Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, this is the 28th closed rule we are considering in Congress. Let me repeat that. This is the 28th closed rule that we are considering in this Congress. That means that 64 percent of the rules that the Republican leadership has brought to the floor this year have been completely closed, with no opportunity for Democrats or Republicans to offer their ideas to expand upon or improve the legislation. Under a closed rule, you can't even offer an amendment to fix a typo. If somebody is in their office listening to the debate on this bill and has an idea on how to improve it, they are denied that opportunity to offer any amendments on the floor--in short, no amendments. Mr. Speaker, this place is called the people's House. Maybe it should be called the Russia House because this is the way they legislate in Russia, completely closed, no opportunity for different ideas to be brought before the Congress and debated. I have never, in all my years in Congress, experienced a more authoritarian approach to legislating than I have in this Congress. I have never encountered a more closed Congress than this Congress is. This is not right, and it should not be considered normal. Not only Democrats should be outraged, but Republicans ought to be outraged as well. You know, I wish my Republican friends had learned something from the collapse of their healthcare bill a few weeks ago. They rushed to the floor a bill cobbled together in the dark of night, filled with bribes and backroom deals. In fact, to strong-arm Members into voting for the bill and to correct for all the technical drafting errors that occurred thanks to their secretive process, there were not one, not two, not even three, but five--that is right, five--separate manager's amendments filed with the Rules Committee. Now, let me explain that. Only the people who wrote the bill were allowed to amend it. They wrote it so quickly, so sloppily, that they had to amend their amendments. I mean, this would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. And even after all of that, they were not able to piece together votes within their own Conference, and the bill imploded. Well, it was a mess from beginning to end; and, to put it bluntly, the process was a disaster. Don't take it from me. Listen to Sean Hannity of FOX News. Now, don't adjust your television set. I am actually going to quote FOX News--and Sean Hannity, at that. I can't believe that he and I agree on something. Here is what he said. According to a CNN report, he said: ``Now, this legislation was flawed from the beginning. It was created behind closed doors. Not one single Member saw the bill until it was rolled out. And that made it a disaster.'' That is Sean Hannity, one of President Trump's biggest cheerleaders, one of the biggest cheerleaders of my Republican friends. Here he is trashing the Republican health bill. And if that is not a wake-up call for Republicans, I don't know what is. You know, if Republicans are being criticized on their process by Sean Hannity, they have a serious problem. Now we are reading that Republicans are again huddling in back rooms in the Capitol in an effort to resurrect their terrible plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, strip important protections away from our constituents, and put insurance companies in charge of our health care. There it is on the front page of today's Washington Post: ``GOP Presses for New Health Plan.'' Now, I haven't been invited to any of these secret backroom negotiations, but from what we are hearing, it isn't good. It seems that things are not looking good for hospitals. MassDevice alerted us to the fact that: ``Hospital Stocks Fall as GOP Looks to Revive TrumpCare Bill.'' It appears as though Republicans are still working to make their bill even more devastating. Mother Jones reported: ``TrumpCare 2.0 Still Isn't Cruel Enough to Satisfy Conservatives.'' Yesterday, Tribune Media Wire wrote about: ``How the Revised TrumpCare Plan Could Hit Americans with Preexisting Conditions.'' I include in the Congressional Record, Mr. Speaker, an article that appears in today's New York Times about how the latest health proposal weakens coverage for preexisting conditions. [From the New York Times, Apr. 4, 2017] Republican Health Proposal Would Undermine Coverage for Pre-Existing Conditions (By Margot Sanger-Katz) Throughout the debate to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President Trump and Republican congressional leaders have insisted they would retain a crucial, popular part of the health law: the promise that people can buy insurance even if they've had illnesses in the past. Their efforts foundered last month, when a House health bill had to be pulled from the floor after it failed to attract enough support. Late Monday night, word emerged that the White House and the group of conservative lawmakers known as the Freedom Caucus had discussed a proposal to revive the bill. But the proposed changes would effectively cast the Affordable Care Act's pre-existing conditions provision aside. The terms, described by Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the head of the Freedom Caucus, are something like this: States would have the option to jettison two major parts of the Affordable Care Act's insurance regulations. They could decide to opt out of provisions that require insurers to cover a standard, minimum package of benefits, known as the essential health benefits. And they could decide to do away with a rule that requires insurance companies to charge the same price to everyone who is the same age, a provision called community rating. The proposal is not final, but Mr. Meadows told reporters after the meeting that his members would be interested in such a bill. To pass the House, any bill would need to find favor not just with the Freedom Caucus, but also with more moderate Republicans. It would also need to attract the support of nearly every Republican in the Senate to become law. The ability to opt out of the benefit requirements could substantially reduce the value of insurance on the market. A patient with cancer might, for example, still be allowed to buy a plan, but it wouldn't do her much good if that plan was not required to cover chemotherapy drugs. The second opt-out would make the insurance options for those with pre-existing conditions even more meaningless. Technically, the deal would still prevent insurers from denying coverage to people with a history of illness. But without community rating, health plans would be free to charge those patients as much as they wanted. If both of the Obamacare provisions went away, the hypothetical cancer patient might be able to buy only a plan, without chemotherapy coverage, that costs many times more than a similar plan costs a healthy customer. Only cancer patients with extraordinary financial resources and little interest in the fine print would sign up. There is a reason that many conservatives want to do away with these provisions. Because they help people with substantial health care needs buy relatively affordable coverage, they drive up the price of insurance for people who are healthy. An insurance market that did not include cancer care--or even any cancer patients--would be one where premiums for the remaining customers were much lower. The result might be a market that is much more affordable for people with a clean bill of health. But it would become largely inaccessible to anyone who really needs help paying for medical care. We do not have to speculate to know what the world looks like without essential health benefits and community rating. It was how most state insurance markets worked before Obamacare. Back in 2009, most sick people who did not get insurance through work or a government program were excluded from coverage if they had a history of health problems like allergies or arthritis. Plans that did not cover pregnancy care or drug addiction treatment were widespread. (The data about individual market insurance premiums is a little spotty, but it appears that they were substantially lower in most states.) One idea Republicans have about how to care for the sick was also in effect pre-Obamacare. Many states had ``high-risk pools,'' where people shut out of the traditional insurance markets could buy special plans with the help of state subsidies. The Freedom Caucus proposal is likely to include some money that states could use to set up such pools. ``The fundamental idea is that marginally sick people would pay with risk associated with their coverage,'' Mr. Meadows said Monday. ``Those that have, you know, premiums that would be driven up because of catastrophic illness or long-term illnesses, we've been dealing with that for a long time with high-risk pools.'' But insurance in the old high-risk pools tended to be expensive, and often came with long waiting periods or benefit limitations, even for the very sick. The main difference between the policy environment in 2009 and today is that the federal government would now be offering tax credits to help healthy people buy what would probably be relatively skimpy plans. That would mean that more middle-income Americans would probably have health coverage than before the Affordable Care Act, since the combination of policies would tend to make insurance much more affordable for people who are young and healthy. What states would choose to do with this set of options is hard to predict. Before Obamacare, few states required community rating of health plans. And few states required insurers to cover all of the benefits deemed essential under Obamacare, though most did require a few types of treatments to be covered. State governments would face a difficult choice: either take away the requirements, and leave sick patients without insurance options, or keep them and see people unable to afford coverage under the new subsidy system. Under Obamacare, states can already waive many of the law's insurance rules if they can show that an alternative program would cover as many people with comprehensive coverage at a lower cost to the government. But that standard is difficult to meet. Mr. Meadows suggested that the waivers under discussion should be ``very easily granted'' to states. The politics of health care in the United States have shifted since the Affordable Care Act was passed seven years ago. In recent months, the law has grown more popular, and the pre-existing conditions policy is among its best-known protections. That could create political pressure for states to keep the insurance rules, even if they are not required by law. But it is likely that at least some states might decide to eliminate them if they are made optional. Shifting norms about health insurance regulation may also affect the idea's reception in Congress. Mr. Meadows said that the proposal presented to the Freedom Caucus would retain the pre-existing conditions policy. But that would be true in only the most literal sense. The mix of policies could allow insurance companies to charge sick people prices that few of them could pay. And it could allow them to exclude benefits that many healthy people need when they get sick. The result could be a world where people with pre-existing conditions would struggle to buy comprehensive health insurance--just like before Obamacare. Thomas Kaplan contributed reporting.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from California an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I just want to be clear so that my good friend from Colorado understands where I am coming from. I don't really care about this bill. I think it is a noncontroversial bill that, quite frankly, probably could be approved by voice vote if it were brought up that way. The point I am trying to make is that this is a relatively minor bill compared to some of the important issues that we need to deal with. It is troublesome to me that, on this bill, which my friend from Colorado said involved years of hearings and where the sponsor of the bill consulted with Democratic colleagues--I favor all of that. But what I am really outraged about is that, while we are talking about this relatively inconsequential bill and about how wonderful this process around this bill is, there are meetings going on in secret, right now, with my Republican colleagues, on dismantling health care in this country, conversations that might result in tens of millions of Americans losing their health insurance, conversations involving taking away essential benefits from insurance packages, conversations that would basically remove protections for people who have preexisting conditions. All of this is going on in secret. We are reading about it in the press. I am sure my colleagues know about it because they are reading about it. Maybe they are proud of these secret meetings. I want to know where these secret meetings are. I am simply saying to my friends on the other side of the aisle, on something as big as health care, you ought to be having these meetings out in the open. There ought to be hearings. You ought to bring in patients and patient advocate groups. You ought to bring in doctors, nurses, and heads of hospitals. You ought to bring in people who are going to be affected by any kind of changes you make in our healthcare policy. Instead, it is being done behind closed doors, in secret, and I think the American people are outraged by that. That is one of the reasons why the bill you brought to the floor recently only had 17 percent support amongst the American people. So what we are objecting to is the fact that we are not bringing to the floor matters that are urgent, like keeping the government running and like an infrastructure bill. We are also objecting to the fact that we are reading that my Republican friends are, once again, behind closed doors negotiating another healthcare bill that we think will do great damage to the health care of a lot of people in this country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I mean, preexisting conditions. Oh, my God. What are my friends thinking about? And we are reading that essential health benefits are still on the chopping block. You know, these are some of the main provisions of the ACA that people like, that people need, and that people deserve. Protecting essential health benefits in people with preexisting conditions is our moral obligation. Taking these protections away from people would be cruel and unjust and immoral. I would say to my Republican friends: You don't have to do it. But I guess we will have to wait and see until these secret negotiators emerge from their back rooms with details to share. And I will start getting ready for the next emergency Rules Committee. I am looking forward to that meeting because that will probably be the only time we will have to talk about the bill because I think it is probably too much to expect that my Republican friends would actually, this time around, hold a hearing. Maybe they will bypass a markup, but they will have to go to the Rules Committee in an emergency meeting, and we will probably look forward to another martial law rule. But we are doing this bill today that no one has ever heard of. It was a noncontroversial suspension bill last year, but now we lift it up like it is the most important piece of business that we are facing in America today. You know, what about the urgent priorities facing our country? I think it is clear that Speaker Ryan and the majority leader are grasping for filler legislation to keep us busy on the House floor so that the American people really don't see really how dysfunctional this majority really is. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a Member of the Republican Conference, said, and I think he said it best last week when he said: ``It's pretty evident that we don't have the votes among Republicans to do, in essence, anything that's real.'' Maybe that is why we are wasting our time this week on these bills instead of moving an infrastructure package or finishing the FY17 appropriations process, which should have been finalized last year. I will remind my Republican colleagues that our government runs out of funding on April 28. That is 5 legislative days from now, since we are going on break at the end of this week. Now, maybe, again, this is a radical idea, but maybe we should be dealing with that today. I am beginning to give up hope for regular order in the appropriations process under the Republican leadership, but I would have thought we would at least have some insight about a funding bill by now. Again, 5 legislative days from now, the government potentially could be shut down. Maybe some of you think that the underlying legislation that this rule would allow us to consider, a bill to increase the number of companies that are exempted from certain SEC regulations, is vitally important. Maybe you are being inundated with calls about this issue. I don't know. Maybe your townhalls are overflowing with people demanding this SEC suspension bill, but I am certain that no Member of this body could say with a straight face that this is somehow more important than keeping the entire Federal Government open. For the life of me, I don't understand why we always have to get right up to the edge of the cliff, but here we are again. Today is just the latest example that the priorities of this Republican leadership do not serve the American people. I would urge my colleagues to think about this as we spend time in our districts over the next 2 weeks. Maybe, when we get back, Congress can actually do its job and fund the government and focus on things that are important like a jobs bill or an infrastructure bill instead of more of the same Republican messaging bills. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I will close for our side. Mr. Speaker, I want to alert my Republican colleagues to some recent polls that came out today. There is a poll that Qinnipiac did that said that Trump is more unpopular than Obama ever was, and, today, President Trump's approval rating is at 35 percent. That is down from 37 percent, and that is the lowest, I think, of any President this early on in his Presidency. I think the lowest rating ever was President George W. Bush. It was at 28 percent, but it took 8 years, two unpopular wars, and a staggering economy to get to that point. But with President Trump, we are already at 35 percent. The Gallup Poll says his approval is at 39 percent. By the way, the Affordable Care Act, according to Kaiser, now polls at 55 percent approval rating, and the Republican Congress is about as low as President Trump is right now. I am trying to think of the words to help my colleagues understand what these polls mean. I guess ``not good'' comes to mind, or ``very, very bad.'' I don't think, even if you tried, you could get poll numbers so low so early on in a new Congress or so early on in a new administration. I would say to my friends the reason for this unpopularity is the way you are conducting business in our government, that the closed processes that are being used with regard to legislation I think are unprecedented. There has never been a more closed Congress than this one. You were pretty closed last session as well. This is a terrible pattern. I agree with my friend, Mr. Buck, on one thing he said. The gentleman said yesterday that good process produces good policy, but perhaps equally as important, good process helps instill faith in this institution. I agree with that. I could have said those remarks here today. My question is: If that is the case, why are my Republican friends tolerating a process on healthcare reform that is now going on that is being done behind closed doors in some back room somewhere in this building with no input from patients or patient advocate groups or doctors or nurses or hospitals or anybody who has anything to do with health care? Why, on something so important, is the process so closed and so restrictive and so secretive? I will tell you, just as this closed process led to a disastrous Republican healthcare bill recently, this continued closed process will lead to more disaster. This is not the way we should be doing the people's business. So we strongly object to the way the Republicans are running this House and, in fact, the way the President is handling this issue as well. It is always nice to see Vice President Pence in the hallway when he is walking back and forth, but it would be better to see him in a public setting talking about what the administration's priorities are, not rushing from one back room to another back room to another back room trying to make secret deals to get more people to vote for something when they have no idea what is in the legislation. That is not the way of doing business. So we object to the process. Again, I urge my colleagues to also vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can have an opportunity to see President Trump's tax returns. Every President since Gerald Ford has disclosed their tax returns, every major Presidential candidate, and every day we read in the newspaper about more and more potential conflicts of interest between the President and his family. I have to tell you, we are on a collision course with corruption. The President has promised to drain the swamp. He has created a cesspool, and it should be of concern to every single person in this Chamber, Democrat and Republican alike. I don't think it is too much to ask for transparency when it comes to the person who is our Commander in Chief. I shudder to think if Hillary Clinton had won the Presidency and didn't release her tax returns, the outrage that would be coming from the other side of the aisle. I can't even imagine how much outrage would be coming from them. Yet when Donald Trump hides his financial information from Congress and the American people, there is silence; people don't want to know. Well, the majority of people do. Poll after poll show the overwhelming majority of Americans want to know what is in his tax returns. Why is this such a state secret? Why can't people see what they want to see and what they have been given with every other President? So this is an opportunity to put this issue behind us, and if there is nothing controversial in his taxes, well, then this issue goes away and we can talk about something else. But maybe there is something he is hiding. Maybe there is something that we should be concerned about. Maybe there are conflicts of interest that might be constitutionally questionable. Maybe there are ties to Russia that would cause my colleagues on the other side of the aisle more concern. This idea of hiding this has to stop. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and vote ``no'' on the underlying rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, Rise Against Hunger, under the leadership of Rod Brooks, is a charitable organization committed to ending global hunger by 2030. They partner with other charities, faith- based organizations, and corporations to host meal-packaging events across the country where volunteers assemble nutritious meals that are sent to over 40 countries. On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to participate in a Rise Against Hunger meal-packaging event sponsored by The Kraft Heinz Company. I joined 100 volunteers to package 7,500 meals that will reach hungry families across the globe. Last year alone, Rise Against Hunger engaged over 387,000 volunteers at over 3,000 events nationwide to assemble over 64 million meals that reached nearly 1.1 million hungry people. I applaud Kraft Heinz and its CEO, Bernardo Hees, for their commitment to packing 1 billion meals over the next 5 years. I appreciate all that Rise Against Hunger does to address chronic malnutrition and alleviate poverty worldwide. Working together, we can end hunger now.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his speech, but it was on a different bill than the one we are talking about right now. That was a rule we debated yesterday. The rule passed, but we are going to be talking about it today. So I was a little confused trying to follow the gentleman. I also want to remind the gentleman that he mentioned Donald Trump's election. I will remind him that less than half of the people of the United States actually voted for him. Hillary won the popular vote by close to 3 million. The gentleman keeps on talking about a better way, a better way, a better way. Was that what was on display last week when we spent 15 hours in the Rules Committee debating a repeal-and-replace bill on health care that only 16 percent of the American people thought was worth it and that had to be pulled because it was such a lousy process? If that is the better way, I don't think people want anything to do with it. I would say to the gentleman, my colleague, Mr. Newhouse, who is talking about trying to justify the closed process and saying that some of these bills were CRAs, just repealing regulations, well, my friends chose to bring up these repeal regulation bills under a very closed process. Interestingly enough, these rules were made under a very open process where agencies solicited input from stakeholders and from the public, and it was all out in the open. But the Republicans chose to bring measures to the floor to repeal regulations in such a way that that agency can't even go back and revisit the same subject of that particular regulation. I think people need to understand this. I don't think I can ever recall a more closed, authoritarian process than the one that we have experienced under this leadership. This is not only something that I know Democrats have a problem with; I know a lot of Republicans do, too, because what this closed process means is that anybody with a good idea can't bring it to the floor and can't have an opportunity to debate the issue. It was funny last night in the Rules Committee, my colleague from Texas (Mr. Burgess) was kind of crowing about the fact that no amendments were brought before the Rules Committee. I reminded him the reason why no amendments were brought before the Rules Committee is because this bill was noticed as an emergency and there was no call for amendments. Members weren't asked to bring their ideas or their amendments to the Rules Committee. This would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. I would say to my colleagues that it is this same closed process that brought us this disastrous health repeal bill that my friends had to pull last week that is on display today. When you have a lousy process, you end up with lousy legislation. This is the people's House. We are supposed to deliberate, and here is a radical idea: let us deliberate a little bit. Open it up. Open it up a little bit. Let there be some amendments on both sides of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will bring to the floor an amendment, which I am going to talk about right now because, Mr. Speaker, we are deeply concerned by reports from our intelligence community regarding Russian interference in last year's election and even more troubled by FBI Director Comey's sworn testimony that the FBI is now investigating the possibility of collusion between members of President Trump's campaign team and Russia. Mr. Speaker, the legitimacy of our electoral system is at stake, and it is time that this Republican-controlled Congress does its job and gets to the bottom of this. Unfortunately, recent actions by the House Intelligence Committee chairman have left many Members from both sides of the aisle convinced that the committee will not be able to conduct an impartial investigation of this crucial matter of national security. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Swalwell's and Representative Cummings' bill, which would create a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in our 2016 election. For the life of me I don't know why this is controversial. My colleagues on the Republican side should be just as interested in getting to the truth and getting to the truth in a way that has credibility with the American people as we on the Democratic side do. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

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

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, let me first remind Members that we are asking for a ``no'' vote on the previous question. If the previous question is defeated, we will bring up an amendment that will allow the bill that Representative Swalwell and Representative Cummings have introduced, which would create a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in our 2016 election. This is the appropriate place to do it because we are blocked in every other way in terms of trying to bring this to the floor, and the Rules Committee is a committee that prioritizes legislation that helps set the agenda, so this ought to be part of it. This anti-science bill can still be debated and voted on. It won't derail that, but it will allow the House to be able to deliberate on this bill that would create a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. This is a big deal. The American people deserve the truth. My Republican colleagues ought to get out of the way and allow this commission to be created so that the American people can actually have some trust in a process that determines the extent to which the Russians interfered in our election. Again, I would urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. With regard to the rule that we are debating today, I would again remind everybody that this is a closed rule. There are some Members of this House who have never seen an open rule, ever. I hope that changes because I do think that, again, there ought to be more deliberation here, there ought to be more back and forth. Even ideas that I strongly disagree with on the Republican side, they ought to have the opportunity to come here and be able to present them and we can vote up or down on them. I think we need to break this pattern of shutting the process down. It is what resulted in the debacle last week with your horrible healthcare bill, the one that only 16 percent of the American people supported. It is pretty hard to get that low, but my friends managed to be able to set a new record on unpopular legislation--so bad that it had to be withdrawn from the floor for consideration. I would argue it is the closed, authoritarian-like process that produced a lousy bill. If my friends continue to adhere to this closed process, they are going to get more lousy pieces of legislation that are going to do great harm to the American people brought to this floor. This bill that is before us today, again, has been brought to the floor under this expedited procedure called an emergency provision. It is just being rushed to the floor as an emergency. This is not an emergency. The opioid crisis is an emergency; the crisis in Flint, Michigan, is an emergency; our crumbling infrastructure is an emergency. There are deficient bridges and roads in every one of our congressional districts. That is an emergency. We need to address that. Keeping the government open is an emergency. But to say this is an emergency is kind of ridiculous. It is not an emergency. It is kind of like our house is on fire and you are saying: I will get out the hose later, but I need to wash the dishes first. That is how this kind of fits into what we are doing here today. This doesn't qualify for that. On the substance of the bill, we have this radical idea that scientists ought to sit on scientific advisory committees, not corporate cronies, not people who are interested in covering up for polluters or doing their bidding. We think experts and scientists ought to sit on scientific advisory boards. That is the radical idea that we have. This bill, unfortunately, undermines that. What this bill does is threaten public health by stacking advisory boards with industry representatives, and it weakens scientific review. It is that simple. I don't care what your political ideology is, I don't think you want that. Let me just mention some of the groups that are opposed to this: The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, American Geophysical Union, and the American Lung Association strongly oppose this bill. The American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America oppose this bill. Clean Water Action opposes this bill. Earthjustice, the Environmental Defense Action Fund, Health Care Without Harm, League of Conservation Voters, and the National Medical Association oppose this bill. The Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Union of Concerned Scientists all oppose this bill. The Food Policy Action opposes this bill. I can go on and on. Every organization that is an advocate for the health and well-being of the American people oppose this bill. We are bringing it up for an up-or-down vote, no amendments, a closed rule, and here we are. I would just say, Mr. Speaker, again, this is a bad idea. I guess if you are an ally of big corporations or of corporations that engage in pollution, this is a good idea. But if you are interested in protecting the health and well-being of the American people, and the globe, for that matter, this is a bad idea. As I began, I mentioned that when I speak to first-graders, they understand the importance of science. They get it. They want us to be good stewards of the environment. They want us to protect this planet. They understand the importance of science. But I am always amazed how many people in this Chamber just don't get it. I find that really sad. I want to give my kids, and someday my grandkids and great grandkids, a future where we respect the environment. When we pass bills like this, it makes that less certain. Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues again to vote ``no'' on the previous question and, please, in a bipartisan way, reject this lousy piece of legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire from the gentleman how many more speakers he has?

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse), my good friend, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule and the underlying legislation. This is the 23rd closed rule of this short, new Congress. Both Democrats and Republicans have been denied the opportunity to amend nearly 60 percent of the legislation that has been brought to the floor through the House Rules Committee. This effort by Speaker Ryan and the Republican leadership to halt a fair and open debate in the people's House is outrageous. We are supposed to be a deliberative body where both parties get to deliberate. These Putinesque rules that shut down all debate need to stop. This isn't the Kremlin. You know, I think Representative Rooney, a Republican, said it best last week: ``I've been in this job for 8 years, and I'm wracking my brain to think of one thing our party has done that's been something positive, that's been something other than stopping something else from happening.'' Well, Mr. Speaker, today we are considering a piece of legislation that seeks to prevent the EPA from protecting public health and the environment--not exactly positive. This bill was brought to the Rules Committee in an emergency meeting last night. And let me emphasize that, an emergency meeting. Mr. Speaker, I think the American people have a pretty good idea of what is and what isn't an emergency. A tree falls on your house, that is an emergency. Your rose bush needs pruning, not an emergency. Timmy fell down a well, that is an emergency. Timmy might stub his toe, not an emergency. On April 28, the government will run out of money. That is an emergency, even if it is self-inflicted by the Republicans. And we have no shortage of other actual emergencies that we should be dealing with: a devastating opioid epidemic, crumbling roads and bridges, mounting evidence of Russian meddling in our election, and people being killed every day due to gun violence, not to mention Flint, Michigan, is still dealing with the residual health effects of toxically polluted water. These are just a few examples of actual emergencies that Congress is doing nothing to address. Instead, the underlying bill, the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, is brought to the Rules Committee and to the House floor as an emergency piece of legislation. As we learned last week, the American people are paying attention to what we do here. They are smart enough to know what an emergency is. And this bill isn't addressing an emergency, Mr. Speaker; it is creating one. The Science Advisory Board at the EPA provides a way for the Agency to use sound, independent, and objective scientific data to help make their decisions. Science, Mr. Speaker--you may have heard of it--is kind of a big deal. But this bill won't help the EPA to include more scientists in the decisions. It will force them to include people with potential financial conflicts of interest on the Science Advisory Board so long as they disclose them. I mean, do we really want people on our advisory boards if they could profit from a decision that they are about to make? There is nothing scientific about corruption, and this is exactly what this bill will open the door to. This bill also limits the participation of scientific experts at the EPA, leading to a disproportionate representation of big business and corporate special interests. Are these really the people we want making decisions about the health of our kids and the policies that should be protecting our environment? Is that what we want? So what is this bill really about? Well, it is about allowing the Republicans' big corporate cronies a direct route to the decisionmakers at the EPA. It is about disrupting the EPA's ability to fairly enforce the rules, hold corporate polluters accountable, and protect our health. It is about undermining scientific fact with political cronyism. Now, maybe things have changed lately. It has been a while since my last science class. But I am pretty sure there is no step in the scientific method that says consult corporate cronies. The truth is that this Republican majority wants the EPA to base their decisions on fiction, not fact. Americans can't afford to have the EPA run by people who live in a fantasyland where facts and science don't matter. Our environment and the health of our families are too important. This law is going to have real-life consequences. It undermines science, hurts the environment, and it helps polluters. We need to allow the EPA to make decisions based on fact. We need to ensure that EPA is always free from financial conflicts, not making decisions based on panels filled with industry insiders like the ones that this bill would create. Mr. Speaker, this bill defies logic. It defies reason. It defies sanity. It will hurt the people who sent us here, and it will help polluters. Republicans are putting corporate greed ahead of public health, and the American people will be the ones who will suffer. Americans deserve better. We should be fighting on behalf of the American people. Mr. Speaker, let me tell my Republican friends what I tell first graders that I talk to back in my district in Massachusetts when I go to visit their schools. I usually begin by telling them that science is important. It is a big deal, and it is such a big deal that all our schools teach it. And if you do your homework and if you study hard and you pay attention, you might grow up someday to become a scientist, and scientists are people who dedicate their lives to protecting the health and well-being of people all over the world, and they dedicate their lives to protecting our planet. Scientists tell us things that are really important. They tell us things like climate change is caused by greenhouse gasses, something my Republican friends continually deny. They tell us that polluted air can give children asthma. They tell us that lead in children's drinking water causes learning problems. They tell us pesticide exposure can cause cancer. These are important things. We all learned in school, thanks to science, that the Earth orbits around the Sun, that gravity causes this pen to fall when I drop it, that plants turn sunshine into energy, that dinosaurs roamed the Earth millions of years ago. Mr. Speaker, the first graders I talk to, they get it. They understand the importance of science. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues in this Chamber do not. And I would bet that those first graders understand the importance of making sure that it is scientists who sit on scientific advisory boards and not corporate cronies. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Kelly).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire of the gentleman from Texas, if I can. I know he has a few more speakers than he did yesterday, but we have a ton over here, and if there is additional time that he could share with us, we would appreciate it.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a statement from NETWORK, the lobby for Catholic Social Justice; a letter from the National Alliance on Mental Illness; a letter from the Mental Health Liaison Group; and an article in the New York Times entitled ``Late GOP Proposal Could Mean Plans That Cover Aromatherapy but Not Chemotherapy.'' Dear Representative: NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice urges you to vote NO on the American Health Care Act (AHCA). This legislation fails to protect access to quality, affordable healthcare for vulnerable communities. It would widen the gaps in our society by making massive cuts to Medicaid, giving large tax breaks to the very wealthiest families and corporations, and threatening the health security of American families. Our faith teaches that access to healthcare is an essential human right that is necessary to protect the life and dignity of every person. The bill would drastically increase the number of people without health insurance--and I know that behind those numbers are millions of stories of families facing medical bankruptcy, forgoing treatment, and losing loved ones who could have been saved by preventative care. The AHCA cuts Medicaid spending--an essential source of care for millions of children, seniors, people with disabilities, and people experiencing poverty in our nation-- and a per-capita cap would force states to ration care. The legislation would also increase costs for older and sicker patients and burden low- and moderate-income families with much higher premiums by cutting $312 billion of financial assistance for people purchasing health insurance on the individual market. This is far from the Gospel mandate to care for our most vulnerable sisters and brothers. For any replacement to the ACA to be sufficient, it must meet these 10 conditions--a Ten Commandments of Healthcare if you will--and the AHCA breaks nine of 10 commandments: 1. Thou shalt provide affordable insurance and the same benefits to all currently covered under the Affordable Care Act. AHCA fails. 2. Thou shalt continue to allow children under the age of 26 to be covered by their parents' insurance. 3. Thou shalt ensure that insurance premiums and cost sharing are truly affordable to all. AHCA fails. 4. Thou shalt expand Medicaid to better serve vulnerable people in our nation. AHCA fails. 5. Thou shalt not undercut the structure or undermine the purpose of Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Medicare funding. AHCA fails. 6. Thou shalt create effective mechanisms of accountability for insurance companies and not allow them to have annual or lifetime caps on expenditures. AHCA partial fail. 7. Thou shalt not allow insurance companies to discriminate against those with pre-existing conditions. AHCA partial fail. 8. Thou shalt not allow insurance companies to discriminate against women, the elderly, and people in poverty. AHCA fails. 9. Thou shalt provide adequate assistance for people enrolling and using their health coverage. AHCA fails. 10. Thou shalt continue to ensure reasonable revenue is in the federal budget to pay for life-sustaining healthcare for all. AHCA fails. At its heart, this bill has lost sight of community and the common good. Its biggest problem is that it lacks the awareness that it is community which makes healthcare effective. Healthcare is not just about the individual--it is a communal good. The hyper individualism evident in the AHCA is sucking the life out of our nation. Just focusing on one's individual self is contrary to our Catholic faith and contrary to our Constitution. We will track the vote and score it in our 2017 voting record. This dangerous legislation is not the faithful way forward and must be rejected. Stand by Gospel principles and vote NO on the AHCA. Sincerely, Sr. Simone Campbell, SSS, Executive Director, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I just want to take a second to summarize this rule because people have been asking about it. It is a closed rule. The only amendments allowed are amendments offered by people who wrote the bill. Those amendments are fixes to fixes to fixes to fixes in their bill and, in the words of Trump, sad. I would just say, you know, usually when you have a lousy process you have a lousy bill, and that is why only 17 percent of the American people support what my Republican friends are doing. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I notice the gentleman from Georgia relied on a tweet from Donald Trump for his facts in explaining the bill. I might suggest a more scholarly source, maybe, like, beginning with the Congressional Budget Office, which says that 24 million people will lose their health coverage as a result of the bill. I will also point to the Quinnipiac poll that says only 17 percent of the American people approve of what my Republicans friends are doing. Seventeen percent is lower than Trump's rating. That is quite an accomplishment. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).