Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank both Mr. Smith, the chairman of the committee, and Mr. Thornberry, who I have had the opportunity to work with through the years. Both of them are leaders who have focused on America's well-being, America's national security, and the well- being of our troops who serve in uniform and support those who are at the point of the spear. I believe that we have and our country has been advantaged by the leadership of both and by the fact that they have been able to work together collegially to accomplish objectives on behalf of the country, not on behalf of party. So, I thank both Mr. Smith, the chairman, and Mr. Thornberry, the ranking member who was the chairman. They have both held the responsible positions of leading this committee and its work. I rise in strong support of this year's authorization bill. Let me say at the outset, as the majority leader, I schedule legislation for the floor. Mr. Smith and I have had long conversations, and Mr. Thornberry and I have had conversations in the past. This bill should not be on the floor in December. This bill has historically passed in May through the committee and has been to the floor before we break for the August break. I have had discussions with Mr. Smith and will tell successors on the Defense Committee that it will be my intention to urge the committee to mark up its bill and have it ready to report to the floor by May. Now, there have been exigencies from time to time which made that impossible. That was certainly the case when the government was shut down, and it has been this case through the pandemic, which has obviously slowed up our work as well. But I am hopeful, Mr. Speaker, that I will be able to bring this bill, at the instance of the chairman and the ranking member, to the floor either in late May or very early June, the first week in June before, frankly, we get to the appropriations process, which is really how the process ought to work, as opposed to the other way around. Mr. Speaker, this is a major piece of legislation, one of the most important we pass each year and one, frankly, that we need to pass each year. I just said we need to do it in a timely fashion, but it is never too late to do the right thing. What we are doing today is the right thing, passing a bill which provides for the security of our country. Again, I want to thank both of those leaders who I have referenced. This conference report will ensure that our men and women in uniform can continue to protect our Nation and meet global challenges. Now, I hope that President Trump does sign this bill. He ought to sign this bill. This is about our national security. It is not about partisanship. Taking issue with one provision or another in such a large and important bill is no reason to block the whole of it. That is particularly true when this bill would take a major step forward to right a historic wrong. But let me say, with respect to a veto, I hope the President does not veto this. I hope that we have, as previous speakers have said, overwhelming bipartisan support on both sides of the aisle. Of course, there are specifics in a bill this large where one can say: ``I don't like that provision.'' Well, I don't think there is a bill that you can't have a significant number or one of us say: ``I wish that provision were different.'' But we ought not to have our focus on the doughnut hole. We ought to have our focus on the doughnut, on the whole of what makes this bill so critically important for our country. In our founding document, it states that all are ``created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' It said: ``All men are created equal.'' None of us would argue that all men should be exclusively perceived as being created equal. We believe that all human beings are created equal, whether they are men or they are women, or they are Black or they are White, or they are yellow or they are red. Whatever the differences may be, it is our perception and articulation in this Declaration that it is God who created the soul that is colorless, that is genderless, that is of no one nation. It is the soul that is imbued in us, as we say in our Declaration, by our creator. While these rights may have been self-evident, I tell people, they are not self-executing. It fell to future generations of Americans to secure them in practice. Less than a century after our Nation's founding, it was torn apart by a Civil War, with Southern States waging war to protect the evil institution of slavery. All of us would agree that one human being owning another human being is untenable. But it is what we fought a war over. The names of those who fought violently to perpetuate slavery and who rebelled against the United States do not deserve the honor of being associated with the installations housing, training, and equipping those who serve today under our flag of freedom and democracy. Now, without getting into that argument, it would have been perverse to drop an amendment adopted by 93 percent of the Senate, not because they voted on the individual amendment but because it was included in the bill and 93 percent of the Members of the United States Senate voted for it. It simply says what is the right thing to do: remove a name from a base on which an African-American sailor, an African-American soldier, an African-American marine, an African-American coastguardsman serve. An African American of whatever service, at whatever time, should not have to serve on a base named for somebody who believed that person ought to be enslaved. I congratulate both the chairman and the ranking member for making sure that that language was kept in. I know the President has said he doesn't like that language, but as I said, I am convinced that any one of us could point to something in this bill we don't like. But we need to keep our eye on the ball, the national security of our country. This National Defense Authorization Act requires the military to remove the names. I think that is appropriate, and I congratulate them for leaving that language whole. I had made it clear that I felt this bill needed to pass. But I felt that if that provision were left out, it would be inappropriate to put it on the floor. Additionally, I also want to mention that this conference report will ensure that all Federal employees can access 12 weeks of paid parental leave. That is now the practice in most, if not all, certainly, but many of the largest corporations in our country. Why? Because they believe it is good for their employees. They believe it is good for their children. They believe it is good for America. We have now adopted that, and I praise the committee for doing so. Unfortunately, some Federal employees were left out last year when we enacted paid parental leave, and we have now included them. Today, we are fixing that and making sure that it applies to all Federal workers. Mr. Speaker, it is also important that we are able to include language in the conference report that will close corporate loopholes, which were referred to by Ms. Waters, the chair of the Financial Services Committee, eliminating loopholes which allowed dark money to enter the U.S. financial system from Russia and other malign actors. That beneficial ownership provision is a major win in the fight against foreign kleptocrats and oligarchs seeking to undermine America's security and fund those who wish to do us harm. Congratulations to Mr. Smith, congratulations to the ranking member, and congratulations to the committee for that. Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity today to do right by our servicemembers and by the principles they uphold. Let us do so by passing this conference report and doing our part, as President Lincoln said, to bind up the Nation's wounds. I urge all of my colleagues, not because they will come to the conclusion that this is a perfect bill--there are no perfect bills. But it is a bill essential for the defense of our values, our people, and our land. This bill needs to pass overwhelmingly. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for it.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend Chairmen Jerry Nadler and Hank Johnson, Rep. Doug Collins, Ranking Members Jim Jordan and Martha Robey, Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts Jim Duff, and their respective staffs for their efforts to develop and improve this important legislation. A number of improvements have been made over the last several days to the Open Courts Act as reported out of the Judiciary Committee by voice vote in September. This bill would mandate the development of a modern public records access system that would also relieve the general public, small law firms, and other modest users of having to pay fees to access public documents filed in federal courts. Among other priorities, the bill would provide for the adoption of a progressive fee schedule applying to aggregators and large law firms, which are the biggest consumers of public court records and use these materials for profit- seeking ends. I recognize the press of other business may prevent this bill from being enacted before the end of this Congress. Whatever course awaits the Open Courts Act after today's passage, I look forward to continuing working with all the parties to react to any new information that we may receive and continue refining the bill in mutual discussions.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we will, in short time, remember our friend Paul Sarbanes, but another friend of mine, whom I have not known as long but I have known well, is the gentlewoman from Montgomery, Alabama, with whom I went on the pilgrimage sponsored by Faith and Politics and led by our beloved John Lewis. She welcomed us so graciously to Montgomery. She is a graduate of NYU, a graduate of Stanford Law School, and is extraordinarily proud of her father, the chief judge of the court of appeals of their circuit. Her husband, Riley, and their two children I have known, and they have joined us. Regrettably, she will be leaving the Congress at the end of this year. I say regrettably because she was a Member of Congress who worked across the aisle and who worked positively and constructively on behalf of her district, on behalf of her State, and on behalf of her country. We will miss her. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Alabama.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I know that I speak for every Member of the House, particularly those of us who have had the privilege of knowing Martha Roby well and spending time with her, she is a decent and good representative. She is a wonderful representative of her State, and she has made this House a little better, and this country a little better, and we thank her for her service. Honoring the Life of Senator Paul Sarbanes

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we were saddened to learn the other night when John called me and told me that his father had passed away. John Sarbanes, of course, is our colleague. He told me of the passing of a wonderful human being, with a great intellect, a wonderful wit, a sense of decency, great integrity and a sense of country, Paul Sarbanes. He was a gifted legislator, a wise adviser to all who sought his council. He brought great courage to his efforts for the people and great compassion for all who struggled to survive and succeed in their pursuit of happiness. I know that all of us serving in this House expresses our heartfelt condolences to his entire family, including his son, our colleague, John Sarbanes, a son of whom his father was extraordinarily proud. I went with John to see his dad not so long ago, and I was so glad I took the opportunity when I was in Baltimore to see him. A number of us had a wonderful opportunity to serve with Senator Sarbanes in the Congress. I had the privilege of serving with him for 4 years in the Maryland General Assembly and for 30 years in the Congress of the United States. Mr. Speaker, my friendship with Paul went back to the time when we were elected to the Maryland General Assembly in the same freshman class of 1966, before you were born, or close. Paul was elected to the House, and I was elected to the State Senate. Over the years, we came to look differently at which body was more important. He originally served in the House in Maryland, and I served in the Senate. We changed our perspective on which was the most important body. Serving together in the Maryland Congressional Delegation, we continued our partnership working for the people of our State and standing up for the principles we shared. And Paul was, at his core, a man of principle. Raised with the ethics of his immigrant parents, the foundation of his Greek Orthodox faith, and the values of his Baltimore neighborhood. Paul believed his first responsibility as a legislator was to ensure that government was always accountable to the people it served. He never wavered in that mission. When he saw evidence of the destruction of justice by President Nixon, he was the first to file Articles of Impeachment. In the Senate, he was an architect of what is now known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which sought to protect investors from fraud in our financial markets, and to protect consumers as well. Transparency, accountability, and ethics were the watchwords of Paul Sarbanes. He was also a champion for a cleaner and healthier Chesapeake Bay. He understood that the bay is one of Maryland's and America's greatest treasures and most extraordinary asset. Mr. Speaker, I was proud to partner with him on efforts to protect the bay, as well as on so many other issues important to our State, including robust investment in education, protecting and enhancing civil rights, and making quality healthcare more affordable and accessible. Paul Sarbanes will be remembered as a man of substance and principle, of decency and warmth, of insight and vision. He left an indelible mark on this institution in which he served, and on the millions of people in Maryland and across our country, whose lives he enriched. As dean of the Maryland Delegation, it is my honor to open this hour of tribute and to yield to my friend and colleague, his son, of whom, as I said, he was so very proud, and we share his father's pride in his service in this institution. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes).

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Well, I was pleased to schedule this. Obviously, as you know, it passed the Senate the other day. Hopefully, we will pass it on suspension next week and it will be sent to the President. Hopefully, the President will sign it. Obviously, ALS is just a terrible, terrible disease, and a disease that acts very, very quickly, which means that there is a premium on the government's response to assisting people with ALS be quick as well. Mr. Speaker, as we know, what this bill does is it provides an acceleration for people who are suffering from and afflicted with ALS to get assistance. So, hopefully, the House will pass it and will send it to the President. I appreciate the gentleman's cosponsorship of the bill.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his observations. He is right; we are for this. We are also for making sure that children have food on their tables. We are also supportive of making sure that education facilities have the money to keep their venues safe and to keep education flowing. We are also for making sure that childcare is available to parents who can go back to work, when and if their children go back to school. We are also for having critical money for testing and tracing and, yes, for delivering the vaccinations. Yes, we are for that, and we are also for States and localities that are hemorrhaging revenue to have the resources to continue to be on the front line of fighting the battle against COVID-19. We are also for resources, not only to have created the vaccine-- almost all of which is being funded by the Federal Government--but we are also for making sure we can deliver that vaccine and have vaccinations as well as having a vaccine. We are very strongly for helping the extraordinary number of unemployed, who are on unemployment insurance, and who, at the end of this month, are going to find it goes away. We are for having an additional enhancement of that unemployment insurance, which so many economists will tell you from the CARES Act, was absolutely essential to keep the economy afloat. And the fact that we have kept the economy afloat, as shown by-- apparently, the stock market thinks we are okay--the millions and millions and millions of families who are in deep distress and are not okay. I am appalled by the fact that we have not acted. We have acted twice. You say it was partisan. That is true; you chose not to vote for it. It wasn't much different than the CARES Act, which you did vote for. But, apparently, shortly after we passed the Heroes Act, your leader, Mr. McCarthy, said, Let's wait and see what happens. And Senator McConnell said, Let the States go bankrupt. Well, they are on that road. And we have seen what happened by waiting. We have thousands of our fellow citizens dying every week, now over 260,000 Americans; millions afflicted. So I tell my friend, Mr. Speaker, that we care about PPP, and we took care of it in both bills we passed. It wasn't a question that they were partisan or not partisan. They weren't taken up in the United States Senate. We passed them. They were not taken up. Yes, the Senate leader offered a bill that every economist with whom I have talked said was not substantive enough, not sufficient resources to stop the hemorrhaging, and to help fight COVID-19. So I tell my friend, we are for that bill. What we are not for is forgetting the kids, the families, the hospital workers, the researchers, the States, the localities. We are not for forgetting them. We believe that if we pass one part of a multifaceted response to COVID-19 and the implication for our economy, that will not be what our economy, nor our people, need. We would ask you to talk to the Senate or to offer your own bill. Offer your own bill that deals with all of those millions of people that I just referenced that are in deep, deep distress. We need to deal with the small businesses, and we do. We need to deal with the unemployed and we do. We have a lot of things expiring on December 31, PPP--your bill, does not deal with any of that. We need to deal with all of it. We ought to do it. Mr. Chabot's bill ought to be a part of that, and it will be, because we are committed to that. But we are also committed to not forgetting all of those people and elements that I mentioned. I want to help the airlines. And, hopefully, that will be in any deal that we come to. I want to help the restaurants. These are people who, through no fault of their own, are devastated. So I tell my friend, he is right, but only partially so. He is right that we ought to be helping the small businesses. But I don't think there is a small businessman in America that would say let the nutrition issue go, as we see lines of cars and lines of people getting food boxes so they can put food on their table for their kids and themselves, people who never, ever, expected in their lives to be in a food line. I think the small businessmen would say, take care of them. I think the small businessmen would say, I haven't been able to pay taxes, and I know the State is still operating hospitals, still fixing the roads, still hiring police and fire, and hiring nurses in public hospitals. They need help, too. We are all in this together. That is my response to the gentleman, Mr. Speaker. We want to have a comprehensive bill that will deal with a comprehensive threat to our economy and to the health of our people and to the welfare of our people. We think that is the responsible thing to do. I am hopeful that we can get an agreement in the near term. When I say, ``the near term,'' by next week. I have been talking to Senator McConnell towards that end. The Speaker is talking to Senator McConnell towards that end. The Senators are working on an effort to get that done. I am hopeful they are successful. The Speaker and Mr. Schumer said it was a place that they could negotiate from, which means we are closer than we have been, and I hope it gets done.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for suggesting that. I didn't hear him talk about the children who are having trouble getting food on their tables every morning and every evening. I didn't hear him talk about the unemployed, the 12 million American workers who are going to run out of unemployment as of the end of this month. Mr. Speaker, I did hear him talk about the failed States. Let me tell you, Maryland is not a failed State, and our Governor is a Republican. His name is Hogan. His father served in this body. He, along with Mr. Cuomo, the Governor of New York, said the States, meaning all the States, need substantial assistance or they are going to have to make substantial cuts. In my State, we have made cuts, and we are a wealthy State. We have made cuts, which have undermined the States's ability to respond as robustly as they need to do to COVID-19. Now, the President wants to talk about failed States. What he really means is blue States, Mr. Speaker. That is what he means--large States like New York; large States like California. By the way, Florida and Texas are in the same position. Now, Texas has a greater surplus. But failed States is a fake news item. Mr. Speaker, what we should do is come together and have an agreement. Now, we can pass something here, and we did pass something here. The Republicans chose to join us, Mr. Speaker, on the first three bills. One was an $8.3 billion bill responding to $1.2 trillion or $2.2 trillion that the President asked for. In other words, four times what the President asked for. In terms of what we have done, that seems like small potatoes, a lot of money. But it was clear that the administration's response to this crisis was woefully inadequate, represented by that first bill that they sent to us, knowing full well that it would not even come close to meeting the needs. So we increased it about 400 percent. The Speaker then negotiated with Mr. Mnuchin and came up with two additional bills that were passed in a bipartisan fashion. And, very frankly, the President told us this was about to go away. Not to worry. It is going to go away. It will go away tomorrow maybe or next week. It is going to go away when the weather gets warm. And Dr. Fauci said: No, Mr. President, that won't happen. So, essentially, the President dismissed Dr. Fauci as a principal adviser. Thankfully, Mr. Biden, President-elect Biden, is going to bring him back as the principal adviser, one of the great experts in the world on vaccines and on infectious diseases. So I am somewhat frustrated that we focus on one facet. But I will tell you, if those 12 million people become unemployed without assistance, they won't have any money to spend on small businesses. If those States don't have the ability to operate properly, that will hurt small businesses. If the transportation system faltered, it will hurt small businesses. Mr. Speaker, my point is that we are e pluribus unum: Out of many, one. We are a nation reliant upon one another, and the harm to one results in the harm to the other. Therefore, we believe that there ought to be a comprehensive piece of legislation, as there was overwhelmingly supported. But the Republicans, after CARES, and when we passed the Heroes Act in May, passed it on May 15, they thought everything was hunky-dory and they walked away. Mr. McConnell said the States can go bankrupt. Think of the consequence that would have had. And, yes, we gave them some money under CARES. Nobody, when we voted on CARES, thought we would be where we are today. Nobody, except Dr. Fauci, and some other experts, scientists, medical personnel, said: Look, this thing is going to come back, that is what happens with these pandemics. They have an original assault, and then they come back. And they came back with a vengeance, and people are losing their lives. And the failure to pass a comprehensive bill--we agree, we want to help these small businesses. Heroes 1 helped small businesses. Heroes 2, you didn't vote for those. You said they were partisan. I am not sure what was partisan about them. They were no more partisan than the CARES Act was partisan. Mr. Speaker, the difference was, very frankly, the Republicans decided they were going to vote for CARES, and then they decided, we have done enough. And we have been twisting in the wind now for 6 months since we passed Heroes. I don't want to make a speculation of how many hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of lives may have been saved had we passed Heroes 1, or we acted much sooner out of the administration. But I am hopeful we can get rid of all this ``who struck John, you did it, I did it, who did it,'' and come to grips in the next 7 days, maybe 14 days. There is no reason why we can't come to an agreement. There is a bipartisan group in the United States Senate, Republicans and Democrats, who have come up with a bill, $908 billion. Now, that is a lot of money. But what they try to do is deal with all of the issues that I have raised, and they do. Maybe not as much as I think we ought to do, maybe not as specifically targeted as I think, but it is a basis for agreement. And I hope the Senate passes it. I hope they pass it next week and send it over to us. I guarantee you when they send it over to us, we will act on it. We won't leave it sitting, as Heroes 1 and Heroes 2 have sat in the Senate for 6 months, or 2\1/2\ months. We won't let it sit. Why? Because the country is at risk. Our people are at risk. Our children are at risk. Our families are at risk. Mr. Speaker, as you so correctly point out, the whip points out that our businesses are at risk. He is absolutely right and we need to act. But if we only act on small businesses and we don't take care of the other problems, the small businesses ultimately will not be able to survive either. We are in this together. We do not have a policy on this side of the aisle saying: You are on your own, children; you are on your own, unemployed; you are on your own, States, localities, municipals, small towns, small counties. That is not our policy. We are in this together, and we want to help all of those in distress. Mr. Speaker, I don't know that I will have anything more to say on this particular item, but I am appreciative of Mr. Chabot's bill. I hope that his bill is included, and I hope that we can pass something next week to help all of those in deep distress. That would be good for our country. It is the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do, and I hope we do it. I will facilitate it when we get to an agreement. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for legislative business. Members are advised that votes are expected as early as 2 p.m. I want to repeat that. We are going in at 12 p.m. Votes can be as early as 2 p.m. This is unusual for the first day of the week. I have advised and urged Members to stay here this weekend--most of them I have talked to are--because, clearly, we are trying to get two critical pieces of legislation done, which we will speak to, I think, in a little bit. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning- hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business. On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. I advise Members that we still have to pass an omnibus and we have to pass a COVID-19 relief bill, and we will not adjourn the Congress until such time as we can accomplish those two objectives. I was hopeful that we would accomplish those objectives by next Thursday. Unfortunately, things are not moving as rapidly as I think they ought to--I would like them to, but as they ought to be moving--so that Members need to be advised that they need to keep their schedules very, very flexible until such time as we pass both of those pieces of legislation. We will, in addition, consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business today. I will say something further on suspensions. Somebody said: Oh, well, we are not passing important bills. That is not accurate. Somehow, when we have agreement, it is not looked as important. On suspensions, it simply means we have an agreement between the parties that we can pass those bills because they are bipartisan and the overwhelming majority of Members agree on them. So we are passing bills that are good bills but not controversial, and that is a good thing. But we will consider several bills under suspension. As I said, the complete list will be available at the close of business today. The House will consider the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act conference report. I am very pleased that we have a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on NDAA and look forward to it overwhelmingly passing both Chambers next week and, if necessary, overriding a threatened veto by President Trump. This is a critically important bill to pass. It always passes, and I am hopeful that we will come together on this bill. It was a tough conference but a good conference, and the result, I think, can be supported by both sides of the aisle, signed, obviously, by the Senate Republican chairman and our chairman here in the House. As Members know, the continuing resolution expires on December 11; therefore, the authority for spending to keep government running will expire on the 11th. The Committee on Appropriations is hard at work on reaching an agreement on an omnibus, and I hope to bring that to the floor as early as possible. I am hopeful that will be next week. Frankly, I have had a discussion with Senator McConnell. I am told there is no agreement that we cannot make on the 11th that will be easier to make on the 18th, which is the end of the following week. I would urge Members, however, to ensure that they are available for the week of the 14th if we have not completed our business by next week. The House may also consider additional legislation to address the coronavirus pandemic, as I have already said. The House has passed two different Heroes bills. We passed the bill on May 15th, 6 months ago, to deal with this extraordinary crisis placing millions of Americans at risk, causing deep emotional and physical distress and a challenge not only to their health, but also to their psychological welfare, and to educating our children and keeping our schools safe and providing the resources necessary that, if we can get children back in school--which I think all of us want to do--that we can accomplish that objective. The House has also passed, on October 1, some 2 months ago, a $2.2 trillion bill. That was not taken up by the Senate. The Senate has passed no legislation since May 15th. They did not consider our bill either time, neither the Heroes 1 bill nor the Heroes 2. It is unfortunate, in my view, that Senate Republicans have failed to act, even if they didn't act on what we wanted to do. I am pleased that the Speaker and Senate majority leader spoke yesterday. I have spoken to him three times this week, and I hope that we can get an agreement. The House stands ready to act next week. Lastly, as everybody understands, when you get to the end of a session, we don't contemplate everything that might be on the agenda, so other pieces of legislation may be on the agenda next week or the week thereafter. Again, I reiterate, I am very hopeful that we can get this business done by next week. Mr. Speaker, the reason I scheduled the 11th as the CR day is because I wanted to make sure we could get Members home. With the COVID crisis, the pandemic has exploded. Members ought not to be aggregating here on the House floor or aggregating here in Washington. They ought to be home. And if we got out on the 11th--I want to get through on the 10th so we can send a bill to the Senate. However, if we left on the 11th, it will be 14 days before Christmas, and, therefore, if Members leaving Washington had to quarantine themselves, they would have sufficient time to do so so that they could be with their families on Christmas Day. I would hope that everyone on the Committee on Appropriations, the leadership--myself included--would feel the urgency of passing this needed legislation. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. HOYER. It is a vicious rumor that has been spread abroad in the country.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I have nothing else.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I may get into this next week, and I am hopeful that the gentleman is right that we don't have a colloquy next week, that we would have completed our business, as I have been talking about. Mr. Speaker, I have been blessed, the House has been blessed, the country has been blessed by Shuwanza Goff's leadership on this floor on my behalf and on the majority's behalf, working closely with the minority. And I know that Shuwanza would want me to say that she looks forward to the same kind of cooperation in her new job that she has gotten in her old job, and if the gentleman wants to assure her of that, I will yield to him.

Mr. HOYER. The gentleman is most generous.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I don't know about your school system, but my school system is still providing meals for kids either as a pick-up at the school or delivery at some site, because that is a critical problem, but they need money to do that. We know that food banks are stretched, and we need to deal with that program. That is my point. It is not just small businesses. It is that nutrition program. I just wanted to clarify that in my school districts, we are delivering meals, notwithstanding the fact that schools are shut down. Let me say something else just as an aside. Three of my counties have a majority, if not unanimous, county commissioners who are all Republican. They have all voted to keep the school systems virtual, as have my other counties. I represent five counties, essentially, or parts thereof. They have all voted. Hearing from parents and teachers, and perhaps some students, they are all virtual. They will need as much money to continue virtuality as they will to get kids back in school. They need extra resources to do that. The $908 billion bill that is agreed or proposed by a bipartisan group in the Senate has money in that bill for those programs.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say, this business about illegals getting money, let me just give you an example. You have a husband and wife and three children living in an apartment. The husband does not have authorization to be here. What the bill provided for, that the gentleman talks about, is making sure we feed those children even though somebody who is illegal is living in the household. What they want to have done is nobody in that household got help. It is just a difference of perspective. And I get it. But let me tell you something. What you can't get away from is, Mr. Speaker, they have not passed a bill through the United States Senate. Why? Because it would require compromise. Because you don't have the votes, Mr. Speaker, in the Republican Party to pass a bill without compromise. So they have sent us no bill. Now, Mr. McConnell can say all he wants: Well, we need 60 votes, and they won't give us 60 votes. He is right. And he won't compromise. Your side, on a regular basis when you were in charge, couldn't pass a lot of pieces of legislation that had to be passed, and what did John Boehner do? Walked over here and said: Madam Leader, Mr. Whip, can you help us? And we did. President Bush asked for TARP. He couldn't get the votes on your side. Where did he come? To our side. We passed it, which saved the country from a depression. So when you are talking about all this stuff, we sent two bills. You didn't like them, fine. Pass something through the Senate. But it would have required compromise, and Mr. McConnell offered no such compromise. I think, frankly, we ought to move on because I don't think we can beat this horse anymore. We are not going to agree. But pass a bill. Have a comprehensive bill that helps those children, that helps those unemployed, that helps those renters who can't pay their rent and are going to be evicted. Do you think that helps small businesses? Do you think it helps grocery stores? Do you think it helps barbershops? Do you think it helps gasoline stations? It does not because they are going belly up, and they don't have any resources. We are in this together. What I keep telling him, Mr. Speaker, and what I keep telling my side, as well, we are in this together, and we need to help everyone who is in such distress, not just small businesses. We need to help small businesses. The airlines continue to say they are going to stop flying. This doesn't help them.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I send to the desk a resolution and ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, Mr. Bobby Scott, for yielding. He has done such an extraordinary job through the years in the minority and in the majority watching out for workers and creating jobs and security for our workers. I rise in strong support of this legislation. Two weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, we saw deep divisions within our country, divisions that we must heal. Part of that division, I believe, comes from a broad lack of faith in government to deliver on what the American people need to get ahead in our economy. Americans, in my view, want their elected officials to focus on reaching consensus on broadly popular initiatives that expand opportunity and connect people with good careers. This legislation, Mr. Speaker, that we are considering today, falls within the scope of the Make It In America plan that I have been proud to lead since 2010. That plan seeks to make our workers and businesses more competitive by legislating in the three key areas of education and skills training, infrastructure, and entrepreneurship. It is based on bipartisan ideas that most Americans support. One of those ideas is reauthorizing enhancing the National Apprenticeship Act for the 21st century in order to help more of our people reach for the opportunities that enable them to make it in America. This bill would have been, Mr. Speaker, and should have been, bipartisan, were it not for the Trump administration's insistence on including unaccredited and unproven apprenticeship programs that do not have adequate worker protections or quality standards. That is a shame. And I hope we can revisit this effort and make it truly bipartisan once President-elect Biden has taken office. At a moment when our economy is in crisis as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans are out of work and looking for new ways to get back into the workforce. They recognize that this moment presents an opportunity to gain new skills and move up in their careers, as Mr. Scott has pointed out. That is why, Mr. Speaker, congressional support for apprenticeship programs is so important. According to the Labor Department, 94 percent of participants in registered apprenticeships are employed upon completion with an average salary of $70,000. This bill would permanently authorize the Labor Department's office of apprenticeship and direct it to promote new partnerships among labor, industry, and educational institutions to create new apprenticeship tracks. It will also codify standards, Mr. Speaker, for registered apprenticeships, youth apprenticeships, and preapprenticeship programs. This legislation would invest more than $3 billion in the National Apprenticeship System, an investment that will pay off geometrically to our country and to our families and to our workers. That will be spent over the next 5 years in order to create nearly one million additional apprenticeship opportunities by 2025. For those worried about the cost of this legislation, here is another figure to consider: The $10.6 billion in increased tax revenues and decreased spending on public assistance programs and unemployment insurance that will be saved. Let me reiterate that. $10.6 billion in increased tax revenue as a result of the success of the apprenticeship program. At the same time, this bill includes measures to promote greater diversity among those accessing apprenticeship programs. This is critical at a moment when the pandemic has led women's workforce participation to fall to a level unseen since 1988. Right now, only 10 percent of apprenticeships are held by women. By promoting greater diversity of access, we can increase that percentage dramatically and help millions of women jump-start their return to the workforce while helping them get ahead in their careers. Good for them, good for their families, good for America. I want to thank Representative Susan Davis of California for her leadership over the years and for sponsoring this bill. She has been a champion for workers and apprenticeship opportunities for decades. She will be leaving the Congress, and she will be sorely missed. She will be leaving voluntarily, I may add. But she will be sorely missed, because, not only in the civilian sector but on the defense side, she has looked at personnel and how to enhance work opportunities, worker skills, and their success. I also thank Chairman Scott of the Education and Labor Committee for his work moving this bill through committee. I also want to thank the ranking member because I believe that, in fact, what she said is she is interested in apprenticeship programs, and I am hopeful that Mr. Scott and Ms. Foxx and others on both sides of the aisle continue to work to expand apprenticeship opportunities. We do not want to constrict opportunities; we want to expand them. In spite of the Trump Administration's attempts to sabotage it, I hope this legislation will pass with the kind of strong bipartisan support it deserves. I urge all my colleagues to join me in voting for a bill that will give all of our people faith that Washington is united in our determination to help them get through this crisis and build back better in the future.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss where we are now and where I expect to be in the coming hours and days. First of all, I would caution all of us. We had a procedure in place where we would come on the floor in relatively small numbers and exit the floor. Our President and the First Lady have been found to be afflicted with COVID-19. We pray for their health and their safety. But we ought to also admonish ourselves to practice that distancing and that wearing a mask. We don't wear them when we are speaking so people can hear us, but I would urge all of us to understand that, obviously, COVID-19 is still very much among us. And for all of our sakes, and for the people's sake who we represent who want us to be healthy and articulate their position when we come to the floor, that we would be cautious. Secondly, let me say, Mr. Speaker, that we have not, sadly, come to either a legislative agreement or an agreement between the administration and ourselves on a resolution of the next steps to take dealing with the COVID health crisis and the economic consequences of that crisis. I want to tell Members that it is my expectation that this will be after this coming vote, which will be the last vote of today. There may well be, in discussions with our both sides, unanimous consent requests, but obviously they will have to be unanimous consent requests, and they will be agreements between both sides. In addition to that, we will not be leaving for the break that usually occurs in October for the election that is about to come because, obviously, all of us want the opportunity to be talking to our constituents, but we also have a responsibility to ensure that our constituents are safe and get the help that they need. So we are negotiating, and negotiations are going on as we speak between the administration and between our side of the aisle both here and across the Capitol. Hopefully, those negotiations will bear fruit sooner rather than later. When I say ``sooner rather than later,'' I hope that this weekend perhaps an agreement can be reached. Now, if an agreement is reached, it will take some time to memorialize that agreement on paper. So I do not necessarily expect that a Monday or Tuesday vote is likely, but I want everybody to know, and it will be 24 hours' notice. It will not be 36 and it will not be 48 hours. I know that is difficult, but I think all of us feel, on both sides of the aisle, an urgency. Clearly, for tactical reasons, we go back and forth and try to get an advantage on one another. That is what both sides do. I will tell you as sincerely as I can tell you, I know that the Speaker, who is negotiating with Secretary Mnuchin, I believe both of them are negotiating in goodwill, and both of them very much want to get to an agreement. I know how hard our Speaker has been working and I know how hard Secretary Mnuchin has been working because I know, when they meet with one another and when they talk with one another on the phone, I almost invariably get a call from the Speaker, saying: This is what happens. This is where we are. So I want to advise all of you that, while this vote that is to come is going to be our last vote of the day--and I don't expect even if an agreement were reached in the next hour that we would be able to bring something to the floor. So after this next vote, Members are free to go where they want to go. Just be aware that there will be very short--no shorter than 24 hours'--notice so that we can come back and try to do what the American people want us to do, notwithstanding the fact we have different perspectives exactly what that is. I hope that all of us will be focused and will be thinking about what we think is a reasonable agreement that we will reach, and hopefully whatever agreement is reached will be perceived by both sides as something that we can vote for. Obviously, it won't have everything in it that each person wants or maybe has something that each person or some people may not want, but we have come together four times, Mr. Speaker. One was by unanimous consent. There was no vote. It passed by voice vote. I don't know if everybody was for, it but at least nobody said ``no.'' The other three were overwhelmingly passed and, in the Senate, I think at least twice, by voice vote. So that, Mr. Speaker, is where we are at this point in time. I may make another announcement 45 minutes from now just to let other Members know. I hope Members are watching, and certainly we will send it out, but Members need to check flights, obviously. My staff member tells me. I presume all of you understand that you have to check which flights are available. Obviously, that is a challenge. One of the things that we need to deal with is, obviously, the airlines. We need to deal with a lot of other things as well, and we will try to do that. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, since the beginning of this Congress, House Democrats have fought for the people. From lowering healthcare costs to raising wages by rebuilding America, to cleaning up corruption and strengthening democracy, House Democrats have passed major legislation and shown the American people what our priorities are. At the same time, sadly, Republicans have also made clear what their priorities are, priorities the American people, in my view, do not share, for example, and particularly, on healthcare. For years, Madam Speaker, President Trump and Republicans have been telling the American people that they have a plan that is better than the Affordable Care Act which will cover more Americans. As a matter of fact, the President said he would cover everybody at a lower cost and higher quality. Not a single Member of this House can rise and say, ``I know what the President's bill is,'' because they have never seen it after 3 years and 8 months. But after years with no plan being put forward, it is clear exactly what their plan really is: Eliminate the Affordable Care Act and offer nothing in return. They continue to tell the American people, ``You are on your own.'' They tried to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act more than 65 times in Congress and failed. Now they are trying to overturn the law in court, and they are attempting to ram a Supreme Court nominee through in order to do what they failed to do through the legislative process, of course, after saying that we ought not to consider a Supreme Court nominee in an election year because we ought to let the people speak. In fact, the people spoke in 2016 and voted for Hillary Clinton by over a 3 million disparity. Republicans didn't care. They wanted to know what the electoral college said. And, of course, that is our Constitution, but it is not the people speaking. The fight over this nominee is very much about the ability of Americans to access quality, affordable healthcare. When Democrats came into the majority, we took immediate action, Madam Speaker, to defend the Affordable Care Act in court and stand up for its protections for more than 130 million Americans with preexisting conditions. What can we expect if Republicans succeed in ending the Affordable Care Act? Free preventative screenings and services, gone. The guarantee of coverage for those with preexisting conditions without higher premiums, gone. The ability to get covered under your parents' plans if you are younger than 26, gone. The ban on lifetime and annual limits of coverage, gone. That is what we are defending for the people and what we will continue to protect. Madam Speaker, we also took real action to lower prescription drug costs with the passage of H.R. 3 and other legislation--not a gimmick like President Trump's meaningless executive orders or his illegal coupon cards that endanger the future of Medicare, but real action to benefit those who need more affordable prescription drugs. And when an unprecedented, deadly pandemic swept across the globe and on to our shores, House Democrats led the way with swift action, enacting four bipartisan laws and passing a fifth bill, the Heroes Act, 4\1/2\ months ago. No action in the United States Senate for 3\1/2\ months, and then a lame effort, which was not supported by Republicans in the Senate and certainly no Democrats in the Senate. President Trump and the Republican Senate, however, have blocked the Heroes Act so necessary for those on unemployment, so necessary for those who are trying to feed their families, so necessary for family support, so necessary for small businesses, so necessary for hospital workers and those who are administering testing, and so necessary for the States and localities that are hiring police, firefighters, sanitation workers--the critical personnel necessary to help confront this virus. Where Democrats have said we are in this together, President Trump has said it is what it is. Let me say to the American people: What it is does not have to be. House Democrats have shown that there is a better way to lead and a more responsible way to govern in this crisis. Democrats have also been fighting to make our economy work, Madam Speaker, for the people while Republicans fight to make our economy work for the wealthy. That is why they are fighting about the tax provision that they put into the CARES Act, which we think ought to be deleted because it is for the wealthy, not for those who are struggling. In 2017, President Trump and Republicans enacted an unpaid-for $1.5 trillion tax cut where 83 percent, more than 8 out of 10 Americans who got relief in that tax act were some of the wealthiest people in America, the top 1 percent. That bill also raised taxes on 86 million middle-class households. In contrast, Madam Speaker, House Democrats have used our majority to benefit working families and grow our economy. We voted to raise the minimum wage and ensure equal pay for equal work for women. It lies unattended in the United States Senate. Senator McConnell will not bring it up. We invested in new infrastructure and clean energy innovation that drives growth of new, high-paying American jobs. It sits untended in the United States Senate. House Democrats have been working to make government more transparent and accountable to the people. Our majority moved swiftly, Madam Speaker, to pass the strongest and most comprehensive government reform legislation in decades, the For the People Act. That bill will hold government officials more accountable, increase transparency and ethical standards, and increase voter protections while instituting national redistricting reforms. Where is it? In the Senate left untended, unconsidered by the United States Senate, because it is on McConnell's desk and he will not move it. While this President and Republicans continue to make it harder for Americans to vote, and sow confusion and uncertainty about balloting, House Democrats passed H.R. 4 to restore the John Lewis Act, to restore the protections in the Voting Rights Act that so many fought for, demonstrated for, and died for. But unfortunately, too many in this country are trying to make it more difficult, not easier, to cast that central facet of being a citizen in a democracy, the right to vote. That is one of the 340 bipartisan bills that are languishing on Senator McConnell's desk. He will not call them up before the Senate for a vote, muzzling democracy. That is 340 important bipartisan bills blocked, stalled, or ignored. Madam Speaker, let's not forget that we began our majority in the middle of a damaging and irresponsible government shutdown, the longest shutdown that I have experienced in the 40 years I have been here. We moved swiftly to end that shutdown and prioritize the passage of funding bills last year and this year before the end of July in order to prevent another shutdown of our government. So last year we passed 8 of the 10 appropriation bills by June 26. This year, we passed 8 of those 10, notwithstanding COVID, by July 26. The Senate has not passed out of committee a single appropriation bill, not one, Madam Speaker. What have they been doing? Judge after judge after judge after judge. That is what they are doing, to serve their ideological agenda, hoping that they can control through the courts that which they cannot control in the democratic process. We have shown, Madam Speaker, what it means to govern for the people, and over the next few weeks, Americans will have a chance to choose the direction our country follows in the years ahead. They know that Republicans have failed them: no healthcare bill, no infrastructure bill that the President talked about in the campaign, ``I am going to invest in infrastructure.'' No bill has been presented by the President to do that, no healthcare bill. They know that our Republican colleagues have failed them through their inaction and irresponsibility. And they know, Madam Speaker, that Democrats have offered a serious agenda of leadership, have demonstrated the capacity to govern responsibly, and have shown ourselves always to be for the people. Madam Speaker, today we will be considering a bill. We are in negotiations. I hope those negotiations work. Frankly, Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Mnuchin reached four bipartisan deals. Mr. Meadows was not chief of staff, of course, at that point in time. Let us hope that we can reach a bipartisan deal. We were supposed to consider our Heroes 2 bill, our offer, our proffer, our statement of what we think is necessary to uplift the American people, to let them know they are not on their own, we are with them, we are together. We will consider that bill today if there is not an agreement. I hope there is an agreement. I hope we have a bipartisan piece of legislation that we can pass in the near future, because the American people need it, and that is what we have done in the past. Let's hope we can do it today.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we live in an interesting age. I rise in strong support of this legislation. I have heard my Republican friends lament the fact that we have things in this bill that they don't like and apparently that the Senate doesn't like. I have been here long enough to know and to serve when the Republicans were in charge. They passed bill after bill with partisan provisions that they knew President Obama wouldn't sign and that could not pass the United States Senate because they couldn't get enough Democrats to get to 60 votes. They knew that. So both sides pass legislation that they think is good, notwithstanding the fact that the other side does not agree with some of the provisions in the bill. But, Mr. Speaker, this bill responds to the needs of the American people at a time of crisis. The House passed the Heroes Act more than 4\1/2\ months ago. Normally what would happen is when a bill goes to the Senate, they would pass a bill of their own unless they believed: Ladies and gentlemen of America, you are on your own. And States, as Senator McConnell said, you can go bankrupt. The minority leader of this House said: Let's wait and see what happens. And we waited and we waited and we waited, and 120,000 additional Americans have died since May 15. How long are we going to wait? The House did its job in May for the American people, yet the Republican Senate and President Trump have still not done theirs. They talk about compromise on that side of the aisle and working together. So what did the Republican leader of the Senate do? There was a trillion-dollar offer on the table, so he came back with a compromise and cut it in half to $500 billion. And the only reason that bill got a majority of Republicans in the United States Senate--it didn't get a majority of the United States Senate; it did, because there are enough Republicans--is because they thought it wouldn't go anywhere, it was a message bill. That is the only reason it passed with 51. It didn't pass, of course, because it needed 60. Now, let me tell you what John Boehner did and what Paul Ryan did when the Freedom Caucus wouldn't give them the votes, Mr. Speaker, for the Republicans to pass legislation that they knew was needed, the debt limit, fiscal bills. They knew they were needed. So what did John Boehner do? He walked across the aisle, talked to the Speaker, talked to me, and said, ``We need some votes,'' and we made a deal. The ranking member of the Appropriations Committee is one of those people who wants the House to work. I am a friend of hers and I respect her, because she is a Member that I have experienced who wants to make it work. But Senator McConnell doesn't walk across the aisle and say, Let's make a compromise. So don't preach at us, Mr. Speaker. Don't preach at us about reaching across the aisle. We have seen tax bills that slam bam, there it goes, and so you come up with a bill. Negotiations are ongoing right now. And I want to congratulate the Speaker of the House. She has been in Washington more than any of the rest of us in the last 6 months--I know that, because I talk to her on a regular basis--trying to get this to work, trying to make a deal. Mr. Speaker, I applaud Secretary Mnuchin. There are some others who don't make deals, and who have a history of not making deals and have a history of undermining deals that Paul Ryan wanted to make or that John Boehner wanted to make. Not Democrats. But negotiations are continuing, and I hope we will reach a bipartisan agreement. Frankly, if we had reached a bipartisan agreement yesterday, we would not have this bill on the floor. If we had reached it the day before or the day before, we wouldn't have this bill on the floor, because we know we want a bill signed. But we also know we want to let the American people know where we stand, not for just one bill that helps this group or that group or the other group, but all Americans who are suffering and are at risk. So we believe that this bill is a reasonable compromise. That is why today we will pass a bill that achieves the goals of the Heroes Act and represents a reasonable compromise. Some people, Mr. Speaker, are saying to themselves, This isn't reasonable. Remember, McConnell goes from $1 trillion down to half a trillion, which clearly did not cover the needs. Every economist tells us that. Notwithstanding the passage of this bill, House Democrats will continue to negotiate to reach the kind of bipartisan agreement that we believe is necessary to help Americans get through this crisis. The airlines need the money now, and we ought to be that close. But our position is clear. The Federal Government cannot shirk its responsibilities to the people it serves, not just some of the people. We have in this bill the help for small businesses that people on that side of the aisle have been talking about. We are talking about it. They need it. It includes support for State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments. I have a letter here--and letters can be sent from the National Governors Association only if they are unanimous--which says: ``Every major economist, regardless of party or ideological bent, came to the same conclusion after the 2007-2009 financial crisis: The lack of support for State and local governments slowed the Nation's economic growth for more than a decade. As we begin to recover and rebuild from the COVID- 19 crisis''--unanimously, Republican and Democratic Governors--``we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past,'' i.e., not giving aid to State and local governments. That is what the Governors are saying, all of them, Republican and Democrat. My Governor is a Republican. His name is Hogan. His father served here in the House of Representatives. He is one of those who came up, with Mr. Cuomo, with the amount of money that was needed by State and local governments. Why do we aid State and local governments? Because they hire police. We hear about defunding police. They are hemorrhaging revenues and they cannot support the personnel they have, the police, fire, emergency medical response teams, sanitation workers, nurses at public hospitals. All of these State and local governments are critical if we are going to solve the economic problem and the COVID-19 problem. While the Heroes Act provided the level of fiscal support unanimously recommended by the National Governors Association--I want to repeat that. This is not a Democratic idea. Unanimously, the Governors of our States, red and blue States, said we need this money--this bill recognizes the reality that--faced with a Senate Republican leader who suggested that the States go bankrupt--that level might not be possible. So we reduced that sum in half, cut out $1 trillion of the proposal we thought had merit; actually, $1.2 trillion. So we offer a compromise: 1 year of funding, cutting in half that which was in the Heroes Act, yet still sufficient to get us into next year. This legislation renews the expanded emergency unemployment insurance benefits that millions of people are relying on. And by the way, it goes to them, but what do they do with it, Mr. Speaker? They spend it in the economy at those small businesses that Republicans are worried about, that all of us are worried about. When we give a family the sustenance that they need to support themselves and the family, they go spend it where? Small businesses and large businesses. We give that $600 a week through the end of January 2021, which will help small businesses and the general economy. It will provide another round of direct payments to Americans of $1,200 for each individual adult and $500 to eligible dependents to help families make ends meet. I think all of you have voted--it might have been a voice vote on the CARES Act, but everybody voted for it. And we are making sure college students aren't left out. Our bill offers a second round of the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses remain viable through the pandemic and includes additional support for workers in the airline, restaurant, and live- entertainment industries. It covers a whole lot of folks who need help. For 4\1/2\ months after we passed the bill, the Senate has not sent us a single piece of legislation, not a single piece because Senator McConnell will not compromise so he can get votes from the Democrats, which he needs to pass a bill, just as John Boehner and Paul Ryan crossed the aisle because they needed the votes for bills they thought were critically important for our country. To help reopen the economy safely, the bill also includes $75 billion for testing, contact tracing, and other public health initiatives. And it provides a lifeline to the Postal Service. Now, I know that may be objectionable to some people because they may want to see the mail delayed, for whatever reasons. I want to thank Chairwoman Lowey of the Appropriations Committee and all the other chairs and members of all of our committees who worked hard on this legislation. It includes input and contributions from many Members, including many of our outstanding freshmen. This bill represents a substantial reduction, a 35 percent reduction. I tell my friends who served on the Appropriations Committee with me, if I was in charge and we wanted to make a deal and I said, ``Well, I will come down 35 percent,'' they would have taken it like that. It is approximately the level of funding--somebody mentioned $2.2 trillion. The CARES Act was $2.2 trillion, and all of you voted for it. It was a voice vote, unanimous. I don't know specifically whether you were here or whether you would say, ``No, no. Silently, I voted no.'' Nobody voted against it, $2.2 trillion. It is extraordinary the amount of money we are spending, Mr. Speaker. But then again, no one in this body, of whatever age, has experienced the crisis that America has found itself in over the last 8 months--no one. Every economist said it required that kind of response, and that is why we voted for four bills in a bipartisan way. But then the leadership on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, said: Let's wait and see what happens. And, as I said: 120,000 people have died. That is what happened. We passed an emergency supplemental appropriations bill, 415-2. We passed the Families First Act, 363-40. We passed the CARES Act by voice vote. Nobody voted against it, at least audibly. And the Paycheck Protection Program and Healthcare Enhancement Act was passed by the House on April 23 by a vote of 383-5. What has changed? The politics have changed. The needs, Mr. Speaker, have not changed. All four of those bills passed the Senate and were signed into law. Some passed by unanimous consent by the United States Senate. I urge President Trump and Senate Republicans to work with us to reach bipartisan agreement without further delay. Yes, we have differences. But we have great needs, and I agree with those on the other side of the aisle and on this side of the aisle who said we must meet those needs if we are going to keep our economy going, keep our families intact, and make sure that we have jobs for the future. Millions of American families, workers, and small business owners are looking to Congress for help. Let us, Mr. Speaker, come together, as we have four times came together overwhelmingly and said--not this is a lot of money. It is a lot of money. I am boggled by the figures that we are dealing with. But I am also boggled by the challenge that we confront. This bill represents a significant compromise, while addressing the priorities we share. Mr. Speaker, I hope we can show the American people that we can come together to govern responsibly in this crisis and provide much-needed relief to the people we serve. People pick out individual items in this bill and, unfortunately, deeply mischaracterize some of them. Fake facts are being debated on this floor, Mr. Speaker. I don't have the time to go into all those fake facts. One of them, though, was that we are defunding the police. There was $600 million in the COPS program in the Heroes bill. Then, subsequently, we passed an appropriations bill at $343 million. By the way, the Senate hasn't passed a single bill to fund anything-- anything--Mr. Speaker. What did the President do? The President zero-funded--if you will check your budget--zero-funded the COPS program. Zero-funded it. Check it out. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill, and I guarantee you that we are going to continue tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow to try to get an agreement that we can pass in the House and the Senate, and that the President will sign, because we understand the American people are in need. That is what this bill does, responds to them. If the Senate doesn't like it, have them pass a bill. Let us go to conference. Let's get it done. We will be here to do it every day.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Mr. Walden, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, for bringing this bill to the floor. But, most of all, I want to thank my friend, Dr. Phil Roe from Tennessee. He is a medical doctor. He and I, as Mr. Walden pointed out, for many, many years have been focused on making sure that those children with asthma are safer in the school than they otherwise would be if the schools were not prepared to deal with an asthmatic or allergic attack. I want to thank Dr. Roe, who has been such a steadfast ally and partner in this effort. I am hopeful that this bill will go to the Senate, and when we come back in the lameduck, hopefully, we will pass this and we will have another bipartisan bill that will help children and the school systems of America. I am proud to be joined by Dr. Roe. It is emblematic of when you have a problem that is needed to be solved, Madam Speaker; it is not a partisan problem. These are not partisan issues. These are issues that kids have, families have, and schools have. We stood together on this floor 7 years ago when the House passed our School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act. President Obama signed that bipartisan bill into law in November 2013. It encouraged States to adopt policies that require schools to stock emergency epinephrine and train staff how to use it in case a student experiences a severe allergy or asthma attack. Those attacks can result in death. This is not just an inconvenience; this is just not an illness; it is a mortal challenge, and I am proud that we got that bill done together and we do again, today, the same. This new bipartisan legislation would build on that earlier success, as the ranking member and chairman of have all explained, by providing additional incentives for States to ensure that American schools create asthma management plans for students who need them. This is not a difficult task, I might say, and it is not an expensive task, but it has a lifesaving result. I know all too well how terrifying severe childhood asthma can be. I was diagnosed with asthma at age 4 when I went to the hospital in Mexia, Texas. My father was stationed at a POW camp in Mexia, Texas, not too far from Galveston. So I know the consequences of asthma. In addition to that, my granddaughter has experienced severe food allergies, a peanut allergy which is so much more evident today than it was, for whatever reason, and is life threatening. I have been with my granddaughter twice in the emergency room. Luckily, she got there in time so that her life was not in danger, but had she not gotten there in a timely fashion, it would have been. Like many families, we constantly have to be vigilant and always keep asthma inhalers present. My granddaughter always keeps an EpiPen with her. She is 18 years of age, and she does not go anywhere without an EpiPen. Very frankly, my daughter, her mother, every school that she went to, counseled with the principal, with the teacher, and with the school personnel to let them know, A, that Alexa had that challenge and, B, how to help her deal with it. Having a plan to manage asthma and peanut allergies makes a critical difference. This legislation will help reduce school absenteeism, for which asthma is one of the leading causes. I know that because as an elementary school and junior high school student, I lost significant time because of asthma. Madam Speaker, again, I thank Dr. Roe for his leadership on this issue and for working with me on these bills over the years. He is retiring at the end of this Congress, and I will certainly miss working with him. We will miss his expertise here in the Congress of the United States, and I know the Committee on Energy and Commerce will miss his advice and counsel as well. I believe that legislation like this and the law we enacted in 2013 will be a fitting part of his legacy of public service. Madam Speaker, I hope that all of our colleagues will join us in supporting this legislation and in thanking Dr. Roe for his efforts to ensure that protecting our Nation's children against asthma consequences remains a truly bipartisan effort.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am going to make some comments, but I want to just briefly remark about the gentleman from Pennsylvania's remarks about the PPP. That program was, of course, a bipartisan program that was negotiated between Mr. Cardin, Mr. Rubio, and Nydia Velazquez, the chair of the Small Business Committee here, who played a role. We passed the HEROES Act. We are 4 months-plus from passing the HEROES Act, and the Senate has taken no action. Now, one could say, well, the Senate hasn't taken action because they can't get the votes of the Democrats for a bill that we believe is woefully inadequate. I didn't hear the gentleman talking about those people in food lines or the families who need that payment of $1,200 and dollars for children. I didn't hear him say anything about the testing capability so we can stop this virus. I do not criticize him for mentioning the Chabot bill. I will tell my friends on the Republican side, I am hopeful that they are going to get the opportunity to vote either for an agreement between Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer and others who choose to participate in the negotiations. I am very hopeful that we will have either an agreement or a bill that we can pass that I hope everybody on this floor votes for, which will deal with the problems I mentioned, with the challenges the gentleman from Pennsylvania mentioned. But, of course, the response to HEROES was, from the Republican leader in the Senate: Let the States go bankrupt. I don't know whether anybody has any thoughts on, if the States go bankrupt, the impact that that will have on the fight against COVID-19. I think it would be substantial, including cities and localities and counties. So we have some time to go before we are leaving here, and we have time to address not only the challenge that Mr. Joyce brings up, but the challenges of families and children, of people who are sick. All of us ought to be motivated by the fact that 200,000 of our fellow citizens have died as a result of COVID-19. I am going to speak to that now. Mr. Speaker, this week, Democrats are coming to the floor to highlight the work we have been doing over the past 2 years governing for the people, in sharp contrast with the way President Trump and Republicans have failed the people. First and foremost, they have failed our country by responding inadequately to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, we started out with bipartisan action, and that was good, overwhelming bipartisan action, Republicans and Democrats responding to a crisis that was killing our people; and then, unfortunately, that bipartisan process fell apart. First and foremost, our Republican colleagues have failed our country by responding inadequately to the COVID-19 pandemic by not having the Senate respond to our bill and come to a conference and try to get an agreement. In addition, when we tried to have negotiations, as we had successfully had four times, they refused to come to the table. In February, President Trump told the American people that the virus, like a miracle, would disappear. He called criticism of his response to the virus a hoax. More than 200,000 Americans have now died from that hoax. There has been no miracle. Criticism of that failure is no hoax. Other nations' governments have figured out how to slow the spread of the virus, yet this administration keeps failing and keeps contradicting our health providers and our experts. Based on our population, Mr. Speaker, if we had the same fatality rate for COVID-19 as Australia--listen, my friends, to this figure. If we had the same fatality rate for COVID-19 as Australia, fewer than 11,000 Americans would have died, if we had had the same success rate. And if we had had the same rate as Japan, fewer than 5,000 Americans would have lost their lives. Yet our President says we have handled it the best of anybody in the world. The facts, of course, do not interfere with his conclusions. The Democratic-led House passed the HEROES Act in May--May 15, to be exact--more than 4 months ago. More than 110,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 during the 4 months that President Trump and the Republicans blocked the HEROES Act from helping us defeat this pandemic. In that same period, President Trump, who in 2011 criticized President Obama for playing golf, in that same period, President Trump left the White House to play golf as many as 30 times--fiddling while Rome burned. That is eight times per month on average. What did President Trump say when asked in August about the rising fatalities? ``It is what it is.'' How recklessly irresponsible, how callous and dismissive of people's pain, and how indicative of a lack of decency and leadership. At the same time, President Trump and congressional Republicans have been working hard to eliminate access to affordable healthcare for millions of Americans and remove protections for more than 133 million people with preexisting conditions. And they say, of course: Oh, no. We are for preexisting conditions. We are just trying to get rid of the law that gives protection for preexisting conditions. Their lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act comes amid a deadly pandemic worsened by their own failures. For 4 years, President Trump and Republicans have been promising to unveil a secret plan that they say covers everybody. The President says: I am going to cover everybody--lower cost, higher quality. We have seen no such plan in 3 years and 8 months of this Presidency. That is because there is no Republican healthcare plan. They tried one early on. It failed. It failed because they couldn't get a Republican vote--John McCain, who thought it wasn't a real bill. As a matter of fact, the President, who hailed the bill at the White House as the most wonderful thing in the world, 2 weeks later, said: It was a mean bill. There is only the unyielding drive to get rid of the Affordable Care Act and tell tens of millions of Americans: You are on your own. Sixty-five- some-odd votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, no alternative have the Republicans, even when they were in charge, adopted. As a result of President Trump and Republicans hitting pause, the minority leader of this House said: Let's wait and see what happens. We have seen what happens, 110,000 additional people have died. As a result of President Trump and Republicans hitting pause on responding to the pandemic, tens of millions are out of work, critical support in the form of expanded unemployment insurance was allowed to expire in July, and the unemployment rate has jumped from 4.7 to 8.4 percent. The Federal deficit has also skyrocketed as a result of these failures. During President Obama's last full year in office it was $585 billion. Too high? Yes. But what is it now? $3.3 trillion. It was the pandemic. Yes, certainly that is the case. It was the $1.5 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest in America. It was the pandemic. But it was the failure to respond in an effective way to what the President, in January, knew was a critically important health risk, and told the American people: Don't worry, it is going to go away in just a few days. Our health and our economy are not the only things that are under threat from President Trump and his allies in Congress, our democracy is under threat as well. Even before he was sworn into office, the President had shattered the democratic norms that have made America strong and stable. As a candidate, he solicited campaign help from Russia. Send me those emails, Russia. Send it, in public, brazenly. Help me Russia. And while in office, of course, he was impeached for soliciting help from Ukraine to help his reelection. Numerous Trump administration appointees and campaign officials have been convicted of crimes relating to Russia's interference in the 2016 election and lying to law enforcement. I guess we rationalize that if you are an ally of Trump, lying to law enforcement is no problem. Paul Manafort. Michael Flynn. The President has refused to divest himself of his businesses and created massive conflicts of interest. Since 2015, more than $16 million of taxpayer funds have been spent at President Trump's own properties. This is a President for whom the law appears to mean little, for whom democratic norms appear to be nothing, and for whom personal power and enrichment appear always to come first. Not America first, as he likes to say. Not for the people. Trump first. Himself above others and above the law. And Republicans in Congress, unfortunately, and sadly, have been unwilling to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes. Mr. Speaker, we have been working every day. We passed hundreds of bills. Minimum wage. You are on your own. Violence against women. You are on your own. Equality for all Americans. You are on your own. Voting rights for Americans. You are on your own. Sitting unattended, unconsidered on Mitch McConnell's desk. Mr. Speaker, America is struggling, and what we ought to be doing is working together. And I am hopeful, as I said, in the next 5 to 6 days we get either an agreement or a bill passed in this House that the Senate will pass. I am for either one of those options, but we must take one of them.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the chair of the committee for his focus and hard work on behalf of our environment and on behalf of reversing climate change and on behalf of the health and welfare of the American people. The global climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges of our time. We must confront climate change, and an essential part of that is investing in clean energy innovation. This alone is certainly not going to be enough to address the climate crisis we face, but it is a critical step forward that we can and must take now. That is why House Democrats are bringing forward the Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act today. I am sorry this is not a bipartisan bill because, like COVID-19, climate change is not a partisan issue. It should not be a partisan issue. This legislation represents progress in the fight against the climate crisis. It represents a significant investment in clean energy infrastructure and job creation. In addition to investing in clean energy production, distribution, and storage, this legislation sets new energy efficiency standards--I believe my Republican colleagues are for that; I hope they are for that--for buildings and provides funding for homes, schools, manufacturing facilities, and public buildings to upgrade and improve energy efficiency. That is in everybody's best interests. This bill makes bold investments in wind and solar and advanced nuclear technologies, of which I am a very strong supporter, and in helping to decarbonize the fossil fuel sector. If we hope to meet the targets that climate scientists say are necessary to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change, many of which we are seeing as we speak today on the floor of this House, we are going to need to employ all of these technologies. Recognizing the need to fight for environmental justice, the Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act prioritizes the needs of those living on the front lines of the climate crisis, including minority, Tribal, and low-income communities. They can't protect themselves. They don't have the dollars to do so. It is up to us to make sure that they are protected. We are also creating a clean energy workforce development program, championed by my dear friend Bobby Rush, to train workers to succeed and help America lead the clean energy revolution. While the Trump administration cedes the race to being a world leader, withdrawing from all the other nations of the world that have a consensus that we need to deal with climate change and we need to deal with it together, we withdraw from that agreement. We need to make sure that we continue to be a world leader in the clean energy economy to our foreign competitors. This bill seizes the moment and takes advantage of the economic opportunities that come from taking a bold approach to the global climate crisis. House Democrats recognize that you can't lead the clean energy economy if you refuse to believe that cleaner energy is necessary. Until we get serious about the dangers of the climate crisis, America will be unable to take advantage of its economic opportunities. That is why, Madam Speaker, this bill is so very important and why I am urging all of my colleagues to join in supporting it. Madam Speaker, I thank Chairman Frank Pallone of the Energy and Commerce Committee; Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee; and Chairman Raul Grijalva of the Natural Resources Committee for working so hard to bring this legislation together and advance it to the floor. Many of these bills that are incorporated here, I think, have Republican support, and this bill ought to have Republican support. Madam Speaker, I thank all the Democratic members of those committees and Republicans who tried to work constructively and the bill sponsors for their hard work and contributions to this legislation. Today, the Democratic-led House, Madam Speaker, is doing its job for the people by supporting the development of a clean energy economy and taking important steps to tackle the climate crisis in a serious way that creates jobs and opportunities for our workers. During the civil rights era, there was a movie, ``Mississippi Burning.'' It had an effect of us addressing systemic racism in America. Now, much of America, millions of acres, are burning at historic levels. Storms in the Gulf are occurring at historic levels. Storms in the Atlantic along the Atlantic Coast and twisters in the Midwest are occurring at historic levels. It is not appropriate for us to say, as the President said on COVID-19 and the deaths that occurred, ``It is what it is.'' We are here, Madam Speaker, because, when we see that what it is is not right, we ought to act, and that is what we are doing. Madam Speaker, I hope my colleagues will vote ``yes'' for a cleaner environment, a safer environment, a healthier environment, and a more prosperous and successful America.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank the ranking member for her leadership and always trying to be responsible. I thank Mr. Visclosky and the Appropriations Committee for their work. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this agreement between the two parties and between the administration and the Congress. I am hopeful that it will pass overwhelmingly. I have a little statement here, which I will submit. But because we want to get this business done, briefly I want to say to the Appropriations Committee: Congratulations for doing your work. I know there was controversy and everybody didn't support it, but we passed 10 of the appropriations bills almost 2 months ago, clearly sufficient time to have reached agreement and passed the appropriation bills, not a CR. A CR is a recognition of failure, failure to get our work done in a timely fashion, and I regret that. I take some credit for passing 10 bills last year in June and 10 bills this year in July. I pushed the Appropriations Committee pretty hard. The staff worked hard; Members worked hard; and we got our bills done. The Senate has not marked up a single bill in committee. There is no bill out of committee, and there are no bills on the floor, which means the Senate has essentially abandoned the appropriations process. Madam Speaker, that is not the way that the Congress of the United States ought to work. I am for this. It was tough to get to. We have an agreement, and I am hopeful that everybody here will vote for it so we do not shut down the House of Representatives--excuse me--the Government of the United States, not just the House of Representatives. That is, in my view, an unacceptable alternative ever, and we reached an agreement today. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. A lot of people wanted this, a lot of people wanted that, a lot of people didn't want this, and a lot of people didn't want that. But we have an agreement that will keep the government functioning for the people from now until December 11. What, Madam Speaker, I would urge is every one of us would from now until hopefully before December 11--that is a Friday, we are scheduled to break for Christmas and the holidays--I am hopeful that everyone will put their heads together to get the appropriations process done. We will probably do it in an omnibus, not single appropriations bills, which is not a good way to do it either. When I joined the Appropriations Committee--and Mr. Visclosky's Congressman that he worked for was on the committee with me--we passed one bill at a time. The Senate passed one bill at the time, and we came to conference and sat down together, the members of the Defense Subcommittee, the members of the Treasury-Postal Subcommittee, and the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. We came together individually, and we worked out agreements between the two bodies. That is the way it ought to work. It is not working that way. In a world of alternatives, this is the best we have, so we need to take it and keep the government funded. Madam Speaker, I look forward to working with members of the Committee on Appropriations on both sides of the aisle to effect an omnibus that we can all be proud of. We won't all agree with all of it, but at least we can say, ``This is the work product of the people's House and the United States Senate,'' and pass it and feel that we have done our job for the people. Madam Speaker, this Continuing Resolution is a result of the kind of cooperation that the American people expect from all of us. It is also an example for how we ought to spend the coming days: Working toward an agreement on the HEROES Act to mitigate the continued economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a Continuing Resolution is not how Congress should operate. The House did its job, passing nearly all of the appropriation bills before the end of July. The Republican-controlled Senate, however, failed to do its job. It has not only failed to pass a single appropriation bill--it hasn't even introduced one. Senate Republicans have had months to do their part to prevent a shutdown, yet here we are just eight days before the end of the fiscal year. So, the House today will continue to do its job and govern responsibly by voting on this clean Continuing Resolution, which would keep the government open through December 11 at current funding levels. I say this C.R. us ``clean'' not because it is free from anything other a date change, but because is reflects a bipartisan agreement between on the issues it contains. This C.R. includes funding for highway and transit programs and the National Flood Insurance Program for another year. It includes funding to protect seniors from rising Medicare premiums and to keep other vital health care priorities funded, such as community health centers. It also includes funding for children who rely on school lunch programs to continue accessing nutritious meals. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join in passing this Continuing Resolution and showing the American people that we will not let their government go dark in the middle of a deadly pandemic and economic crisis. I urge the Senate to pass this Continuing Resolution and get to work without delay on full-year appropriation bills. The House is doing its job. It's time for the Republican Senate to start doing its job as well.