Jared Polis

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill--the so-called Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act. My colleague from Washington mentioned what is not being discussed here today. Again, to be clear, it feels like we are at Groundhog Day here. We have 8 legislative days until we hit the debt limit and default on our Nation's debt. In 6 legislative days, the Federal transportation authorization will expire. In 22 legislative days, we will be on the brink of yet another government shutdown. To a certain extent, I feel like we are fiddling while Rome burns. Here we are, talking about an issue which, I am sure, deserves its day in the Sun. I will talk about some of the deficiencies in this bill, but we are tackling a recycled bill that in similar form has already passed this body and that doesn't address any of these urgent deadline items that we are actually facing. In fact, as I travel across my district in Colorado, I don't hear a lot of my constituents crying out for access to sand and clay. I do hear them saying, ``Don't default on the national debt.'' ``Do something about the budget.'' ``Make sure that we prevent another government shutdown.'' Yet all of those deadlines are looming while we are fiddling here with other bills that aren't going anywhere and aren't becoming law and have already passed this body in similar form. So, for the fourth time in three Congresses, we are going to consider a nearly identical measure that the Republicans have brought to the floor despite the Senate's unwillingness to pick it up and the President's opposition. The so-called Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act promotes industry interests over the American people's health and welfare. The biggest conceptual problem with it is the definition that it gives of ``strategic and critical minerals.'' The bill not only expands the mining companies' ability to mine on public lands for minerals like gold and copper, but also materials that one would think, by no stretch of common sense, are rare, like sand and clay. If we include sand from the beach or from my kids' sandbox as a mineral of critical development and if we include the gravel from my driveway as a mineral of critical development, I am not sure what we are excluding. I think this applies to almost everything. In fact, I am not even sure how we are even saying the term ``critical and strategic'' can even apply here when we are talking about sand and gravel and some of the most common natural resources that we have. This bill permits nearly all mining operations to circumvent the important public health and environmental review processes that are required under the National Environmental Policy Act. Instead of maintaining a reasonable threshold to ensure that we focus on resources and developing resources that are actually critical for our defense or for our economy, this bill expands our definition of ``strategic and critical,'' effectively making it worthless. By including everything and by saying everything is strategic and critical, you are effectively saying that nothing is strategic and critical. That is what this bill does while we are 8 days from hitting the debt limit, while we are 6 days from expiring on the Federal transportation authorization. By the way, I have to talk about how these ``days'' work because we are 8 days from the debt limit and 6 days from the transportation authorization. Those aren't real days that Americans know. That is because the Republicans always send this Congress on vacation nearly every week. So it might be 6 legislative days. I think it is, actually, 15 or 20 days, but Congress isn't working for most of those. While these deadlines tick, Members of Congress are actually at home most of the time because the Republican leadership won't let us work. They won't let us come here. They are adjourning the session. That is why, when something is 20 days off, we are sounding alarm bells, saying it is 6 days off--because they are only letting us work 6 of those 20 days. I would be happy to show up for the other 14, Mr. Speaker, but you wouldn't be here to gavel us into session. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, a point of parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. POLIS. What would happen if I showed up and you were not here to gavel us down into session?

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

Mr. POLIS. Maybe we will just have to try that sometime when we are 2 or 3 days from the expiration of our transportation funding or from defaulting on our national debt. I will be happy to come here to an empty Chamber. I recall one time, Mr. Speaker, when you and the Republican majority accidentally left the cameras on, and our Democratic whip, Steny Hoyer, was on the floor, demanding why we couldn't bring up a bill. Maybe, if I am here and if you are not here, Mr. Speaker, we can get those C-SPAN cameras turned on when we are 2 or 3 days from a deadline so that the American people understand this funny math, where somehow 20 days is only 6 legislative days because you don't let us work the other 14, when hardworking Americans have to go to work every day to support their families. This bill's impacts are far reaching. As drafted, it makes the term ``critical and strategic'' meaningless. The legislation would increase the pollution of our water resources for States dealing with extreme drought conditions and deadly blazes. The last thing we need is to jeopardize our already scarce sources of water. We can't afford to do any more harm to the quality of our limited water supplies and to risk the jobs that are created across the West through outdoor recreation, leisure, and agriculture. Why the House Republicans see a need for legislation to further promote mining interests at the expense of public health continues to be mystifying. The industry already has free rein to extract mineral resources. Under the antiquated 1872 mining law, Federal land managers are actually barred from denying hard rock mining proposals. The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service have almost never denied a large mining process. Why exempt them further from all environmental review for sand and gravel, which aren't even rare elements? This bill fails to update the antiquated legal framework. It fails to address the reforms needed. It fails to protect our environment. It doesn't change the fact that mining companies currently enjoy--guess what, Mr. Speaker. What do you think--a 3 percent royalty rate? What do they pay--a 2 percent royalty rate? Do they pay a 1 percent royalty rate? No. They pay a zero percent royalty rate on Federal land. This bill fails to address that. It doesn't change the fact that mining companies have left an estimated half a million mines. That is nearly one for every person in my district, Mr. Speaker. Half a million mines all across the country have been abandoned, most of which are in dire need of cleanup or restoration, which this bill fails to address. I had the opportunity to introduce a bill with Ranking Member Grijalva earlier this year that would have addressed many of these ongoing failures in mining accountability, but it hasn't been brought up before the committee. Instead, legislation like this, the so-called Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act, is rocketed to the floor even though it has passed four times in the last three sessions. Instead of confronting real challenges facing our economy, facing American families, we continue to line the pockets of the mining industry, which already has one of the fattest profit margins of any, while risking the health of the American people and exploiting our natural resources without adequate return and royalties to the taxpayers, who own our public lands. I oppose the rule and the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up legislation that would permanently authorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The Land and Water Conservation Fund supports the protection of public lands and waters, such as natural parks, forests, and recreation areas. Many conservation organizations from my district and nationally have been in to meet with me on this important topic, and I know they have reached out to other Members on the Hill as well. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, the Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act--again, it is hard to say that name with a straight face when they are defining strategic and critical minerals in such a broad way that it involves basically the dirt under our feet, the sand under our feet, the gravel in our drive. When you define something like that and try to mean everything, you wind up meaning nothing. Rather than actually doing something to protect minerals that are critical for our defense, for our economy, this bill waters that down by expanding this access to sand and dirt and gravel, maximizing mining companies' profits at the expense of our health, our water, our land, and our natural resources. Furthermore, the underlying bill would damage our economy by placing the use of the mining industry above the many other important economic uses of our public lands. I will give you some examples. How about hunting? angling? hiking? biking? These are the economic drivers in my district, Mr. Speaker. If we didn't have an environmental review process and large gravel pits and silver mines were put in place with wild abandon, we would lose jobs. We would lose most jobs in Eagle and Summit Counties which relate to the tourism industry. The beautiful, pristine, outdoor public lands that attract visitors from across the country--probably from your district, Mr. Speaker--Vail, Breckenridge, Winter Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park, we would love to have you; but you better come quickly before this bill becomes law, because there won't be much to see if it does. When visiting my constituents in Colorado this summer, expanding mining access was not one of the issues that they brought up. In fact, they asked me to ensure that mining companies are held accountable to greater levels of accountability and transparency. They asked me to develop environmental safeguards to make sure that disasters and tragedies don't occur and that abandoned mines are cleaned up and that our extraction industry can be done in a thoughtful way, and to make sure it doesn't destroy jobs by conflicting with other higher and better economic uses of some parcels of public land. Look, Members on both sides of the aisle support the development of rare earth and critical mineral policy. There is no disagreement about that. I would be happy to work with my colleague, Mr. Speaker, from Washington State and others on putting together a commonsense bill that defines rare earth and critical minerals in a commonsense way. Not the dirt beneath our feet, not the sand in my kid's sandbox, but in a commonsense way where we look at the needs of industry, our supply, we define it, and we come up with a targeted access plan, including access to our public lands in appropriate ways, that is expedited for national priority items. That is not what this bill does. We could work together, Mr. Speaker. And this body needs to work together, not just on this bill, but to avoid defaulting on our national debt, to continue to fund our highways and infrastructure, in fact, to keep government open. We might only have 11 legislative days to try to keep government open. By the way, I think that is 30-some actual days for most Americans, Mr. Speaker. As we talked about, you won't be here, Mr. Speaker. If there is a way that I can be here and advance an agenda of keeping government open, I would be happy to, but I am afraid it requires a Speaker to gavel us in. Now, there are bills that seek to balance the challenges of mining with its impact on surrounding communities, but, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues weren't interested in discussing those. Instead we are discussing a recycled bill for the fourth time that would eliminate environmental review, allow for the unfettered mining of public lands, define critical minerals in such a way that it means the dirt between your toes and the sand in your kid's sandbox. It would likely not be brought up by the Senate and dead on arrival at the President's desk. This is a job-destroying bill that the American people are not even asking Congress to take up. It takes a simple concept--preserving access to critical resources, which would have strong bipartisan support--and contorts it into a divisive job-destroying, health- destroying, commonsense-defying issue that doesn't appear anywhere on the priority list of struggling families across the country. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question and to vote ``no'' on the rule. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS

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

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. POLIS. I yield myself such time as I may consume. We haven't even passed an Authorization for Use of Military Force to establish the legal way for who we are supposed to be fighting against. We are still operating under the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force that names al Qaeda. But if you talk to most military experts, al Qaeda is not the preeminent threat today. There are a lot of threats in the world, including ISIS, including threats in the Syrian civil war, including threats of the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and this body needs to take up an Authorization for Use of Military Force to ensure that funds that we appropriate for defense are used in a way that Congress is aware of and has oversight of. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. It is remarkable the gentleman from Alabama hasn't been able to find any other Republicans to support these bills and come down and help him argue. I think that that speaks volumes about how these bills are simply not consistent with promoting our national defense and are fiscally irresponsible. They don't please the defense hawks or the budget hawks. So my poor colleague, Mr. Byrne, is left alone to fend for himself. Here we are, trying to use the contingency funding as base funding and use it to somehow form the base from which our military must fund its everyday operations. The commanders and generals all agree this is a bad idea, and the gentleman from Alabama has even acknowledged that. Here we are, discussing a bill that won't result in any of the victims of state-sponsored terrorism actually seeing their settlement, when there is another path and we certainly could have a deliberative process around a bill that empowers the impoundment and collection of assets from state sponsors of terrorism States here in our country to ensure that victims see their judgments. What this bill does is it ties it to an unrelated set of sanctions that were put in place to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons to settlement of these claims when, actually, we should be giving our courts, or if we are concerned about this issue with regard to settlements against sponsors of state terrorism, we should give courts the increased ability to make sure that they can see that restitution and impound assets from sponsors of state terrorism. Now, Democrats have come down and offered something, if we defeat the previous question, that actually will improve our national defense. It will ensure that we have a strong aerospace industry here in our country. The gentleman from Alabama has mentioned that Airbus is in his district. Well, Airbus is a company that will do very well if we fail to authorize the Export-Import Bank because it will put American competitors like Boeing and Lockheed at a significant disadvantage. Now, I hope that we are fighting to ensure that America maintains its aerospace capacity and leadership and we don't cede all of that to European companies like Airbus that are welcome to compete on a level playing field. It is critical for our national security that we have the ability to lead the world as we have in the aerospace industry. I also want to bring up that we should be discussing an Authorization for Use of Military Force. The National Defense Authorization Act does contain some parameters about how money is used, but it is not a substitute for an Authorization for Use of Military Force, and we should be having that debate. Who are we even fighting? Who are we even fighting? I don't think that most people believe that it is still al Qaeda from the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force. Now, I don't know what to call what we are doing in Iraq and Syria. Maybe it is a war. Maybe it is a security operation. Maybe it is occasional support to some Syrian rebels or support to the Iraqi Government or on-and-off commitment to the Kurds. But whatever it is, I don't think it is what Congress voted for in 2001 or 2003, before I was here, before Mr. Byrne was here, before the vast majority of this body that currently serves was even here. Those authorizations should be in the history books, not being invoked as legal justification for conducting operations in a world, in 2015, which is vastly different than the world of 2001 and 2003. And who knows how much longer or how many different wars or security operations will continue to be administered if Congress doesn't finally specify and do our job with regard to an Authorization for Use of Military Force. Now, that is a hard debate. It is a hard issue. It is not a partisan debate. There are Democrats and Republicans on all sides; and many Members, when we have that debate, will make sure that we have the very best information to act on. But since we authorized military force against al Qaeda and ``affiliated'' groups in 2001, there have been over 300 new Members of Congress elected, so the vast majority of this body, including myself and Mr. Byrne, including Mr. Heck, including Mr. Kildee--I believe, of all of us. I believe Ms. Jackson Lee was the only one who was actually here when we even had that discussion. The rest of us talking about defense and NDAA didn't even play any role in choosing what the target and what our focus of our national security operations are. The American people deserve and demand this debate. They don't want yet another fight with Congresspeople playing budget tricks around defense. They want to know what our Nation's plan is for the operations that have been ongoing. They want to see Congress take its constitutional responsibilities for actions in the world. And whether any one of us ultimately votes in favor or against an Authorization for Use of Military Force, we all, I hope, are for the debate, and we should join in demanding one. On the conference report, Madam Speaker, this plan will not work, will not become law. The President will veto it. The generals oppose it. The budget hawks oppose it. No one even came down to join Mr. Byrne in arguing for it. It is a terrible plan. It will hurt our national defense. We need to defeat it. The Iran bill tries to get at a legitimate issue in completely the wrong way. It is not a partisan issue that we want to see restitution for victims of state terrorism. Let's get into that act and look at the enforcement mechanisms rather than try to use these victims as yet another attempt to go after the deal that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons. I think it is clear from our Rules Committee debate that everyone supports efforts for American victims of terrorism to pursue compensation. The Iran nuclear agreement has nothing to do with that, and it certainly doesn't prevent that from happening. No matter what country, whether it is Iran or other sponsors of state terrorism, we all remain committed to this process of seeing justice. Undermining the ability to enforce a nuclear agreement is not the proper way or even a relevant way to achieve this goal. The reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank is ready to go. If we defeat the previous question, we will bring it to the floor. We have the votes in the House. I hope my colleague, Mr. Byrne from Alabama, will join us in that vote if we can defeat the previous question. We have the votes in the Senate, the President. We can stop this unnecessary loss of jobs every single day in districts across our country solely due to our inability to act. Hopefully, we can move to take up highway authorization, ESEA, immigration reform, raising the minimum wage. These are some of the issues that I hear from my constituents about every day that we need to act on. So rather than waste time, waste money, hurt our national defense, let's get to work and accomplish something. I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question and defeat the rule. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Alabama for yielding me 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. POLIS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition today to this rule and to both of the underlying bills. Both of these bills, the conference report to accompany the annual National Defense Authorization Act and the so-called Justice for Victims of Iranian Terrorism Act, are simply partisan political charades. They are not a serious effort at the lawmaking process. They are not a serious effort at improving our national defense, nor do they even attempt to solve the problems that the American people want this Congress to take up. I would first like to acknowledge that at least these two bills are somewhat related under this rule. In the past, we have had bills in vastly disparate areas. A couple of points about these bills: The National Defense Authorization bill is not a version of the bill that is going anywhere. It contorts the budget process in a way that doesn't make sense to anybody. It doesn't make sense to budget hawks or defense hawks, and it is a way that many Members of the majority party don't even seem to understand. Neither bill will be signed into law. The President has indicated he will veto them, nor will consideration of them today here on the floor of the House advance national security one iota. Even after knowing the budget plans on National Defense Authorization for months, here we have a convoluted bill that won't make us any safer or financially secure. What it does is it takes the emergency account, the overseas contingency operations fund, and turns it into a slush fund to temporarily fund all kinds of other programs. So effectively, it is a deficit spending bill by fudging the different pots of money that we have for defense. Now, I should point out this doesn't even appeal to the Pentagon or to the military. The Pentagon strongly dislikes this plan of using overseas contingency money to fund items in the base budget. So the question I pose, Mr. Speaker, is, if it is not being done to satisfy defense hawks and the Pentagon and it is not being done to satisfy budget hawks because it is an increased spending proposal, who is the constituency for this and why are people even proposing this? Now, it is completely fiscally irresponsible to disregard budget caps in a way that anybody who cares about our deficit should find maddening, and it is why so many of our colleagues on the majority, from what we have heard, had to be pushed to even go along with this highly flawed plan As I mentioned, it doesn't make sense to the defense hawk contingency in this body either. The Pentagon does not like the plan. Using short- term money for base funding and long-term problems makes planning and procurement nearly impossible on the ground. This budget plan hurts national security, and it damages our fiscal responsibility in our country. Like many bills, it is simply not going anywhere. The President said he opposes a version of the NDAA with this budget gimmick in it. Congress, of course, needs to pass a National Defense Authorization bill. Unfortunately, the time that we are spending on this today gets us no closer. Passing a National Defense Authorization Act is very important, and it seems like an obvious and routine thing to do; but with this Congress, nothing is surprising. Even routine matters are made infinitely more difficult as we jump through these self-created hoops to appeal to whoever is yelling loudest at the time, and that seems to be what we are doing today on the floor of this body is turning our national defense into a political football and missing yet another opportunity to provide the stability that our national defense needs to defend our country. Now, this could have been an opportunity to address what voters want us to address. We could have talked about an Authorization for Use of Military Force. I have heard from so many of my constituents regarding that. We could be talking about the fact that just yesterday Russia is supposedly bombing targets in Syria in support of Assad, and we have been conducting military operations in that part of the world for over a year without a specific Authorization for Use of Military Force. We could have talked about Guantanamo Bay and how we can approach finally leaving that chapter behind and closing down our extra-legal detention facility there. We could have debated how we can save money by right-sizing our massive nuclear arsenal that would allow us to blow up the world several times over to meet our needs here in the 21st century. Perhaps being able to blow up the world once might be enough for our nuclear arsenal, and that would save a lot of money that we could reduce the deficit with. Instead, this bill would have us spend billions upon billions of dollars, reassign money to a slush fund, blow through budget caps that we put in place to reduce the deficit in support of a war we have never debated, never voted on, and in support of a failed policy in continuing to fight wars that we have not approved and the military arsenal that was meant to fight a cold war which ended decades ago. This is simply a charade that does not advance our national security, and I urge my colleagues to reject it. The other bill under consideration is another charade. It is another symbol of the failure of this body to take up the issues that matter to the American people. It is a bill, as we talked about in our Rules Committee, that had zero hearings, no markup, no amendments, and was rushed to the floor for unknown reasons. This bill serves as nothing more than another attempt to undermine the agreement that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Now, Members on my side of the aisle were on varied sides of that Iran agreement. Some felt that the agreement was the best way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Others felt that there were other ways. But nearly everybody on my side agrees that this bill is simply a terrible idea. Now we are in the stage of implementing the Iran Nuclear Review Act, consistent with the agreement that was reached to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. If we want to advance national security, let's have a discussion about how to enforce the agreement to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. If there is a problem with the compensation of victims of state terrorism, we should have a broad bipartisan bill that addresses that. Iran is one of the countries, but there are certainly other sponsors of state terrorism; and if there is a problem collecting court judgments, let's add some teeth to that in a bipartisan proposal to do that rather than attach it to sanctions that were put in place for the specific purpose of deterring Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Congress said that was the purpose of those sanctions. They were part of that discussion for Iran to open themselves up to inspections and agree not to develop nuclear weapons. This is a separate and legitimate issue that there are judgments against Iran that are not being enforced. There are probably judgments against a number of other nation-states that are not being enforced. That is a perfectly fine issue and one that there is no reason in the world for it to be partisan. We should have a thoughtful, deliberative process with hearings and markup in committee with the opportunity to take good ideas from both sides and simply address that problem to make sure that we add some teeth to the ability to make sure that payments are made to victims of terrorism, a concept that this bill wouldn't even come close to accomplishing. This bill adds no teeth to making sure that terrorist victims actually get their money. It merely tries to reinstate sanctions that are tied to the development of Iran's nuclear problem. It makes it no more likely that a single victim of terrorism will ever see any kind of restitution. Now, if we are serious about national defense, what in the world have we been doing the last few days? Because of this body's inaction in maintaining government funding, you know what the Pentagon has been doing the last few days? They have been focused on planning for a shutdown, because we were just hours away from a shutdown when finally this body figured out how to continue funding national defense. We should have done that weeks ago. Why did we put the Pentagon through the exercise these last few days of figuring out who had to go home and what missions had to be grounded? Do you think ISIS or Moscow or the Assad regime spent yesterday wondering if they would have the money when they showed up for work today? Well, that is what this Congress has done to our military and risks doing again in December when we face another government shutdown. We might as well be telling our generals: ``Okay, keep doing what you are doing, but don't make any plans to combat ISIS on December 12.'' Well done, Congress. I am sure America and the rest of the world is impressed with your work. It is completely incongruous to be discussing a budget trick for defense authorization just a day after we risked closing down many parts of our military. Just yesterday, 151 Republicans voted to shut down the Pentagon and the military. They voted to shut down the Department of Homeland Security. They voted to shut down the State Department just because they couldn't get their way on an unrelated healthcare provision for low-income women. Now, suddenly, the Republicans support national security? I don't think so. I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and both of the underlying bills. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up legislation that would protect jobs in America to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. 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. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Just to be clear, what we are offering as a previous question, if we win the previous question vote, this bill will then be amended and sent back to include a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, so the Democrats are choosing to focus on protecting American jobs rather than partisan games. Unfortunately, I wish either of these two bills under this rule had something to do with national defense. They don't. One of them diverts money from the overseas contingency fund to a slush fund, which the military says will weaken their ability to prepare for conflict around the world. The other one is another attempt to undermine a deal that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons and won't lead to American victims seeing money. If they were serious about making sure American victims were compensated, we would be talking about putting teeth in the ability of American courts to impound assets and make sure that judgments are paid for victims of state terrorism. Why, instead, are we seeing a deal that relates only to one particular sponsor of state terrorism and deals with a set of tariffs that were put in place to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons? The tariffs that are in place with regard to Iranian sponsorship of state terrorism are still in place and weren't even on the table during the discussions around the nuclear agreement. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Heck), who wants to discuss our amendment that will protect and save American jobs.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) to discuss our proposal to save American jobs.

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Well, Mr. Speaker, I believe the meaning is very straightforward. That is exactly what it means.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, does this amendment to the rule mean that Members of this body will have less than 24 hours to review any bill we consider next week?

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Again, I think it is clear. We have had many Democrats coming to the floor talking about what we should be doing. I think the gentleman from Georgia might be the only Republican in the Chamber. Maybe there is one other in the back. I don't have my glasses on. We have a lot of ideas for keeping government open. Mainly, let's pass a continuing resolution to do it now. Let's work more than 6 days out of the next 14. Let's stay here until we can keep government open, until we can reauthorize the transportation and infrastructure bill. It sounds obvious to me; yet there just didn't seem to be any interest from the other side. No Republicans have approached me about keeping government open. I hope you do, Mr. Speaker. I hope you encourage your colleagues to. There is no one here in the Chamber talking about what we can do to avoid a job-crushing government shutdown, which we are 14 days away from. Instead, we are talking about unrelated bills. Now, I don't deny that these bills deserve their day in the sun. I just question whether, when we are 6 legislative days from a job-crushing shutdown, it is the time to discuss whether we should amend requirements set out by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, that would reduce the role of public input and turn the idea of NEPA on its head by eliminating any illusion of objective or scientific analysis by allowing private sponsors to write parts of their own environmental reviews. Now, look, we can discuss that. I am strongly for reforming the NEPA process. As an example, if we can make it easier to site renewal energy projects, I am a sponsor of a bill to expedite the NEPA process for solar and wind infrastructure projects. Look, there are people who support this terrible bill in its current form; I completely understand that, but this bill does nothing to avert a job-destroying government shutdown that we are only 6 legislative days from reaching. Now, the gentleman from Georgia mentioned this, what we call a martial law amendment. With this amendment that he is proposing with this rule--we just got notice of it last minute here on the floor--he is offering an amendment that will allow any bill to be brought up under martial law next week. Now, in honor of Pope Francis' visit, I hope that they have a bill that they plan to bring to the floor under martial law to reduce our carbon emissions and finally do something to impact climate change, which I hope that Pope Francis will be addressing. I also hope that, under martial law, they will bring forward a bill to replace our broken immigration system with a humane system, with a pathway to citizenship that replaces the chaos we have, with the rule of law, border security, and a pathway to normalization and citizenship for hard-working, aspiring Americans who are already here. Now, I am not going to bet the ship that that is what they are going to do with this martial law, but the fact of the matter is, from a process perspective, we--myself, my colleagues, and I think most of the Republican rank and file--simply don't know what they are going to do with that authority. This is going around the normal rules of the House to establish a mechanism to avoid the normal process, avoid the normal process through Rules Committee and, through martial law, bring some sort of bill. I hope it is an immigration reform bill. I hope it is a climate change bill. I don't think it is. Based on what we are seeing this week, it will probably be some NEPA bill or some--I don't know--some other bill that doesn't avoid a government shutdown to the floor of the House. Maybe it will be a bill that is a Republican funding bill that will have a Presidential veto threat over it. That doesn't avoid a shutdown. Remember, the only way we can avoid a shutdown is the House, the Senate, and the President of the United States are on the same page for legislation to avoid a government shutdown. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, and we will be back next week, and I will hold my criticism. I hope it is an immigration reform bill. I hope it is a climate change bill. I hope we honor Pope Francis by bringing forward two of his top priorities in a week that is appropriate, and if that is the case, I will support martial law for those two efforts, and I hope that that is what we will do. I will withhold judgment until we see what the Republicans attempt to do with this procedural bypass of our normal mechanisms that they have scheduled for next week. Look, these are bad bills under this rule. They are bad bills today. They would be bad bills if they were appropriate to consider. I believe they are inappropriate to consider in light of a job-crushing government shutdown occurring in 6 legislative days. The RAPID Act, which would turn the idea of NEPA on its head, is a one-size-fits-all approach. It is not the right approach to NEPA reform. There are thoughtful, bipartisan ideas that we could put together after we avoid a government shutdown. I am happy to do that. The LARA Act is even worse. Our country tried a similar framework to LARA in the eighties and early nineties, and there is broad consensus that the experiment failed. Instead of reducing lawsuits, there was an explosion of litigation, causing delays and wasting judicial resources. Why on earth are we giving these failed ideas a second try? The LARA Act would have prevented landmark decisions like the Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated schools; Griswold v. Connecticut, which established constitutional protections for right to privacy; and Loving v. Virginia, which ended bans on interracial marriage. Rather than ``preventing abuse,'' this bill would actually promote civil rights abuses and weaken the courts' ability to crack down on people who seek to discriminate illegally at work or school or at the voting booth, and Congress should not pass this bill, now or ever. I think it is particularly offensive, when a job-crushing government shutdown is looming, to even be talking about these other items rather than discussing how we can avoid a job-crushing government shutdown. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure I am clear. These issues we should discuss. Natural resources. The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people a year are killed because of air pollution. But putting forth these bills now does nothing to eliminate or deal with a job-crushing government shutdown. Over just 16 days in 2013, our country lost $24 billion in economic growth, hundreds of thousands of Federal workers were furloughed, contractors and subcontractors were not paid. It is an avoidable scenario. It is a crisis created by Congress. We wonder why people don't like Congress. It is a crisis of our own making. Why are we threatening the critical, everyday services Americans rely on, the millions of people that work for contractors and subcontractors of the Federal Government? A small-R republic is a system of governance in which people exert influence over their elected officials, and those representatives are supposed to listen and act upon those requests. We need to listen to the American people and take the responsible course, Mr. Speaker. I urge my colleagues to join me on this commonsense mission before it is too late. I urge my colleagues to oppose the rule and the underlying legislation. We need to reinstate a legislative agenda that aligns with the desires and wills and aspirations of the American people and American businesses. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I will use our 9 minutes. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, does this martial law amendment mean that any bill next week can be brought up without the 24-hour notice that we normally have to read a bill directly to the floor?