Nita Lowey

Mrs. LOWEY

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), who has been right there helping, reaching out to all of those families who are in desperate need.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. LOWEY

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 8 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this bill, which would turn back the clock on American excellence, following President Trump's lead on divesting from education, health, foreign assistance, science, and infrastructure. The process for this bill has been outrageous, and this debate, frankly, is an utter waste of time. Just hours ago, Congressional leadership and the President agreed to pass a package including Hurricane Harvey assistance as well as a debt limit extension and a continuing resolution to keep government running until December 15. We should be working to pass that measure now so that we can work toward a bipartisan budget agreement instead of wasting days on a bill that undercuts economic growth and priorities on which families rely, and is so hyperpartisan it will never earn the Democratic support needed to be enacted. Breaking from longstanding tradition that enables Members to advance amendments in an open process, the Rules Committee required amendments be submitted 12 days ago during the District work period and reported a restrictive, structured rule for relatively few of them so far. The majority denied consideration of many amendments that would address timely, high-profile challenges, some of which cut to the core of our democracy, and would have been allowed under an open rule. In one of the most egregious examples, the majority blocked an amendment to provide safeguards to ensure the integrity of government reports on violent domestic extremism, the likes of which erupted in Charlottesville in recent weeks, resulting in the death of a young woman exercising her right to freedom of speech. Not only were amendments to address the President's revocation of DACA deemed out of order, in an affront to the Appropriations Committee and to this institution, the majority removed a bipartisan amendment passed in committee that would have allowed DREAMers to work for the Federal Government. My friends, we have a responsibility to pass the DREAM Act now. It is absurd that, after years of receiving bipartisan majority support, Republican leadership has refused to allow a vote. The Rules Committee should make in order amendments to protect the integrity of our elections and the independence of the special counsel's Russia investigation. This bill also fails on the merits. The nondefense bills are below sequestration levels set in law, slashing funding for teacher training, apprenticeship grants to help young adults train for good jobs, law enforcement grants that help keep our communities safe, environmental protections that ensure we drink clean water, breathe clean air, highway and transit grants that improve the quality of life for our constituents, and a number of scientific and research programs that are important for global competitiveness. This bill is littered with riders with deep-rooted opposition, like cutting funding for Planned Parenthood. If the majority is serious about governing, loading must-pass spending bills with these policy riders is a surefire way to fail. Turning to the State and Foreign Operations division of the bill, I want to thank Steve Marchese, Erin Kolodjeski, and Matt Washington with the subcommittee; Liz Leibowitz and Dean Fischer from my office; Craig Higgins, Susan Adams, Clelia Alvarado, David Bortnick, Winnie Chang, Lacy Kilraine, Megan O'Donnell, and Alex Pinson with the majority. Diplomacy and development efforts are critical to protecting our country's national security and building stronger and more stable communities around the world. That is why cuts in this division are so deeply troubling. As demonstrated through both the President's unworkable request and the subcommittee's unsustainable allocation, the majority does not fully embrace the vital role diplomatic and development activities add to our national security and economic interests abroad. On the positive side, the bill sustains our bipartisan and unwavering support for our close ally and partner Israel, as well as Jordan. And I do appreciate Chairman Rogers protecting resources for basic education, water, sanitation, democracy, and some vital women's programs, which provide communities the foundations for inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction. While he rejected the most extreme proposals in the President's budget, the allocation is insufficient to respond to global challenges. We must reverse dangerous and shortsighted cuts for programs such as multilateral cooperation, international family planning, and climate change, as well as the expansion of the Global Gag Rule to all global health programs, and the prohibition on U.S. contributions to UNFPA. The Rules Committee should have made in order amendments I submitted to strike the expansion of the Global Gag Rule and the ban on funding for the United Nations Population Fund, and to restore essential funding for international development and diplomacy. Despite the administration's professed hope that other nations will fill the gaps created by cuts in this bill, we are at risk of that void being filled by those who oppose our values and interests, leaving the world far different from what we want for our children and grandchildren. It is time for the majority to set aside its most extreme proposals, including the border wall and interior immigration enforcement, and work with Democrats to write bipartisan legislation that could actually be enacted. Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished Democratic whip.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), the ranking member of the Committee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), who is the outstanding ranking member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Defense. (Mr. VISCLOSKY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard), ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), ranking member of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. (Ms. McCOLLUM asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Quigley), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Maxine Waters), the ranking member on the Financial Services Committee.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. LOWEY

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 426.

Mrs. LOWEY

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chairman, I wish we were considering bills under regular order, but I hope that in the weeks ahead we can work together to raise the budget caps and enact bipartisan bills we can all support. I thank Chairman Frelinghuysen, my friend; and Kay Granger, the chair; and, of course, Pete Visclosky for your hard work on this bill. However, this is not the regular way to proceed. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill which would waste $1.6 billion on Trump's border wall, use fraudulent defense numbers, gut critical investments in clean energy, include poison pill riders, and leave the remaining spending bills with no path forward. Mr. Chairman, as I conclude, I thank again all of the Members, all of my hardworking staff on both sides of the aisle. On this bill, I urge a ``no'' vote. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Vacating Demand for Recorded Vote on Amendment Offered by Mr. DeSantis

Mrs. LOWEY

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to thank my very good friends, Chairman Ed Royce, Ranking Member Eliot Engel, my fellow New Yorker, and the strong advocate, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. I want to thank them for advancing this very important resolution. I rise in strong support of H. Res. 317, which I introduced with my friends, Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ted Deutch, and Ted Poe. This resolution calls for the unconditional release of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents being held on baseless charges by the Government of Iran. Two of these prisoners, Siamek Namazi and Baquer Namazi, were previously my constituents when they last lived in the United States. I have had the honor of getting to know Babak Namazi, the courageous brother and son of these two prisoners, who has tirelessly worked to free them from unjust imprisonment. While the Iranian Government continues to try and exact concessions with these prisoners from the United States, Baquer Namazi, an 80-year- old former UNICEF leader, suffers from increasingly poor health in Evin Prison. A man who spent his entire life serving the world's most vulnerable should not, cannot, spend his final years in such terrible conditions. But this is just one prisoner's story. Each of the United States' citizen and legal permanent resident prisoners is suffering while imprisoned on trumped-up charges. Each has family members who worry, every hour of the day, whether they will ever see their loved ones again. The United States must do all we can to ensure these prisoners return home. This resolution sends a strong message to the Government of Iran. These heinous attempts will not pay off. All of the prisoners must be released immediately. And Iran must fulfill its previous promises to locate and return Representative Deutch's constituent, Robert Levinson, a U.S. citizen missing in Iran since 2007. Mr. Speaker, once again, I thank everyone who helped advance this resolution.

Mrs. LOWEY

Mrs. LOWEY. I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman.

Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 4 minutes. Typically, the Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, Energy and Water, and Defense bills would be debated and amended by the full House individually. Regrettably, we are debating this $790 billion so-called security minibus in only 2 hours for some reason other than necessity. Substantive amendments chosen at the discretion of the chairman of the Rules Committee will be debated for 10 minutes. We also expect $1.6 billion in border wall funding to be added through a rules gimmick meant to prevent an up-or-down vote on the wall. The undemocratic maneuver by the Rules Committee to unilaterally remove Congresswoman Barbara Lee's amendment to debate a new AUMF, which received bipartisan support in the committee, is simply outrageous. All the promises of Republican leadership of returning to regular order have been broken. I do, however, want to thank Chairman Frelinghuysen for conducting business in the Appropriations Committee markups fairly and collegially, as the minority offered amendments late into the night. On top of the many procedural inequities, however, the majority's increased defense spending is a mirage. Shattering budget control caps would trigger automatic, across-the-board cuts of 13 percent to every defense account. Yet, the majority pretends the sequester, which would cut $72 billion in defense funding in this bill, isn't real. I want to make it very clear that Democrats are ready to work with our Republican colleagues to raise the caps on defense, but we must also raise the caps on important domestic priorities. Playing politics with the bill that funds the troops by inserting the toxic border wall into it is really beyond the pale. Why not include the FBI, or the entire Homeland Security bill? If the intention is to pass security-related bills, securing our homeland goes beyond the Department of Defense and our own budgets in the legislative branch. The Republican approach to funding our government for FY18 all but guarantees a short-term, if not a full-year, continuing resolution-- just like every year. Democratic votes will be needed to enact appropriation law, and I really do hope we will soon start to work together again to invest responsibly in both defense and nondefense priorities to grow the economy, create jobs, and secure the country. As I conclude, I want to thank our distinguished chairman, Mr. Frelinghuysen, and his outstanding staff, as well as my outstanding staff.