provisions in both bills in the House and Senate are the same this has even less effect than for the conferees to ignore it. Our trade laws allow a lot of sugar to be imported in this country. We can and do grant extra access above and beyond the commitments if, in fact, we do need more. But the farm bill simply says, let's wait to see how much Mexico is going to send us before we grant others extra access. Remember that Mexico has 100 percent access to our market. They heavily subsidize their sugar, and the Mexican government owns 20 percent of that industry. The Pitts resolution would ignore market forecasts and start granting extra access to Mexico and other countries right off the bat before the growing season. Mr. Speaker, that is reckless. The effect of this would glut our market with foreign subsidized sugar, depress our prices, and make it impossible for our farmers to repay our loans, resulting in forfeitures and additional taxpayer costs that shouldn't be there. How good is that for taxpayers? Sugar farmers are currently experiencing a 57 percent drop in sugar prices. I would argue that not one consumer in this America has benefited from that drop. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle argue that sugar costs way too much money. Yet with a 57 percent drop, where are those savings going to those consumers that you want to protect? Where are those reduced soda prices? Where are those reduced candy bar prices? It is nowhere to be seen. I would argue that the policy works when prices are high, at above the levels. There is no cost to taxpayers. Then when prices are depressed, like they are now because of extra access from rural markets which are all subsidized, then prices are depressed and the safety net steps in. You either have a safety net or you don't. The argument that this one was not adjusted in this farm bill is specious on its face. Simply to say we change it for the sake of change makes no sense. If there is a legitimate change that you want, fine. But that is not what these folks are proposing. They are saying change it just because everybody else got changed. This program worked for 10 years without any cost to the taxpayer directly, and it would continue to work that way going into the future. They picked a great year to pick this price because prices are down. The safety net is supposed to kick in. I would argue that we need to maintain the sugar program because it works for American sugar producers. Confectioners cannot argue that prices in Canada are less. Prices in Canada right now are 29 cents a pound. So where are all those jobs coming back to the United States because sugar in America is 26 cents a pound? Where are the jobs that went to Mexico because sugar was cheaper there? Oh, it is not cheaper; it is 28 cents a pound there. Where are all those jobs coming back? You cannot argue with a straight face that sugar prices drive all those jobs out of this country. Reject the Pitts amendment, and let's move forward with a farm bill that we can make for American farmers.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the chairman for allowing us time to talk. Madam Speaker, it is a bit surreal on a couple of levels, one, to be speaking from this side of the Chamber, and two, to be speaking against two of my colleagues who it is rare in my term here in Congress that I have been on a different side of an issue from--my good colleagues from Georgia and from Wisconsin. But on this one I stand in strong opposition to the Ryan-Price amendment. I just wanted to say how weird this feels to talk against something that my good colleagues from Wisconsin and Georgia are proposing to do. One point that was just made was that there was a $14 billion payout last year in disaster insurance losses to farmers in America. That's a cherry-picked year. Folks, remember, 2012 was historic droughts throughout most of ag production America, and so, consequently, last year was a much higher year than would have normally been the case. It is normally about $4 billion a year in that regard. I would also remind our colleagues that we fought this fight in July. Just like the Senate went one direction with the vote, we went the other direction, with a 208-217 vote on this floor. So we have had these conversations already and won this argument already. This effort will punish success, will punish efficiency. It is hard to farm using $300,000 tractors if you have got a small farm. It takes 3,000 acres to be able to support the implements and the tools needed to farm as efficiently as American farmers produce. And so we are punishing the folks who are the best at what they do. Also, Madam Speaker, I would argue that this is a risk tool. This is not an income support tool. Income support tools, as some of our approps have gone, clearly means-testing those makes sense. We have had those in place for quite some time. But this is a risk management. Risks at big farms are no different than risks on small farms, and to limit crop insurance, to restrict crop insurance this way is, in my view, wrongheaded. I would also argue that using AGI at this stage in the development of the broader issues going on in this country creates several unknowns. Both my colleagues from Wisconsin and Georgia are working very diligently on the Ways and Means Committee to, in effect, have a fundamental tax reform. That fundamental tax reform will have the impact of eliminating deductions and credits and, in effect, raising AGI. They can't tell us today where that AGI number is going to go to, so that creates one of the additional unknowns. A second unknown is in their bill itself. Their resolution says they don't know what the impact is going to be. We heard the Budget Committee chairman say one percentage. We heard Mr. Price say a different percentage. So even on their side of their arguments, they are not clear yet on what the impact will be for folks who go above the $750,000 AGI. But their amendment itself, or their resolution says, in paragraph 2, agree with the provisions relating to the requirement for the Secretary to carry out a study on crop insurance and the impacts of an adjusted gross income limitation that this is going to impose. All of my colleagues who will speak in favor of this are generally much more rational and logical about how they want to do things. Creating this new test would be like the fellow who dove into some unknown waters. As his feet left the bank he's saying, Wow, I wonder how deep it is going to be, and I wonder how cold it is going to be. We don't know, they don't know exactly what impact this is going to have. So I would argue that, until we can fix a number on the AGI--and again, let me make sure that everybody understands. I am not saying anything whatsoever in opposition to the fundamental tax reform work that is going on. That has nothing to do with my comments. They are going to change the number that they want to use. That, they cannot argue against. They cannot tell us yet where that is going to be. They are going to raise it, I know, because you can't lower and limit deductions and not raise folks' AGIs because business deductions will be involved in this. So they can't tell us where that is going to be for normal farmers. So you can't look at a farmer today who might be making $500,000 AGI--lowering the rates the way they are going to do may raise that farmer's AGI to something in excess of 750. That person is in the exact economic circumstances they are now with respect to crop insurance and the risk management tool that that has provided, and yet they are going to be fundamentally impacted by this. So I think this is ahead of its time. Wait on the study that the Senate bill calls for. I suspect my chairman will agree on that study that is going on. But do not put this economic limit on crop insurance at this point in time. We have won this fight once with our colleagues. I would expect us to win it again. And I would urge my colleagues to vote against the Ryan-Price amendment that would have the impact they don't know yet on crop insurance.

Mr. CONAWAY

Mr. CONAWAY. I thank my colleague from Ennis, Texas. I appreciate his hosting this hour. Mr. Speaker, as we all know, this Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, or as most of the folks in District 11 want to refer to it, the ``Unaffordable Care Act,'' was passed in this House by the slimmest of margins in March of 2010 and then passed without, frankly, one Republican vote. It was also passed in the Senate by parliamentary tricks that were used to avoid the 60-vote issue that they lost. Once they lost the Ted Kennedy seat to Scott Brown, it eliminated their ability to cram it through there. They had to resort to some parliamentary issues. Again, with not one Republican vote to make that happen. While our colleagues on the other side may say that this is currently the law of the land, that was 3\1/2\ years ago. Today, poll after poll is showing that the American people are expressing themselves that they do not want this bill and the underlying requirements and costs associated with it crammed down their throat. Much like those now infamous words of Speaker Pelosi when she said that we were going to have to pass this bill before we would know what is in it, the American people are going to have to suffer through this flawed rollout in order to understand what is in it that they do not like as part of the implementation of this deal. Mr. Speaker, we've had to resort to a government shutdown, quite frankly, to try to get this President's attention and Harry Reid's in order to force them to come to the table. It is almost unconscionable to hold the American people through their government hostage like that, but that is exactly what this President and Harry Reid have wanted to do. We have time and time again, as has been recounted already on this floor today, to find common ground with this President and the majority leader in the Senate and to come to agreement on those parts of funding the government that are unrelated to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, areas in which we thought we could agree. One of the first ones was the bill that passed unanimously in the House to fund the Department of Defense and the related contractors while this shutdown is going on so that they would not be impacted by it. We then sent a series of bills across this House floor for which we've gotten good bipartisan support. We've had 25 Democrats agree with us on continuing the funding of pediatric research. We've had 23 Democrats agree with us that we should reopen our parks and memorials. We've had 35 Democrats agree that veterans benefits should not be impacted by this. We've had 36 Democrats agree with us that the National Guard and Army Reserve should be paid for their monthly training. We've had 23 Democrats join us on disaster relief. Then, just today, we had 189 Democrats--100 percent of those voting--agree with us to pay furloughed Federal employees once this conflict with the White House and the Senate is over; and 184 of them agreed with us that the Federal Government should continue to provide religious services to our Armed Forces while this is going on. In addition to these efforts, the House passed by voice vote a bill that would allow the District of Columbia to continue to operate using its own resources, not Federal general revenues. It was UC'd, as that phrase is used in the Senate, and it was passed by the President. So this President and Harry Reid have had a very checkered pattern of supporting some issues that we thought we had common ground on, but not supporting others, including Harry Reid's now callous comment with reference to children with cancer as to why would we want to continue that funding during this time frame. Mr. Speaker, analogies are always dangerous, but this one, I think, fits. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union built a wall in Berlin, separating East Germany from West Germany. I would argue that we are in another cold war today with this President and with Harry Reid in the Senate. This is a cold war that they are also building a wall of, but their flat-out refusal to negotiate with House Republicans--except, of course, when it benefits a constituency that they believe is important to them on these issues--is their building of a wall of obstinance, a wall of hardheadedness and a wall of stiff-neckedness, if that is, in fact, a word. It's a little hard for somebody in west Texas to get his tongue around that one. Nevertheless, that is a wall in that they are refusing to listen to the American people. To paraphrase those wonderful words of Ronald Reagan's when he was speaking to Gorbachev, I will try to use those same comments to this President and to Harry Reid, the majority leader of the Senate: Mr. President, tear down this wall of obstinance. Tear down this wall of stiff-neckedness. Tear down this wall of not negotiating with House Republicans. Listen to the American people, and tear down that wall so that we can get this government back to operating and so that we can deal with a bill--and now a law--that the majority of Americans do not want.