James Lankford

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago, our justice system gave us a new definition for life. Convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist who for decades worked in Philadelphia, who personally killed hundreds of children in the womb, who personally kept body parts in bags and bottles that were scattered all around his clinic, he was not tried for that. Those things were all permitted. One year ago this week that court clarified their definition of ``life.'' It wasn't about conception. It wasn't about age. It wasn't about ability to survive. It was about distance. ``Life'' was defined by distance for them. Kermit Gosnell had the audacity to induce the labor of pregnant women and then take the child outside the womb, move them about 3 feet away, whether on his hands or set them on a table, and cut their spinal cord, sitting on the table, where they would die either on his hands or on the table. He moved them 3 feet. What tortured logic is that to say it is not a child in the womb, but it is a child if you move them 3 feet? This is the United States of America. Life is not about distance. Life is about children. Let's choose life.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, about 3 years ago, all of our offices starting getting phone calls from constituents saying they are being asked very unusual questions by the IRS. They were applying for non- profit status. They were patriot groups, they were Tea Party groups, and they were constitutional groups. Whatever their name might be, they were getting these questions coming back in. Questions like: Tell us, as the IRS, every conversation you have had with a legislator and the contents of those conversations. Tell us, and give us copies of the documents that are only given to members of your organization. If there is a private part of your Web site that is only set aside for members, show us all of those pages. And by the way, all of those questions were prefaced with a statement from the IRS as, whatever documents you give us will also be made public to everyone. So the statement was: Tell us what you privately talked about with legislators, and tell us what only your members get because we are going to publish it. So, of course, we started to get questions about that. The inspector general starts an investigation on that, and on May the 10th of last year, 2013, Lois Lerner stands up in a conference, plants a question in the audience to talk about something completely irrelevant to the conference so she can leak out that this investigation is about to be burst out. Four days later, the inspector general launches this investigation and says that conservative groups have been unfairly targeted--298 groups have their applications held, isolated. They were asked for all these things, and when they turned documents in, they were stored. The initial accusation was that this was a crazy group from Cincinnati that did this. So our committee happened to bring in these folks from Cincinnati. They all said they wanted to be able to advance these applications, and they were told, no, hold them. We asked the names of the people in Washington who told them to hold them. We brought those folks in. They said they wanted to also move them, and they were told by the counsel's office to hold them. As we continued to work through point after point, through person after person, all of them come back to Lois Lerner's office, Lois Lerner, who had come in before us May 22, 2013, made a long statement professing her innocence, saying she had done nothing wrong, had broken no law, and then said: I won't answer questions. What is at stake here is a constitutional principle: can a person stand before a court or before the Congress and make a long statement saying ``I have done nothing wrong'' and then choose to not answer questions? This is a precedent before every Congress from here on out and in front of every court. Can this be done? We would say no. It is not just a statement about accepting that she is guilty, though all the evidence leads back to her and her office. It is that if you have the right to remain silent, do you actually remain silent during that time period?

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, last week as I traveled my State, over and over again people encouraged me with a simple statement, ``I pray for you.'' Those powerful words pack a tremendous amount of compassion and theology. It is the belief of millions of Americans that there is a God who created us, He cares for us, and He is interested in our lives. It is the belief that if we pray, a loving God hears our prayer and He responds to our needs and the needs of others. This is the week of the National Day of Prayer. This is a time for us to be able to reflect on prayer and to remember and recognize the Americans who value prayer. I share the belief with many others that people are separated from God because of our choices to walk away from God and God's path for our lives, so people live their lives alone, even in a crowd. The Bible says, in Romans 6:23: The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Simply put, what we earn for what we do wrong is separation from life, real life. God gives us the opportunity to have eternal life, life with God forever, by accepting the gift of Jesus Christ through his death and his resurrection. It was my first real prayer. When I was 8 years old, I realized for the first time that there is a God and I did not know Him. I was separated from Him. At my home, I prayed for Jesus to forgive my sin and come into my life and take control. It is that same simple prayer that millions of others have prayed to begin a walk with God. The Bible teaches us--and I believe--that God hears our prayer, not because of our good behavior, but because God opened the line of communication when Jesus paid for our sin on the cross, and I accepted His offer of forgiveness and a relationship. It begs the question still: Does it matter if we pray and pray for each other? Yes is the simple answer. Prayer puts our hearts and thoughts back in line with God's design. Prayer allows us an opportunity to spread out our most painful problems before a loving God. Prayer also provides an opportunity for the God who can do anything to demonstrate His care and power in a world that thinks they do not need God. This attitude is not new. President Lincoln in his proclamation for a National Day of Prayer on March 30, 1863, wrote this: We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched us and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. The National Day of Prayer is not a mandate to pray. It is not a congressional establishment of religion. It is two things: a congressional acknowledgment that millions of people in our Nation believe in God, and they believe that God hears our prayers and responds when we pray; and a request that those who believe in prayer should pray, and pray for our Nation and pray for our Nation's leaders. If you are considering calling my office to complain that I mentioned prayer and God on the House floor, you are always welcome to call, but you are not going to change my mind, and you are not going to change our Nation. Each day we begin with prayer in the House of Representatives. The words of our national motto, ``In God We Trust,'' are emblazoned on the wall right over my right shoulder. There is a prayer chapel in the Capitol set aside for Members of Congress to stop and pray before votes. We have always had prayer as a nation. That is the free exercise of religion that is protected by the Constitution. I am well aware that some people want people of faith to be silent and never speak about God in public. They condemn my insensitivity for their lack of belief by trying to require a fellow free American to live life more like them. But I would remind them that they are not required to believe in God because they are an American, and I am not required to stop believing in God just because I represent Americans. We are both free. You can choose not to pray, and I can choose to pray for you. For those in our Nation that pray, I humbly request that you set aside this National Day of Prayer to renew your commitment to pray for our Nation. We need God's help in our Nation right now. We are in obvious trouble and conflict. Even many Christians that I meet would rather complain than pray. For everyone who says to me we are too far gone in debt, our culture is past the tipping point, we have lost our way forever, I tell them that I believe there is still a God in Heaven who hears our prayer, who cares about our lives. I will work, but I will also pray, and I ask you to join me. Let's pray.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, it was the basic principle that George Washington laid out in his farewell address, that every generation should take care of the responsibilities of that generation, rather than pass it on to their child. It is a 200-year-old concept. It is fairly straightforward. What is interesting to me is I have been in a personal conversation with our current President of the United States about debt and about balancing the budget. The conversation back and forth was circled around a simple principle: Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two decades ago, made it their crowning achievement that they balanced the budget in a bipartisan time period. My request to this President was: Can we agree that we should set a goal to balance the budget? His response to me was: No. Twenty years ago, that was a good idea, but now, the perception is that we should have sustainable deficits, that is, balance everything except for interest. This year, our interest payment is $233 billion. CBO forecasts that 10 years from now, our interest payment--single-year, one-year interest payment 10 years from now will be $880 billion. We must get us back to balance, and when I say balance, I mean real balance. Families balance their budget. Businesses balance their budget. States balance their budget. We see times in our past when we had a balanced budget and saw the economic activity from that; but for whatever reason, now, we are just going to ignore that. Why? First off, it is because they will say it is hard. It is difficult to balance our budget. Well, I am sorry that it is hard. This is what leaders do. We make difficult decisions to be able to get our Nation back on track for now and for the future. The second thing is let's do a balanced approach. Let's raise taxes if we are going to reduce spending. Right now, this year, we have the highest amount of revenue in the history of the United States coming into the Federal Treasury. Even with a down economy, this is the highest amount of revenue that has ever come into the Treasury, the second highest amount that has ever come into the Treasury, last year. This is not an issue about not having enough tax revenue. We have the highest amount we have ever come into the Treasury. The issue is we are overspending. That is the key issue that we have got to get into. The other argument that comes out is, you know what, there are no more efficiencies left. There is nowhere else left to cut in the Federal Government. Well, I have difficulty finding anyone outside of Washington that believes this government is running so efficient; there is no fraud, there is no waste, there are no inefficiencies in government, there is nowhere to cut. When you walk through our budget, we are not trying to damage our economy. We are trying to protect our economy. We are trying to help grow and establish jobs that are happening by stabilizing the economy. You go to businesspeople all over the country. They ask for one simple thing: give us a stable plan that gets us back onto balance, give us some stability in our economy, and we will grow our business. Some predictability, that is what this budget is headed towards. It also is dealing with some simple things, like national defense. National defense is a prime--prime task of the Federal Government. This budget aggressively steps up and says we have a responsibility for national defense. We should maintain that. The conversation about going to 10 carrier units around the world, 10 aircraft carriers may sound like a lot until you realize only two of them are in the ocean at any given time when you get down to 10. When we get back up to 11, which is the established amount that we want to have, we can now have three out in our oceans. When you drop down that amount, you are making a decision that we are not going to have a presence somewhere in the ocean. We have a stable peace when we are strong. It is a basic principle. If we weaken our military presence, we expose ourselves to weakness. We need to be able to do this. We need to take out ObamaCare. We need to get us back into a stable economy. We need to deal with national defense. That is what this budget is all about.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I thank the gentleman from Indiana. It is my privilege to get a chance to be able to speak out for the constituents that I represent who are asking the same questions a lot of Americans are asking: Why did you just drop my hours? People that have jobs, go to work every day, trying to pay for their family, barely eking by, working hourly, suddenly got their hours dropped, and they are asking all of us: Why did this happen? Well, the difficult thing is we are trying to explain to people it happened because more people were needed onto the exchanges, and so the administration needed additional people to get onto this health care coverage. So it isn't actually something to help people; it is something to help the administration and their formula, which makes them even madder. They don't want to be a pawn in some game. They want to take care of their family. They want to be able to do what they can do in their job and to take care of their kids and play soccer with them on weekends and be able to spend time, but things have changed dramatically for them now.

Mr. LANKFORD. I would have to tell you honestly, I would like nothing better for my citizens that I represent to not have to live under this law. I would absolutely vote again, as I have multiple times, to repeal this entire law. But I also have a responsibility to do whatever I can to protect the people of my district from the harmful effects of this law, and this law has many harmful effects. One of them is it is forcing those that struggle the most in our economy to make two ends meet to have to go out and get multiple jobs, and it has made it even harder for them, in transportation, in timing, in time with their family. They are losing all of those things. It has been taken away from them based on a preference of an administration, not something that is actually economic responsibility of the President.

Mr. LANKFORD. It is. And it is wildly unpopular larger in that group as well. Every section of Americans, when you go and get a chance to visit with them, they will tell you the same thing: my premiums went up; my deduction went up; I lost access to a doctor; I had to change to a different hospital; I lost some of my choices. And this whole belief that suddenly now we have 7 million new people that got there, millions of those individuals that are now in the exchanges used to be on health care that they liked. They were kicked off of it January 1, and now they are forced into a new system, and the President is somehow celebrating. I was astounded by the sense of, at the very last minute, all these people filed and they got excited about it. There are around 43 million people that are uninsured in the United States. Seven million of them have actually capitulated to the administration's forced enrollment into this program or face a fine. That would be something akin to, during tax day coming up just 15 days from now, the administration standing up and celebrating that 25 percent of Americans actually filed their taxes on time because they would face a fine if they don't. Well, no one would actually celebrate that, but this administration is celebrating 25 percent of the people actually following through on it. There are real lives and real people that are attached to this. Let me tell you about one of them. Her name is Cindy. And like some of the other individuals that were here visiting before, Mr. Kelly from Pennsylvania, didn't want her name put out publicly on it because, in this day and age, people are becoming more and more afraid of their government and what their government is going to do to them rather than for them. So Cindy works at a job at a restaurant. She works more than 40 hours a week, and then finds out, after the transition happens, January 1, they are dropping her hours back to 26 hours a week. Twenty-six hours a week is really hard. Her job plus 30 hours was really difficult for her to make ends meet. She can't make it at 26 hours. So now this individual has to go out and try to find a different job to add up to two different jobs. Let me talk to you about a dad that his son just graduated from high school. He didn't make great grades in high school, but he is a good, hard worker. So he is engaged in a job, and he is out looking for a job. Doesn't have a college degree, just a working guy. He cannot find a job for more than 28\1/2\ hours, so he is looking for two jobs to try to get that, to try to build up to enough money to be able to do it. So suddenly, this sense of we are going to help provide for people by forcing people to get to this providing health care, what is actually happening is people are just dropping the hours. It is the same thing everyone said before. And the President's statement today that there is no good reason to go back to a time before ObamaCare, I would have to tell you, Cindy would disagree with that; this other gentleman would disagree with that. A lot of people would look back and say: I would much rather go back to working one job than be forced to work two jobs and still not have health care coverage.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I thank the gentlelady for hosting this conversation and for standing up for liberty. I have seen you on this floor over and over again, speaking up for what is right in our Nation. I very much appreciate that. When a family runs their business by the principles of their faith, which those principles used to be protected in America, can a President step in and say: I disagree with your faith, and so I will pass a regulation. This is very important because some people believe this is written into the law. It is not. This is a regulation that was selected by this President. Can a President step in and say, I am going to create a new regulation that you can no longer practice your faith at work? You can practice your faith at home, but you can't practice your faith at work. Hobby Lobby is a family-owned business. It doesn't want Washington to be its boss. They believe that abortion takes the life of a child and that every child deserves the chance at life. What is wrong with that? If a Federal employee disagrees with the faith practice of someone in a company, does that business have to change their faith, change it to the faith of the Federal employee, or can they keep their own faith? It is now the rule that to open a company or to work in a job or to get health care, you have to have the same religious convictions as the President of the United States. If you don't, you will be fined until you change your faith practice. That is not what we are founded on; that is not who we are--every faith, every opportunity for every person to live out what they believe at home, at work, and in the community. Just days ago, the President spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast about the cornerstone right of the free expression of religion. That includes Americans who believe that children are a gift of God and they should be nurtured and cared for, not discarded as tissue. Washington is not the boss of every American. Our Constitution matters, freedom of religion matters, and, quite frankly, children matter. This family is not some corporate ogre trying to rule over their employees. They are my neighbor. They live a mile from my house. They are a quiet family. They are a great family that has lived out their faith. They are a tremendous community partner in so many ways in our community and around the country and, quite frankly, around the globe with what they have done to take care of the poor and the needy and the people of faith all over the world. They are an incredible gift to our Nation, yet they are being told: you cannot practice your faith anymore. This is not something new that they are doing. The government changed the rules on them. They didn't change their practice. Suddenly, a new administration walked in and changed the rules and said: you can no longer live your faith at work. Well, I am honored that they have stepped up and they have said not so, not so for their business, not so for businesses around the country. All of us have seen the lists and lists and lists of waivers that this administration has given for the Affordable Care Act, waivers for the employer mandate, waivers for the income and verification requirements, waivers for the Small Business Health Options Program, a waiver just given a month ago. The administration delayed the requirement for businesses with fewer than 100 employees to offer health insurance until 2016; and then this one, just March the 5th, a few days ago, the administration announced it will allow people to keep noncompliant insurance plans through 2016--that is, noncompliant except in this area. In this one area, they have said: no, we are not going to give a waiver for that one; instead, we will fine you $36,500. Everyone else that is noncompliant, we will give you a waiver, except for Hobby Lobby and other businesses like them. They get no waiver. They get the hammer. Is that fair? Is that right? Is this what we have really become as a Nation? I think better of us. I look forward to the Supreme Court taking up this case and setting things straight because, in this country, we have a constitutional right to speak out and to live out our faith. With that, I yield back to the gentlelady.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. I thank the gentleman. As the husband of an amazing lady and a dad of two amazing two young daughters, I enjoyed the previous Special Order that happened here about Women's History Month. I, as a dad, want to see my daughters be able to succeed and have every single opportunity of every single other American, and so I would like to yield to my colleague from New York so she is able to enter some things into the Record.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, it is amazing when we get a chance to be able to talk about something simple: Can a company run its own business? That seems like a very straightforward statement. Of course a company can run its own business. But it is fascinating to me when we begin to go down the process of how many regulations and how many things a company has to do to fulfill Federal mandates, and it begs one simple question: Is Washington the boss of every company in America? Is Washington the boss of every family in America? Quite frankly, is Washington the boss of every employee in America? We don't work for ourselves anymore unless we are given permission by the Federal Government. Now lest someone think I may be carrying this overboard, tonight we want to have a little conversation on what is happening in our Nation right now, when we have a Nation that is so focused on how we can wrap around every business to decide what is best for the employees, what is best for the employer, and what is best for everyone around them. There are several Members here as well, and I want to yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Mullin), who has been an amazing Member of this House of Representatives in the work he has done, and he comes with this small business perspective. He knows how to grow a business. He grew a small business to a very large business that was very significant, even through all of the regulatory process. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Mullin).

Mr. LANKFORD. I want to continue on this ongoing conversation. How do decisions get made in America? It is the assumption again that if you are a landowner or a farmer and rancher, you look around your farm and you look for what is best for your land and for your family, as well as for the families around you. No one takes better care of the land than farmers and ranchers all across America. But it is interesting, as you go across western Oklahoma, you will drive for miles and you will see barbwire fences. At the bottom of it, they will have a small, little ribbon all the way across it. People from outside the State might wonder what that is, but landowners know what it is. That is the Fish and Wildlife Service has stepped onto their private property and said that if you are going to have a fence there in that spot, you have to mark the bottom wire in case a lesser prairie chicken were to be in your area. So hundreds of miles of fences have now been marked. People have been hired or families have spent their precious time, instead of farming or ranching, instead tagging barbwire in case there is a lesser prairie chicken somewhere in the area, which I remind you, is not an endangered species. It is a species that is being discussed to possibly be threatened at some future point, but it is not listed as threatened. It is not listed as endangered. But millions of dollars have been spent on things like tagging barbwire fences and limiting roads. Now, landowners have to go to the Fish and Wildlife Service and ask permission for how many head of cattle that they can have in a certain area, in case a lesser prairie chicken happens to be in the area. It is an interesting day that we have in America, that whether you are farming, ranching, running a plumbing company, or whether you are a contractor, it seems that Washington is the boss of us, and we make decisions based on that. I would like to be able to welcome in a colleague of mine from my same class, who has been a leader not only in his State legislature, but is now a leader here in this legislature, Mr. Alan Nunnelee. I would like to be able to invite him to be able to come and continue on this conversation.

Mr. LANKFORD. I thank the gentleman for Mississippi for being here and being part of this conversation because this does affect every single corner of our Nation. Everywhere we go, this tends to be the same issue repeated over and over again. How do individuals make decisions and not have to wait for the Federal Government to be able to give them permission to be able to do this? We could go on and on, but let me just give you several other examples that some people may know well and some people may not know well. If you are going to put in a traffic light, just a simple installation, maybe a day or two at an intersection, to be able to put in a traffic light at an intersection, somewhere in the vicinity of that, there will be a board that has been placed up by the company. There will be 24 different posters stapled to that board to give instructions to anyone who happens to be at that job site installing a traffic light for a day or two of all of their rights under the Department of Labor rules--24 posters posted outside somewhere in the vicinity around where they are doing construction on a traffic light. Does anyone think that is common sense? I would assume not; but yet it is all over the country. Every company that is installing traffic lights or working on roads or bridges or anywhere they may be, they are hauling around this giant board and putting it up because the Federal Government makes them do it. As they install it, they all think the same thing. Do I work for the government, or does the government work for me? Many banks in America now, after the Dodd-Frank regulations were passed just 5 years ago, when those regulations were passed--or that law was passed and the regulations are now promulgated, banks will tell you, all over the country--small banks, family-owned banks in small rural communities, medium-sized banks, banks that had nothing to do with the meltdown that happened in our economy in 2008 and 2009--these community banks will tell you many of them have a regulator sitting there full time now. If not full time, multiple times a year, for weeks on end, a government regulator comes and sits down at their bank and goes through every single piece of everything. Many of these banks will tell you, if they call one of these regulators and say: Hey, I am thinking about making a loan, and I am considering this, I need to know, when you evaluate my bank, what are you going to say on this, many of the regulators will say: Well, I will evaluate it when I see it. They won't give them proactive advice. They won't actually help them in advance, but they will show up at the end of it and be able to downgrade them if they made the wrong decision. That is not a government that is designed to serve you. That is a government that we serve. Banks have suddenly become entities of the Federal Government, constantly worried about some Federal regulator coming in and what they may or may not do. Again, Washington is not our boss. The overtime rules that were just proposed today by the President, it seems like a such a nice thing to do. If someone works overtime, they should get additional pay, but leaving out this simple fact: people all over America worked hourly and worked to get to a salaried position, so then they saw that as a promotion. Suddenly, the President of the United States is stepping in and saying: I am going to actually demote you again and put you back on an hourly-type situation, that if you make a certain amount, you are going to have to count your hours. Well, what really happens in real life with that? Well, I can tell you immediately after that rule gets promulgated, Pam Parks, who owns Blue Wave and Silver Wave Boats in Seminole, Oklahoma, contacts me immediately and says: Does the President have any idea what this would mean in real life in a real business? I can tell Pam probably not because what it will mean in real life for her, what it will mean in real life for her employees, what it will mean in real life for companies all over America are multiple things, that when the President in Washington shows up at a business and says it is obvious you don't take care of your employees, so we are going to force you to do this, and we are going to take over your business, and we are going to run your payroll different than how you are running it, what really happens is salaried workers suddenly step back down to hourly workers, and someone who really wants to succeed and is going to put in the time to do that, the boss has to step in to them onsite and say: you can't work more than 40 hours. I know you wanted to be here and to do extra stuff and try to work your way up the ladder. No, you can't do that; because at a certain pay level, there is a cut off there, and you have to have extra overtime. Now, someone who may make a little bit more, they can stay extra, they can work their way up the ladder, but someone else now will be prohibited from doing that. As odd as it sounds, what just occurred was the President just imposed a new ceiling in workplaces all over the country with no one passing a law, with no regulation being promulgated, just a declaration, and everything just changed for a lot of Americans all over the country, and a new cap was just placed in a lot of places. People that worked for years to move to salary just got demoted back to hourly, and now, their boss is watching over them. Sadly, that boss is Washington, D.C. That is not right for Blue Wave and Silver Wave Boats in Seminole, Oklahoma. That is not right for businesses all over America. If I get into an issue that is somewhat controversial, excuse me, but let me count the ways that ObamaCare demonstrates that Washington, D.C., wants to be the boss of every business and of every American. ObamaCare, when it passed, said to every American: I know that you plan your budget and you plan your life in certain ways. We don't like how you do that. You are suddenly going to do it our way. You are going to buy a product you haven't purchased before, whether you are healthy or not, because we want you to, because we are your boss and we are going to tell you what products you are going to buy. If you want to buy a different insurance policy, I am sorry. That insurance policy is not good enough for us in Washington. You have got to pick the one that we pick in Washington. That is not American. Now, it is a great thing to make sure that everyone in America has access to health care, but to then go to every family and say: It is going to be more than just access to, it is going to be requirement for, whether it fits your budget or not, and by the way, the government is going to pick what fits your budget. That means Washington is suddenly the boss of you. In every workplace across the country, Washington, D.C., is now trying to decide which insurance policies work best for them--that is, Washington, not for the people in that company. Washington is not the boss of us. We are individuals that have freedom. There is a company named Hobby Lobby. It happens to be based in my hometown. It is an absolutely amazing family that has lived out their faith for years. People see Hobby Lobby as this giant company. Just a few decades ago, Hobby Lobby was in a garage and was a couple of sons cutting out picture frames for their dad, and they were selling these little tiny picture frames and starting their own tiny little frame shop. That tiny little frame shop is now all over this country and is known to be this great retailer Hobby Lobby. They have practiced faith principles from the very beginning of their company. They close on Sundays. They close early on Wednesdays. They pay well more than minimum wage. They have always had great health care coverage. They are a company that lives out biblical values in the workplace. They play Christian music even over the loudspeakers at the stores. They are a place that, when you shop, you enjoy shopping there. People love to take care of people there. That is part of their corporate mentality. It is also a couple of owners and that family that is also opposed to abortion. They have the unusual belief that millions and millions of other Americans believe that children are valuable and that children are important and precious. They happen to have a faith that believes that the child deserves life. Well, the President disagrees with that faith; so when ObamaCare-- literally, the regulations say to that business: You cannot operate your business under faith principles if that faith principle is different than the President's. Why do I say that? Because if Hobby Lobby did not provide insurance at all--at all to their employees, they would be fined $2,000 per person, per year, if they refuse to provide insurance. If they provide all insurance with everything included in it that ObamaCare requires, except for four abortifacient drugs--just leave out those four. Based on religious views they don't agree with, those four abortifacient drugs--if they don't provide those four, their fine is $36,500 per employee, per year. Let me run this past you again: $2,000 per employee if they provide nothing; $36,500 per employee if they provide everything, except those four abortifacient drugs. How serious is this administration about being the boss of that company and telling them: If your faith practice is different than ours, it is obvious the consequences are shutting down a company? No one can afford a fine of $36,500. So, basically, the Green family has to choose to either live their faith or to keep their business open, but they can't do both at the same time. What kind of country is this? What have we become when the simple freedom of religion can be swept aside by a Washington that says: If I don't agree with your faith, you have to change your practice? Washington is not the boss of our companies. Washington is not the boss of our faith. We have a constitutional right to be able to live out our faith. I received a letter and information from a great Oklahoma company in Stillwater, Oklahoma. It is Frontier Electronic Systems. It is interesting to be able to read what they are dealing with day-to-day just with Federal regulations. Here is one statement. They wrote: A phrase I have borrowed regarding most of these Federal regulations is that they ``do not scale.'' As a company with 113 employees, we are as accountable for compliance as if we had 113,000 employees. Needless to say, we have far fewer resources available--dollars and people power--than a larger employer has to ensure compliance. Also, compliance with many of the regulations requires some level of knowledge and experience in specific human resources specialties--staffing, benefits, et cetera--due to the fact that many of the laws are complicated and interrelated. Many smaller companies are fortunate to have even one experienced HR professional, let alone one that has extensive knowledge in multiple HR specialties. What are they talking about with that? Let me just give you an example. Because this great company also occasionally does some Federal contracting, here is the list of the regulations that this company must fulfill. To be a company and to be open in America right now, this is what this particular company has to fulfill. They have to follow these specific regulations: The Age Discrimination in Employment Act; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009--the regs that are in there; the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012; the Americans with Disabilities Act; the Black Lung Benefits Act; the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009; the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986; the Copeland Act of 1934; the Consumer Credit Protection Act; the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act; the Davis-Bacon Act; the Dodd-Frank Act of 2011; the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988; the Employee Polygraph Protection Act; the Employee Retirement Income Security Act; the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act; the Equal Pay Act; Executive Order 11246 of 1965; Executive Order 13201; the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act; the Federal Corrupt Practices Act; the Fair Credit Reporting Act; the Fair Labor Standards Act; the Family and Medical Leave Act; the Federal Employees' Compensation Act; the Federal Insurance Contributions Act; the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act; the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act; the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act; the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act of 2010; the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986; the Immigration and Nationality Act; the Jury Service and Selection Act; the Labor- Management Reporting and Disclosure Act; the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007; the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act; the McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act; the Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2008; the Mental Health Parity Act; the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act; the National Labor Relations Act; the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act of 1996; the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932; the Occupational Safety and Health Act; the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard; the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--that is a big one; that is ObamaCare--the Pension Protection Act of 2006; the Pregnancy Discrimination Act; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890; title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures of 1978; the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994; the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2004; the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act; the Walsh-Healey Act; the War Hazards Compensation Act; the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act of 1998; the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act; and the Workforce Reinvestment and Adult Education Act. Can anyone keep up with that? This business has to. With 113 employees, how many people does it take just to keep up with those regulations? Mr. Speaker, we have a problem. We have a Washington, D.C., that has become arrogant. I don't think it is intentional. Quite frankly, I think everyone is trying to be very kind--overly kind--and they stack on one regulation on another, and there suddenly becomes a day when no company can keep up with this. The attitude is simple: we know better than you. You won't run your company like it should be run, so we are going to come tell you how to run it. You won't run your family like it should be run, so we are going to tell you how to run your family farm. You won't run your bank like it should be run, so we are going to come run it for you. You won't run your insurance company like it should be run, so we are going to come run it for you. You mistreat your employees, so we are going to take over your health care system, and we will run it for you. Mr. Speaker, that is not what we are as Americans. We are a nation that became strong because we are a nation that is free. We changed the world with a simple work ethic and the ability for people to be able to achieve success. That did not include a laundry list of protections from the Federal Government that swallow up a business. Is there anything wrong with the government's setting the boundaries for business? No. It is part of the role of government. But when it becomes this, we are drowning. Now, suddenly, Washington is the boss of us, and this has got to turn around. Mr. Speaker, simple decisions have to be made. Can States do things that the Federal Government is currently doing? Yes, there are things the Federal Government is doing it has no business doing. They are the responsibility of a State. Should families go back to making decisions and businesses making decisions? Yes, they should. That means there is risk. With risk comes great reward. We became the strongest and most prosperous nation on the planet because our people were not afraid of risk and the rest of the world was. We can get back to that, but we have got to make a simple decision: Is Washington the boss of us or are the American people the boss of Washington? With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, when a family runs a business by the principles of their faith--which used to be protected in America--can a President step in and say: I disagree with your faith, so I will pass a regulation that says you can no longer practice your faith at work--you can at home, but not at work? Hobby Lobby is a family-owned business that doesn't want Washington to be their boss. They believe that abortion takes the life of a child and that every child deserves a chance at life. What is wrong with that? If a Federal employee disagrees with the faith practice of someone in a company, does that business have to change to the faith of the Federal employee, or can they keep their own faith? It is now the rule that to open a company, work in a job, or get health care, you have to have the same religious convictions as the President of the United States. If you don't, you will be fined until you change your faith practice. Just days ago, the President spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast about the cornerstone right of the free expression of religion. Does that include Americans who believe that children are a gift of God and they should be nurtured and cared for, not discarded as tissue? Washington is not the boss of every American. Our Constitution matters; freedom of religion matters; and, quite frankly, children matter.

Mr. LANKFORD

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall).

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlelady from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), who is the author of H.R. 899 and has worked on this concept for years, to try to repair the inconsistencies in the original law.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, I am submitting for the Record letters of exchange between the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committees on Budget and Judiciary and Rules regarding the committees' jurisdictional interest in H.R. 899. House of Representatives, Committee on Rules, Washington, DC, February 11, 2013. Hon. Darrell Issa, Chairman, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Washington, DC. Dear Chairman Issa: On July 24, 2013, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform ordered reported H.R. 899, the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act of 2013. As you know, the Committee on Rules was granted an additional referral upon the bill's introduction pursuant to the Committee's jurisdiction under rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives over rules and joint rules of the House. Because of your willingness to consult with my committee regarding this matter, I will waive consideration of the bill by the Rules Committee. By agreeing to waive its consideration of the bill, the Rules Committee does not waive its jurisdiction over H.R. 899. In addition, the Committee on Rules reserves its authority to seek conferees on any provisions of the bill that are within its jurisdiction during any House-Senate conference that may be convened on this legislation. I ask your commitment to support any request by the Committee on Rules for conferees on H.R. 899 or related legislation. I also request that you include this letter and your response as part of your committee's report on the bill and in the Congressional Record during consideration of the legislation on the House floor. Thank you for your attention to these matters. Sincerely, Pete Sessions.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 899.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Last Congress, the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee that I chaired began studying the effectiveness of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, also known as UMRA, which was enacted in 1995. We held three legislative hearings, and we inquired with the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs about various UMRA provisions and the possible improvements to the law. During our hearings, representatives from State and local governments, and the private sector, they all came to testify about many of the burdensome mandates that are actually not characterized and not protected under the original Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. The analyses often failed to capture the heavy burdens of those regulatory mandates. UMRA's limited coverage is a concern because, as the chief economist of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council testified: ``Unfunded mandates and regulations continually stifle private sector growth and economic expansion.'' To help raise awareness about unfunded mandates and ensure more of these mandates are captured by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act, H.R. 899, the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act, was introduced by Representative Virginia Foxx. It is bipartisan legislation that will close existing loopholes in the law and bring more transparency and accountability to the regulatory process. The legislation has the support of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Conference of State Legislatures. The American Action Forum, which is headed by former CBO Director Doug Holtz-Eakin, also supports the concepts of this bill. H.R. 899 requires that independent regulatory agencies comply with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. Independent regulatory agencies are currently excluded from review, but the regulations they promulgate can impose significant costs and burdensome requirements. Currently, regulations issued by agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, they are excluded from cost-benefit analyses otherwise required of other agencies. The Congressional Research Service found that between 2010 and 2012, nine independent agencies issued 57 major rules. Those are rules with a cost to the economy of over $100 million. But none of those agencies monetized both costs and benefits in estimating the impacts of the rules. H.R. 899 codifies the principles of regulation in Executive Order 12866, issued by President Clinton and reaffirmed in Executive Order 13563, issued by President Obama. It also codifies Executive Order 12866's requirement that agencies conduct a cost-benefit analysis. H.R. 899 requires agencies to consult with the private sector prior to proposing a major rule. Currently, this requirement only applies to State, local, and tribal governments. In light of President Obama's emphasis on early stakeholder input on the development of Federal regulations, there is no reason to exclude private sector stakeholders from early consultation in this requirement. H.R. 899 allows the chairman or ranking member of any congressional committee to request that an agency conduct a retrospective analysis of an existing Federal regulatory mandate. Again, President Obama even has acknowledged the need for retrospective review, stating that each agency ``should periodically review its existing significant regulations to determine whether any such regulations should be modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed to make the agency's regulatory program more effective or less burdensome in achieving the regulatory objectives.'' This change would ensure existing regulations are actually reviewed. H.R. 899 extends judicial review to ensure that agencies carefully consider the least costly or least burdensome regulatory alternatives. According to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, the current judicial review provision included in the original UMRA ``lacks teeth'' and ``offers no real incentives for agencies to deal legitimately with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act requirements.'' H.R. 899 ensures that Federal agencies and the Congressional Budget Office estimate the entire cost of a Federal mandate, such as forgone profits, costs passed on to consumers, and behavioral changes as a result of a Federal mandate. The administration said it is ``strongly supportive'' of the first generation of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. I am glad that we are here today to make the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act even stronger. I have stated before, and I will state again, making these reforms is not an attack on the current administration. Many of the issues we are here to deal with today did not originate in this administration, and the solutions we propose will extend well beyond this administration. It is the role and responsibility of Congress to ensure regulations are consistent with legislative intent and they are written to cause the least amount of burden and the greatest possible benefit. I encourage all Members to support this bill. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, this bill assumes one simple thing: that regulators are not infallible, they are just people. We believe that the Nation will not fall apart if Washington doesn't have more and more growing power. We believe that this Nation became strong because the Federal Government had limited power. You see, I believe and we believe the American people aren't looking for much from us; they just want the unfunded mandates to stop. Someone in Washington decides they have a good idea and suddenly everyone has to pay for their new good idea. It seems obvious that before a major rule is put into place, the regulators should actually have a consultation with the people that will be affected to see if there is a better way to do the same thing. It was 3 years ago that I walked into this Chamber. Many people know I don't come from a political background. I have served in churches, where, of course, there are no politics. I can tell you that the American people do not want this city to tell them what to do. They want this city to protect their rights and leave them alone. As a new Representative, I was surprised that the vast majority of businesses that I interacted with didn't come to me asking for something; they came and said, how can you make this stop? Thousands of small regulations are coming every day. In fact, I am sure everyone read the Federal Register today. There is a new regulation that came out today that decreases the size of an orange. You cannot be an orange in America unless the Department of Agriculture tells you that you are an orange, and there is a new regulation today defining an orange. There are also 330 major rules that have come out in the last few years that increase and have an impact on the economy of over $100 million each. The American people are fed up with Washington, not because we can get nothing done, but because we are already doing too much. Every day, people wake up to a new regulation. They can't wait to read the Federal Register to see what happened to their business and their life last night. The opposition to this bill seems to be a fear that it will make the government work harder. Our fear is that the government is already making the American people's work harder every single day. People are worried about how to be able to pay for things, and it is slowing down the economy. Every mandate that is passed, the economy slows down even more. In fact, the CBO once again this year, just weeks ago, laid out their forecast for the next 10 years, that the economy is going to continue to slow down even more. Listen, the prevailing attitude in this town that Washington knows best has to stop. It is the responsibility of the States and the Nation to carry out their own wishes. It is not the responsibility of the States and the people to carry out the wishes of Washington, DC. A lot of people all over this Nation can make good decisions, and this perception that Washington is smarter than everyone else is absolutely not true. I come from a place that many in this town call flyover country. It may surprise you that planes actually land in flyover country. And when you get off the plane, do you know what you find? You find smart people. People who balance their budgets, serve their neighbors, and love their kids. They are not helpless. Right when they finally get their budget to balance or get their family back in place, Washington has a new plan for their budget. When the President said in his State of the Union that, ``The shift to a cleaner energy economy won't happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way,'' many people didn't realize that those tough choices would be on their own budgets. In my State, electricity prices are going up. One of the electricity producers faces new compliance costs of over $1,500 per meter--per meter--simply because of a new aesthetic air quality regulation. It is not dealing with health. It is just dealing with aesthetic air quality regulations by this administration. When families try to figure out their paycheck and why it is not going as far anymore, they should ask the question: Why does gas cost more? Why does electricity cost more? Why does corn cost more? Why does beef cost more? Why does health care cost more? Why are local taxes going up? And why is insurance costing more? It is not the evil capitalists on Wall Street. It is the oceans of new regulations that are taking every spare dime from Americans' budgets because someone here in Washington thinks they know better. Listen, whether it is a farm or whether it is on an energy platform or whether it is this Chamber that passed a bill 2 years ago straight down a party-line vote that told every American that they could not pick the health care they wanted, they had to pick the one Washington approved; they couldn't have the same doctor, they had to pick one that Washington approved; they couldn't pay what they chose to because they have to go to the hospital that Washington chose--by the way, the costs are going to go up as well because Washington put a new tax on medical devices, like a dental crown, a knee replacement, or a pacemaker, so right when they are getting hit with medical bills, they are also going to get hit with a new tax as well. What a great idea. The problem is this government has grown and grown over decades. It is time to turn this around. Now is the moment to give the American people back what they need back, that is, freedom from the ongoing regulations.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, I want us to be able to move forward on this bill. I want the American people to know that their government serves them and that individuals are able to be able to speak back to their own government when their government is imposing a regulation on them. I think that is entirely reasonable for any affected party to be able to engage in conversation with their own government. I think it is entirely appropriate. This is long overdue. The 1995 UMRA bill was written with large loopholes that exempted out agencies, exempted out different entities. It created an environment where it is beneficial to the agency to distort the cost. Let's clear that. Let's just get back to doing what we should do, not people trying to sneak in rules, not people trying to sneak in a different cost-benefit analysis. Let's just have conversation again between the American people and the government that they are in charge of. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, I can tell you I am all for a cost- benefit analysis, but the challenge of doing a cost-benefit analysis comes down to who is doing the cost-benefit analysis and what are they putting into it. There have been multiple times that we have had conversations about a cost-benefit analysis, and there has been a push back to say: well, let's go back and check the math on that later and see if we actually got the benefit that was proposed that we will receive for that benefit. A benefit analysis, in particular, is kind of under scrutiny by academics, even under the Obama administration. As an example, the EPA issued a new standard for mercury emissions and reported that benefits of the rule were up to $90 billion a year, far above their $10 billion a year cost. Less than .01 of that $90 billion in benefits was attributable to actual reduction in mercury, though; instead, nearly all the benefits came from reductions in fine particles, a pollutant that was not even the purposed target of the regulation itself. Fine particle cobenefits accounted for two-thirds of the benefits of the economically significant rules in 2010. This administration has padded the benefit analysis with private benefits. In the fuel economy standards, for instance, for cars and light trucks, nearly 90 percent of the $338 billion in lifetime benefits were benefits to consumers, such as reduced fuel consumption, and--how about this one--shorter refueling times. Private benefits account for 92 percent of the benefits in energy efficiency standards for washing machines and 70 percent of the benefits in energy efficiency standards for refrigerators. Essentially, the private benefit accounting is a claim that depriving consumers of preferred choices will make them better off because benefits like fuel savings are worth more to consumers than consumers actually realized. To exclude regulations from an UMRA analysis, based on faulty and misleading benefits analysis, would only encourage distortion. Further, the point of UMRA is to identify burdensome new mandates for the parties that have to bear the burden. You see, that company bears the burden. That cost gets passed on directly to consumers. So this ``private benefits''--that you are going to get more benefit than you thought you would ever get or will ever see--doesn't offset the cost they do see coming out of their paycheck when gasoline is more expensive, groceries are more expensive, and electricity if more expensive. Often, parties who pay the cost of these regulations are not the same parties that actually enjoy the benefits. Even if a rule is predicted to have a net benefit, impacted entities should be made aware of sizable new burdens imposed by Federal mandates. For this reason, I do oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of things that I oppose in government. Duplication is one of those. Clarity is best done when it is clear and it is said one time and it is consistent. It is already very clear. Individuals, partnerships, associations, corporations, and educational and nonprofit institutions are included in this. All those who are impacted can step up in front of an agency and say: we will be impacted. You are a person; you are a citizen; you are an individual. You have an opportunity to be able to come and join into that conversation. We believe strongly that you should have the opportunity, if you are impacted, to get your voice heard. Again, the Federal Government works for people; people don't work for the Federal Government. So when you are impacted, you should also have a voice as well. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.