Devin Nunes

Mr. NUNES

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 14 seconds. Mr. Speaker, we have waited for 4 years. For 4 years, we have been trying to fix this problem. Four years, time is up. We have got to pass this bill and send it to the Senate so that it can be signed into law. I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 21 seconds. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record three letters: one from the Council for Affordable Health Coverage in support of our bill, the other from the National Association of Health Underwriters in support of our bill, and the last one from the Business Roundtable in support of our bill. Council for Affordable Health Coverage, April 29, 2014. Hon. John Carney, Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC. Hon. Devin Nunes, Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Congressmen Carney and Nunes: We write to endorse H.R. 4414, the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014. We strongly support this modification of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) because it will prevent Americans workers abroad and American companies providing health coverage internationally from being disadvantaged compared to their foreign counterparts. Employers are not alone in their concerns about the application of the ACA to expatriates. The Department of Labor in a Frequently Asked Questions document stated, ``The Departments recognize that expatriate health plans may face special challenges in complying with certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act. In particular, challenges in reconciling and coordinating the multiple regulatory regimes that apply to expatriate health plans might make it impossible or impracticable to comply with all the relevant rules at least in the near term.'' The Center Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) concurred with the Department of Labor by posting the same document on their website. It is clear that the ACA never envisioned the impact of the law on expatriate plans. For example, CCIIO and the Department of Labor used the following example to illustrate the impracticality of applying the ACA to expatriate plans. ``For example, independent review organizations may not exist abroad, and it may be difficult for certain preventive services to be provided, or even be identified as preventive, when such services are provided outside the United States by clinical providers that use different code sets and medical terminology to identify services.'' Because of the challenges and impracticalities associated with this aspect of the Affordable Care Act, we urge you to quickly pass this legislation to protect American workers abroad and American insurers selling insurance on the international market. Sincerely, Communicating for America; Council for Affordable Health Coverage; National Association of Health Underwriters; National Retail Federation; Retail Industry Leaders Association; Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council; and U.S Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. NUNES. I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to my friend from Pennsylvania again, I just want to say that as someone who used to work in the fields, I would much prefer an expatriate plan over ObamaCare. At this time, I will yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield myself 15 seconds. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit a letter from the American Benefits Council, a letter from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and also a letter from CHCC, Corporate Health Care Coalition. American Benefits Council, Washington, DC, April 8, 2014. Re Support for H.R. 4414--Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act. Hon. John Boehner, Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi: I write on behalf of the American Benefits Council (``Council'') to express support for H.R. 4414, the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014 (``Act''). The Act provides important clarification regarding application of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to health coverage that is provided to globally mobile employees. These are issues of significant concern to multinational employers, their employees and families. The Council is a public policy organization representing principally Fortune 500 companies and other organizations that assist employers of all sizes in providing employee benefits. Collectively, our members either sponsor directly or provide services to health and retirement plans that cover more than 100 million Americans both within the United States and abroad. Most of our member companies sponsor health coverage for a workforce that includes globally mobile employees. Council members rely on expatriate health plans to provide benefits that meet the unique needs of this employee population and their families. Multinational employers value expatriate health plans for many reasons, including the role they play in recruiting and retaining a productive globally mobile workforce by ensuring coverage of their employees' and families' health care needs while abroad. The ACA was intended to reform the U.S. health care system. Its application to expatriate health plans and to the employer sponsors and people covered by such plans, has created compliance uncertainty with respect to the law's individual and employer mandates and certain other health plan requirements. Although some of these matters have been addressed in transition guidance issued by the agencies, the guidance is temporary and does not fully address the outstanding concerns. H.R. 4414 provides needed statutory clarification with respect to the application of the ACA to expatriate health plans and the employers, employees and family members that rely on such plans to meet the health benefits needs of a globally mobile workforce. We appreciate your consideration of these important issues. Sincerely, James A. Klein, President.

Mr. NUNES. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NUNES. Yes, I am ready to close.

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, I will close, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. The need for this bill wasn't conceived by opponents of the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare. The Obama administration and the army of regulators acknowledged there is a problem and have come to the Congress to fix it. Treasury, HHS, and Labor have all accepted the fact that expat plans should not be regulated the same way domestic plans are regulated. After 4 years of examining this issue, as I said earlier, the administration issued limited and temporary regulatory relief for expat plans. This bill is necessary because despite the administration's limited and temporary fixes, thousands of jobs are on the chopping block. American businesses can't compete based on the promise of limited and temporary relief. Mr. Speaker, I want to also remind my colleagues that Mr. Carney and I have worked on this for many years, and we have worked not only in a bipartisan way in the House of Representatives, we have also worked with our Senate counterparts where we have bipartisan support in the United States Senate. So, the Obama administration has said they have concerns, but we don't know what the concerns are and they did not issue a veto threat. So I think that more level heads will prevail. This bill will pass today. It will go to the Senate, it will pass, and I would urge, then, President Obama to sign it into law so that we can save these jobs. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NUNES

Mr. NUNES. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4414) to clarify the treatment under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of health plans in which expatriates are the primary enrollees, and for other purposes.

Mr. NUNES. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of the bill under consideration.

Mr. NUNES. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Before I yield to my good friend, who helped coauthor this bill with me, I just have a brief statement. The Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act is a result of close bipartisan collaboration and extensive discussions with the Obama administration. I would like to thank Mr. Carney for his work on this important bill, along with our numerous bipartisan cosponsors, our original cosponsors. The bottom line is that this is a jobs bill, one that has been carefully drafted to address the unique problems related to expat health insurance. Madam Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Carney).

Mr. NUNES. Madam Speaker, just to clarify the Record here, this has been worked on in a bipartisan way, including the two Senators from Delaware and a Senator from New Jersey, who happen to be Democrats. A lot of the language that was in here was worked out so that, in fact, this could not only gather bipartisan support in the House, but also quickly pass in the Senate because, as my colleague from Delaware pointed out, if this doesn't pass and doesn't pass quickly, these jobs are going to leave overseas. That is why this is just a clarification. At this time, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch), my good friend and former Dairy Caucus cochair.

Mr. NUNES. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont an additional 1 minute.

Mr. NUNES. I reserve the balance of my time, Madam Speaker.

Mr. NUNES. I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, sometimes in this body and with the Senate we can sit down for the common good of the American people. Sometimes we can sit down with Democrats and Republicans working together not only in the House but also in the Senate. And also, sometimes, Mr. Speaker, the arguments that are made on the floor are so ridiculous that they don't deserve a response. I am going to submit for the Record a letter from American Benefits Council. American Benefits Council, Washington, DC, April 8, 2014. Re Support for H.R. 4414--Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act Hon. John Boehner, The Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi: I write on behalf of the American Benefits Council (``Council'') to express support for H.R. 4414, the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014 (``Act''). The Act provides important clarification regarding application of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to health coverage that is provided to globally mobile employees. These are issues of significant concern to multinational employers, their employees and families. The Council is a public policy organization representing principally Fortune 500 companies and other organizations that assist employers of all sizes in providing employee benefits. Collectively, our members either sponsor directly or provide services to health and retirement plans that cover more than 100 million Americans both within the United States and abroad. Most of our member companies sponsor health coverage for a workforce that includes globally mobile employees. Council members rely on expatriate health plans to provide benefits that meet the unique needs of this employee population and their families. Multinational employers value expatriate health plans for many reasons, including the role they play in recruiting and retaining a productive globally mobile workforce by ensuring coverage of their employees' and families' health care needs while abroad. The ACA was intended to reform the U.S. health care system. Its application to expatriate health plans and to the employer sponsors and people covered by such plans, has created compliance uncertainty with respect to the law's individual and employer mandates and certain other health plan requirements. Although some of these matters have been addressed in transition guidance issued by the agencies, the guidance is temporary and does not fully address the outstanding concerns. H.R. 4414 provides needed statutory clarification with respect to the application of the ACA to expatriate health plans and the employers, employees and family members that rely on such plans to meet the health benefits needs of a globally mobile workforce. We appreciate your consideration of these important issues. Sincerely, James A. Klein, President.

Mr. NUNES. I will also submit a letter from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also in support of this clarification. Chamber of Commerce, United States of America, Washington, DC, April 9, 2014. To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business federation representing the interests of more than three million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations, and dedicated to promoting, protecting, and defending America's free enterprise system, strongly supports H.R. 4414, ``The Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014,'' to preserve the ability of our country's businesses to provide, and our citizens to obtain appropriate health care coverage as they conduct business and live overseas. This important bill protects the ability of American companies to provide and workers to obtain coverage abroad that have historically been offered and valued. The PPACA was designed to improve access to coverage and health care services for people in the United States and to strengthen this nation's health care system. Whether it will accomplish these goals remains to be seen. However, it was certainly not intended and must not be misconstrued to disadvantage American companies either operating or employing individuals in other countries or selling products abroad. It is important to ensure that this unintended consequence does not occur. This bill would protect the coverage and opportunities of American workers, American employers, and American products abroad. Congress must pass this bill to explicitly exempt expatriate plans from the myriad of PPACA requirements. Applying these new mandates to international plans would not only be extremely difficult and complex from an operations standpoint due to the global nature of this type of coverage but would also be bad policy. They would place American businesses and expatriate American employees at a disadvantage in the global marketplace. Requiring American companies that operate around the globe and their foreign- based employees to buy more costly coverage would unfairly benefit foreign competitors and foreign employees. Such PPACA-compliant expatriate plans are not likely to be cost- competitive. In many instances, they may not provide global coverage and would in fact not comply with applicable local laws. Because of conflicting requirements between these new mandates and the laws of other countries, an employer may also have to purchase multiple policies with overlapping coverage or risk noncompliance with one or more nations' laws. Congress must protect the ability of American companies and their expatriates to purchase and offer appropriate and valued plans that have long been part of how our country operates in the global marketplace. U.S. jobs are at stake. If this legislation does not get enacted, American jobs associated with writing, servicing and administering these plans will be shipped overseas. The Chamber continues to champion health care reform that builds on and reinforces the employer-sponsored system while improving access to affordable, quality coverage. The Chamber urges you and your colleagues to support H.R. 2575, and may consider including votes on, or in relation to, this bill in our annual How They Voted scorecard. Sincerely, R. Bruce Josten.

Mr. NUNES. I will also submit a rebuttal argument for the Record so that people can really get to the bottom of this legislation. I want to address some of the misperceptions and concerns that have been raised about this bill. First, this bill has nothing to do with what type of plan insurers can write and sell to expatriates. The question is where they are going to write these same plans. Here in the United States, or overseas. The same companies are going to purchase the same plans regardless of whether this bill passes. The only question is whether or not the U.S. jobs associated with these plans will be saved. Next, the bill does not allow U.S. employers to escape the ACA and offer substandard plans. These plans are incredibly generous by their very nature. They offer coverage in multiple countries and administration of plans that include multiple currencies, languages, and coverage mandates. But let me quote from the legislation itself. Page 6, lines 1-6, ``the plan sponsor [must] reasonably believe that the benefits provided by the expatriate health plan are actuarially similar to, or better than, the benefits provided under a domestic group health plan offered by that plan sponsor.'' Mr. Speaker, the legislation requires that the expatriate health plan be as good as the domestic health plan that is covered by the ACA. Any suggestion otherwise does not reflect what the legislation clearly states. There is an employer mandate in the ACA. Employers are required to offer a domestic plan. If they don't, they are fined $2,000 per employee. Employers aren't going to drop their current plan for their U.S. employees, pay the $2,000 penalty for every employee on their payroll, just so they can offer their subset of green card employees a substandard plan. That is a completely unrealistic scenario. This bill does not allow, as has been suggested, nonimmigrant farm workers to be offered substandard plans. Under the scenario envisioned by opponents of this bill, a farmer would have to drop his or her own plan and that of its U.S. workers to be allowed to offer an expat plan that somehow is less than the ACA standard. Who is going to do that? That's cutting off your nose to spite your face. But even if they were crazy enough to do that--the expat plan would still have to provide coverage in countries outside of the United States--they couldn't save money by doing this--it would likely cost the farmer more money to provide this type of plan. Mr. Speaker, the ACA is a complicated piece of legislation, but this bill is not. This bill will allow the jobs to stay in the United States--and nothing else. This bill does not legally or practically make changes beyond this narrow scope which is why there is such strong bipartisan support. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NUNES

Mr. NUNES. I want to thank the chairman for allowing me to speak on this important bill. Mr. Speaker, today we are going to hear, Mr. Speaker, a lot of falsehoods. But we need to get to the bottom of why are we hearing those falsehoods, because, for 40 years in this body, people have made a career of using water as a weapon. Why? Because they never liked the fact that farmers and farm workers were making what was once a dry area of the State the Garden of Eden of this world. They never liked that. Why? Because they don't want to have to admit to themselves, when they live in their beautiful cities of Hollywood and San Francisco and all these great cities that are on the coast of California, beautiful areas, it is a desert. They don't have any water either. So they wanted to keep our area, where I grew up, they wanted to keep it as a desert because they feel bad about the destruction that they have done on the coast of California. So if they can keep inland California in its original state, they would be happy with that. But for the farmers and the farmworkers that are losing their farms, farmworkers are out of jobs. We are going to lose 30,000 jobs probably this year. It is an inconvenient truth that for 40 years this body has been preempting State law and taking water away from one region and dumping it and wasting it out to the ocean. You started with the Endangered Species Act, State preemption. In 1992, a lot of talk about how we are gutting the Central Valley Project Improvement Act. That bill was a State preemption. We have no way to fix the problems in California because of all the State preemptions that have been done by the left in this body over four decades. So I found it fascinating the Members of Congress that were getting up to speak about how we are going to kill the fish, and this water is so important for these fish; and the little Delta smelt, we have got to keep them and keep the habitat. Well, there is a little more truth to that, Mr. Speaker. Let me tell you what they are really hiding. And I apologize to the viewers at home. This is what they are hiding: sewer discharge into the delta, killing their precious little fish. Every one of the cities in the San Francisco Bay, Sacramento, the delta, sewage runs right into the waterway, kills the little fish. It is pretty startling, isn't it? They don't talk about that, do they? The other little thing that they don't talk about is, where does their water come from? Because they live in a desert, too. People don't realize that. You go visit San Francisco, visit Silicon Valley, people think, oh, that is a beautiful area. Green lawns, people water their lawns. They don't have any water, Mr. Speaker, either, because, conveniently, this body preempted State law, took water from our area in the Sierra Nevadas, which is about 200 miles away. But worse than that, they went into a national park to take the water. What national park? Yosemite National Park. They went to Yosemite, one of the treasures of our national park system, and they took this valley, and they put a dam so that they could create this lake. Now, look, I want the people of San Francisco and the bay area to have water. I don't want them to be like our communities and not have any water. But we have to tell the truth, Mr. Speaker. They dammed up this valley to create this water, but then it doesn't go to the delta to protect their little fish that they care so much about. No, Mr. Speaker. It gets piped over to San Francisco. Here is the pipe. This is the Sierra Nevadas. They catch the water. They pipe it all over the bay area, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, discharge their sewer into the bay, take pristine water from our area to feed their families, grow their grass. I don't see any of them up here saying that they are going to tear down this system, dump this water into the bay to protect their stupid little fish, their little delta smelt that they care about. We don't see that, Mr. Speaker, because they don't want to tell the truth. This isn't about truth telling. This is about money and power, millions of dollars.

Mr. NUNES. So all of the radical environmental groups that were created in this country started where? In that little epicenter of Hollywood and San Francisco on the west coast of California. Lawsuits, lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, millions of dollars went to trial lawyers. But you know what, Mr. Speaker? Those millions of dollars that came from my community to pay off these rich lawyers, we don't know how many millions it was because it is hidden from the taxpayer. It is hidden from the American people, sealed by court order. Why don't they come out and tell us how much money they made? Millionaires off of government, used the government to make millions. Used the government to dump sewage into the water to kill the fish; dam up Yosemite to bring the water from Yosemite for fresh water while our people, farmers and farmworkers, lose their jobs. It is an inconvenient truth, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. NUNES

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Chairman, this is about 40 years of policies that passed out of this body that took water from our region and sent it out to the ocean. That is what this debate is about. So the inconvenient truth for the folks on the left is that their 40 years of policies have resulted in people running out of water. One of the times they stole water was in 1992. After that, we had what were called the Bay-Delta Accord, State-Federal partnership. That was the last time we were supposed to give up water. It codified into law that agreement. So the gentleman was talking about stealing water, they are very good at stealing water. At the time they stole water last time, they said the accord was going to be the last time we were going to have water stolen from us. That was in 1994. But water continues to be stolen. Now there seems to be this misunderstanding about how the system works. L.A., Hollywood, San Francisco, it is a desert. They don't have water. They conveniently get their water from the Colorado River or from the Yosemite Valley. They ignore all environmental rules, but they make our people who live in the San Joaquin Valley live by the rules that they don't want to live by. That is the reality. So we have these projects that are built for 5 years of storage and movement of water. So you can see when we had a drought in 1997 and 1991 and 2009, these were the allotments at those times. Last year, we actually didn't have a real bad drought. Look at the allocation. So the system simply isn't being used. All the aqueducts and all the dams that were constructed--led by Democrats, of all people, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy said this: This is a fast trip, but if it had no other benefit than to permit us to look at this valley and others like it across the country, where we can see the greenest and richest earth, producing the greatest and richest crops in the country, and then a mile away, see the same earth and see it brown and dusty and useless, and all because there is water in one place and there isn't in another. President Kennedy had the foresight to construct these projects that now, after 40 years of bad policies by the left, they have run the State out of water. They have run the State out of water. Meanwhile, they talk about killing the fish. Well, why are they killing the fish? Because all of these cities that most on the left represent dump their sewage into the delta. That kills the fish. So stop dumping the sewer water in the delta if you care about the fish. If you care about the fish, give up your water in Yosemite National Park and let that water go out to the delta to save the fish. Mr. Chairman, the time for stealing water has ended, and that is what this bill does.

Mr. NUNES. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. Mr. Chairman, this amendment and the last amendment are about one thing. Let's not be fooled here. It is about sewer discharge from the communities in the delta that continue to dump their sewer water, runoff water, into the delta. They don't want to have to take responsibility for their actions. So I hate to have to keep going back to this, but I am going to have to go back to it again. You see a discharge there. Here are the communities all dumping sewage into the delta. That is all both of these amendments are about. That is why you should vote against them. What is interesting about this is you have heard a lot of talk about the fish. This is what the true believers really want to protect. They want to protect this fish right here called the delta smelt. This is what this is about. It is about the Endangered Species Act. It is about the biggest water grab in history and running people out of water to protect this little fish. But they just don't want to protect that fish, oh, no. That is not good enough, Mr. Chairman. They want to dump their sewer water, protect the smelt, and protect the striped bass. The striped bass is not native to the delta, but they want to protect it. Do you know why they want to protect it? Because they say that fishermen want to fish. But, conveniently, it is not native to the delta. But guess what the striped bass eats? If you can see on this, it eats the smelt. It eats the smelt, Mr. Chairman. Inconvenient little truth there. So they want to protect these and these. This one eats those. This is a problem that can't be fixed by people who want to protect little fish, Mr. Chairman. So, as we started out today, this is a bill that passed the last Congress. Had the Senate acted on it, we would not be in the situation that we are today. We are out of water because we are not using the infrastructure that our State has built and added on to over the last century. We decided to throw all that infrastructure away, not use it, dump the water out to the ocean. Now we have no more water left.

Mr. NUNES. Mr. Chairman, I want to reiterate what Mr. McClintock said. This is designed to kill the bill. This is a sneaky little lawyer amendment designed for litigation. This amendment, Valadao amendment, stops all litigation and gives back the people of California their water, and it quits wasting water. That is what this does. I can understand why my friends on the other side of the aisle don't like to talk about the little 3-inch fish, which, I guess it has a little brain now. Well, it is a bait fish; of course it has a little brain. The folks you have to ask yourselves about are the ones who come down here and talk about State preemptions when they know the Endangered Species Act is a preemption. They know what passed in 1992 was a State preemption. They know what passed in 2009 was a State preemption. Sneaky little lawyers all over the place. Money, Mr. Chairman, money. It is about money. It is about NRDC. NRDC has made millions of dollars that we still cannot get an accounting for. Mr. Chairman, I want to know, how much money has NRDC made off of bringing water lawsuits in the State of California? Millions. Millions and millions and millions. That is what this amendment is designed to do, is to create jobs for lawyers. That is what this is about. So I would advise and ask my colleagues to kill this amendment by voting ``no.''