Jared Polis

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. I would like to emphasize the importance of climate science with regard to predicting weather. The more we know about climate and climate patterns, the more it enhances our ability to predict short-term weather phenomena; therefore, a disproportionate cut to the climate science piece hampers our ability to anticipate weather patterns as well.

Mr. POLIS. I have additional speakers.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brendan F. Boyle).

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chairman, very specifically, this amendment would restore the $30 million of cuts--namely, a 20 percent cut--a disproportionate cut to climate science activities, including unmanned atmospheric assessment aircrafts and including creating raw data streams that can be used by those who predict weather, as well as by farmers and businesses, because you can't separate out weather and climate. I think, perhaps because of political reasons--I don't know why-- there is a disproportionate cut, 20 percent, to the climate science piece of NOAA. Now, that climate science piece of NOAA, just because it has the word ``climate'' in it, that doesn't mean it is something where they are out there doing things that are political. What they are doing is they are trying to research the macro effects of climate on weather, on population and patterns, on dangers on ships. If the gentleman would simply allow that discretion within NOAA, undo the 20 percent cut, we fund that within NOAA. We are not, nor can we, under the budget, seek new money. We are simply taking the $30 million and putting it back into the climate science program.

Mr. POLIS. I wanted to inquire with regard to how the funding cuts would impact the development of the unmanned atmospheric assessment aircrafts that are critical to foreseeing changes in weather pattern.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. POLIS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to several of the critical accounts in the bill that have been cut, which my amendment would address. The CJS Appropriations Act specifically targets funding for NOAA's climate research programs by $30 million over currently enacted levels, a program so important for farmers, for businesses, for air safety, for so many different reasons. That is a 20 percent cut to programs that are imperative to our Nation's ability and resilience in the face of climate threats. Twenty-five people were killed in the floods that saturated Texas last month. Damage from Hurricane Sandy was estimated at $700 billion back in 2012, and at least six people died in Boulder and Larimer County during the flooding that overtook my region in 2013. None of these places had ever seen storms like the ones they encountered over the last 5 years, and each were unprepared to handle it. NOAA and its partner institutions have made a huge dent in preventing disasters like these by keeping first responders, weather forecasters, businesses, communities, and families on the cutting edge of data predictability and resilience, providing quality raw data, as well as helping to develop new algorithms for interpreting existing data. Two of our partner institutions, CU and CSU, are located in my district in Colorado. Together with NOAA, these institutions are developing unmanned atmospheric assessment aircraft that allow us to foresee changes in weather patterns, incoming storms, days before we could otherwise, saving lives and saving property damage. These are very real tangible benefits that benefit all and protect Americans, regardless of whether one believes in climate change or what is causing it. I urge my colleagues to consider a world without these capabilities and what that would look like. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Farenthold).

Mr. POLIS. In conclusion, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson). It is, indeed, the intended language and we believe the actual language of the amendment that would not interfere with any valid court orders or warrants. We are happy to work with them in that regard. The amendment is designed to pertain to bulk collection of data, which was never specifically authorized by Congress. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas accepting the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Here we are debating the gutting of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which both sides agree has successfully helped restore some of our counts of wild stock, including snapper. It hardly seems the time to reverse course without any scientific evidence that, somehow, we will get to a different place than we were when Congress wrote the Magnuson-Stevens Act to address the very issue, which it seems to be successfully addressing. The gentleman from Alabama mentioned some remarks from Mr. DeFazio. I wanted to be clear that then-Ranking Member DeFazio opposed a similar bill, this similar bill, in the last Congress. I am not sure of the context of the remarks he made, but he stood here on the floor urging his colleagues to oppose the bill. He opposed it as well in committee. He was not happy with the result last time; he is not happy with the result this time, nor is our new ranking member of either the subcommittee or the committee. I should add it passed out of committee without a single Democratic vote. To be clear, there was not a bipartisan effort in committee to talk about the best policy with regard to fisheries. Now, before I jump into the debate about fish populations and fisheries in our oceans--something I have to admit, as representing the landlocked State of Colorado, I had to take a crash course on in the last few days--I want to talk about some of the events from the last week that I think should merit congressional attention. One item that happened in the last week is a 16-year-old student from the Atlanta Public School system in Georgia was attacked in his courtyard just because he was gay. A crowd surrounded to watch as 15 people beat this young person into a bloody pulp while yelling derogatory slurs at him. Again, we could be addressing that through passing the Student Non- Discrimination Act or the antibullying act from Representative Sanchez, but instead, we are talking about gutting Magnuson-Stevens' protections of our fisheries. Also this week, a south Texas family detention facility, similar to facilities in other parts of the country for immigrants who were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, testimony came out that women and children were severely punished, abused, and neglected. We could be pursuing detention reform or immigration reform; but, again, we are not. This last week, Los Angeles raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour. Now, in LA, that puts families closer to a living wage, but the bad news is this Congress refuses to take up any minimum wage hike. Whether it is a $12 proposal, which Democrats put forward, whether it is a $10.10 proposal, whether it is even a $9 proposal, this Congress has not, instead of bringing forward a bill to increase the minimum wage-- by the way, when somebody works full time at minimum wage, they earn about $14,500 a year. I don't know what we are saying to people where you work full time and we are forcing you to rely on government programs to subsist. Republicans are keeping people on public housing, on food stamps, on welfare, rather than helping them support their own way and regaining their dignity in the process, which is what raising the minimum wage would do; but, no, we are not talking about that here today. We are talking about gutting the Magnuson-Stevens Act. 21,000 gallons of oil spilled in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Santa Barbara County--that is probably not good for the fish there either--following the eruption of an 11-mile long underground pipeline; but, instead of talking about a renewable energy future, instead of talking about ending our reliance on fossil fuels or a national renewable energy portfolio standard, we are talking about gutting our fisheries protection and gutting the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Tragically, we had funerals for eight people who were killed in the derailment of the Amtrak train in Pennsylvania; our House observed a moment of silence earlier on that, but rather than discussing measures that can prevent future derailment accidents--and I understand there is some technology that, when implemented, could have helped avoid this kind of accident--here we are again, discussing gutting the Magnuson- Stevens Act that has successfully protected our wild fisheries and helped restore some of the stock so that precisely the recreational and charter fishermen and the gentleman from Alabama can continue to enjoy fishing. Absent the support of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, it is likely we would not be able to support the level of recreational and commercial fishing that we can today. Seven people were shot in Baltimore yesterday amid a recent spike in violence following the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody; but, instead of addressing nonlethal use of force or video cameras on police officers, we are discussing gutting the Magnuson-Stevens Act. We all know that the Federal highway reauthorization is running up against the May 31 deadline. The body of this Congress chose to renew it for 60 days and just created another crisis in another 59 days; yet we are not discussing what a deal would look like, a bipartisan deal, for a longer-term reauthorization of the Federal highway trust fund. One hundred eighty Democrats signed a discharge petition for a bill that seeks to renew the charter of the Export-Import Bank, a critical driver for job creation and American competitiveness, fully permissible under WTO rules, under proposed trade agreement rules. Other countries have these kinds of banks, and to unilaterally disarm would cost American jobs. But instead of talking about how Congress gets out of this political box on the Export-Import Bank, we are discussing gutting the Magnuson-Stevens fisheries protection legislation. This Congress could do a lot better with regard to dealing with issues that I hear about from my constituents every day, day in and day out, whether that is fixing our broken immigration system, whether it is protecting our country from terrorism, whether it is preventing future Amtrak derailments. Those are the kinds of topics that, I think, the American people want to see us discussing here today rather than gutting an important piece of legislation which many charter fishermen, recreational fishermen, and commercial fishermen applaud in having successfully sustained their livelihoods or their passions for the last generation. Let's talk about fish. The bill we are looking at today would devastate our wild fisheries. It would make our waters much more of a ``free for all.'' Under the guise of flexibility, it would allow for the overfishing of critical species, risking not only their sustainability and the future enjoyment of recreational fishermen but also the health of entire ecosystems that rely on the fish stocks that we are debating. It would set an alarming precedent for the circumvention of our bedrock environmental laws by allowing fishery management councils to supersede NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act; the Endangered Species Act; the Antiquities Act; and the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. The Fishery Conservation and Management Act was introduced in 1976 to stop unregulated fishing that had demonstrably led to the depletion across a number of wild fisheries. In both 1996 and 2007, the legislation was reauthorized--bipartisan bills again. This bill passed committee without a single Democratic vote. Each time, through a comprehensive drafting process, good ideas from both sides of the aisle were put to paper. Ironically, the one thing that, I think, the gentleman from Alabama and I can agree on is that the 2007 authorization has been successful. We have shown the increased health of our wild fish stocks. So the question is: Do we want to reverse course and jeopardize that, or do we want to move forward with scientific-backed evidence? Unfortunately, the Republicans are trying to make sweeping changes to gut the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Protection Act. This iteration of the bill was drafted with almost no Democratic input, and it passed out of committee without a single Democratic vote. Look, if we want to go through this kind of exercise with a bill that the President has said he would veto--a bill that breaks with the proud bipartisan tradition of fisheries protection--why aren't we spending time on some of the issues I mentioned earlier, like immigration reform, like protecting LGBT students from discrimination, like socioeconomic disparities in our country, how we can deal with mental health among returning veterans who fought overseas, or the risk of terrorism here at home? Let's do that. If we are going to talk fish, Mr. Speaker, let's at least bring up a bill that has been drafted by all stakeholders. Let's at least bring up a bill that ensures that the fishing community will have an industry in 10 years, in 20 years, in 50 years--a bill that protects the interests of our recreational fishermen and that preserves the health of our oceans for the enjoyment of all Americans and for the health of our planet now into the future. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I invite the gentleman from Alabama to come to Colorado to fish our wonderful mountain trout, which we have in our streams and rivers. Obviously, he is no stranger to a different kind of fisheries management policy where, of course, our economy in Colorado relies on fishing and sportsmen as well, and I certainly understand that driver of jobs locally. I think the disconnect here is that the gentleman talks about what the 2007 Magnuson-Stevens bill has accomplished in that it has reduced the number of days that people can fish. That was the action that was taken. The effect of that is that the wild stocks are up, so there are more snapper. I think both sides agree on that. I believe there is a direct causal link to the fact that there are more snapper because there have been fewer that have been taken out of the water. If we manage our fisheries for the short term, if we throw caution to the wind, people might have a good season or two, but it simply won't be there either for the future generation of recreationists or for those whose livelihoods depend on a viable commercial fishing stock. Now, this bill is about fish. If this rule allowed for the discussion of some of the other bills I mentioned, I could support it. If this bill allowed a debate of #raisethewage, either to our Democratic proposal of a $12 an hour minimum wage or to whatever number the gentleman from Alabama would like--if he would like to propose $9 an hour, $8.50--I would be willing to support this rule, or if it even allowed 2 minutes of debate for raising the minimum wage. Mr. Speaker, I would support this bill if it allowed for us to consider our bipartisan immigration reform measure. If we allowed that debate under this bill, I would do that. I would support this rule if it allowed debate about the Student Nondiscrimination Act to make sure that LGBT students don't face bullying in our schools and so that it is a safe learning environment for all students. I would support this rule if it addressed what we have learned from the Amtrak derailment and prevented future derailments and saved lives. None of those items, along with countless others, are included under this rule. In fact, all of the amendments under this rule, as well as the underlying bill, are related to fish. No, I don't know deny that fish are important. We might be discussing our mountain trout someday here on the floor of the House and defending the President's efforts around clean water or on protecting some of our watersheds in Colorado. We have a lot of interest in protecting our fishing stock as well. But I would be proud to be able to bring forth some of the priorities that I hear from my constituents that are so critical. Rather than continually bringing up bills that attack the integrity of our environment--in this case, a bill that would gut the fisheries protections that have been afforded under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and that both sides have acknowledged have successfully helped restore the red snapper population--I would hope that perhaps our next rule will allow us to raise the minimum wage, that perhaps our next rule will allow us to consider immigration reform, that perhaps our next rule will help us deal with the bullying in schools, that perhaps our next rule will save lives and prevent future derailments, and so many other issues. I say to my colleagues that this particular bill needs to go back to the drawing board. It needs to go back to the drawing board to have a bipartisan effort in a committee I serve on, the Natural Resources Committee, to include priorities from both sides and good science and continue to build upon the legacy of success that the 2007 bipartisan reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act has had in increasing the health of our wild fishing stocks. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire if the gentleman has any further speakers or is prepared to close.

Mr. POLIS. The gentleman from Alabama said there are more red snapper than there have ever been before, and that would seem to indicate that the policies are working, and I don't think it is a time to reverse course. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), the ranking member of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans and the author of the Democratic substitute, which is a cleaner reauthorization.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, today should have been a great day of celebration of hope and relief for the millions of hard-working immigrant families across the country who would be able to register for the expanded DACA and DAPA programs. DACA's expansion and the new DAPA program would provide welcome relief to thousands of hard-working immigrant families, allowing them to pay a fine, register, get right with the law, and work legally. Unfortunately, they sit in limbo while they wait for a judge to decide the fate of the DACA and DAPA programs. It should be incumbent on any politician who seeks to thwart or undermine these programs to propose a legislative solution through Congress. That is everybody's first choice. Only Congress can provide a pathway to citizenship. Only Congress can permanently replace our broken immigration system with one that works, one that restores the rule of law, one that secures our border, and one that provides a pathway to citizenship. I hope the fifth circuit will rule on the side of justice and the rule of law by lifting the injunction; but no matter what happens, this judicial mess is just further proof of Congress' failure to act. I call upon Congress to address our broken immigration system and move forward with restoring the rule of law.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards), the ranking member on the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Space.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, in closing, this rule under this debate covers three significant but entirely unrelated bills. That is why you are hearing people discuss highway funding; you are hearing people discuss the legislative branch, and you are hearing people discuss science. On the day that DACA expansion and DAPA were scheduled to go into effect to make sure people here illegally can pay a fine, get right with the law, and be employed legally, rather than illegally, we are doing nothing relating to restoring the rule of law and securing our borders or anything to address our broken immigration system. We are making sure that Members of Congress and our staffs get paid. That is not the wrong thing. Our hard-working men and women who work here should get paid. It is a question of priorities. I would like to see us do something about the 10 or 12 million people here illegally before we start paying ourselves and our staff. What about the highway trust fund? Again, this is an example of Congress kicking the ball down the road 2 months here, 2 months there, a month here, a month there. All the contractors and subcontractors don't even know how to present bids when they don't know whether a yearlong or 2-year project will be funded for more than 2 months. Taxpayers wind up paying more for the same amount of work because we lack the certainty. Then there is the COMPETES Act--the science bill--which targets certain kinds of science which apparently Republicans don't like--for instance, the physical sciences and the geological sciences. Handicapping the physical sciences hurts our ability to recognize the causes of things like wildfires and floods that affect my district in Colorado, foresee patterns leading to events like the great Western drought in California. It seems like, if anything, there should be a focus on a very relevant form of science that impacts quality of life every day. They also apparently don't like, for political reasons, the social sciences. Again, going after the social sciences would harm our ability to adapt for historic storms like Hurricane Sandy or the flood in New Orleans with Katrina and mitigate against floods like those in Colorado. There is an interface between the physical sciences and people, and that is the work of the social science programs: how public health looks, how flood evacuations look, how disease control looks. These are important considerations and should not be politicized by this body, which is why not only I oppose this bill, but dozens of the largest scientific associations and coalitions oppose this bill that ostensibly is for the cause of science. Having all these bills under this rule is what we call a grab-bag approach, just jamming unrelated legislation into ineffective packages that seem to confuse and muddle the meaningful debate that needs to occur. Since 2011, when Republicans won the majority of the House, this practice of jamming several unrelated bills together into one rule has increased by 400 percent. This rule is an example of that, and it is why the American people suffer from the somewhat disjointed debate around it--one person talks about highways; another counters a point about science; another talks about the legislative branch. It is because they are all in here. This is a Christmas tree bill. Now, if it had immigration reform in it, I would support this Christmas tree. I could swallow the others if that was in here. I offered that to the gentleman from Washington, but unfortunately, it is not, Mr. Speaker. In fact, the very people that should be benefiting from the bills we are reviewing today, like scientists, are actually opposing the bills. That should be a signal that this body is not understanding or heeding the needs of the American people. We can reject this rule. We can tell Congress to get back on course. We can tell Congress to do a long-term reauthorization of transportation funding. We can tell Congress to pass a COMPETES Act that actually fosters innovation and makes America more competitive and a legislative branch appropriations bill that furthers the ability of this body to deliberate and be a model employer for those who work here. How do we do that, Mr. Speaker? We do that by rejecting this rule. If we can bring down this grab-bag, Christmas tree rule, we can set this Congress right. I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, the reason you hear so many people talking about different topics is there are three completely unrelated topics in this single rule. There is the funding for all of the legislative salaries and the people who work in this building, that is one bill; another one funds roads, but only for 2 months, across the whole country; and the other one is the one that they say is for science but all the scientists oppose. So that is why it is so confusing. There are three completely unrelated bills in here, none of which do a thing about illegal immigration. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney).

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I was told the gentleman from Washington shares a desire to address the broken immigration system. I know the chair of the Committee on Rules, Mr. Sessions, has indicated similarly. Just as I have posed to Mr. Sessions in the past, I would like to pose to the gentleman from Washington if he has a timeframe for when we can expect immigration legislation here on the floor of the House. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Washington to answer that. Well, sometimes silence speaks louder than words. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule and the underlying bills. We should be celebrating today the start of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals expansion and the Deferred Action for Parents of American Citizens program that President Obama launched in light of the continued failure of this Congress to finally fix our broken immigration system. This Congress hasn't brought forth a single immigration bill, not secured our border, not ensured that employers follow our law and only employ legal American workers; but, rather, at every opportunity, it has sought to thwart the executive branch, doing what they can with the powers they have under our U.S. Constitution to restore the rule of law without the help of this body. These three bills before us today are yet another way of kicking the ball down the road and refusing to address our broken immigration system, a problem that will continue to get worse until Congress steps up and solves it. I hope that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program's expansion, known as DACA--already a great success with additional success along the way with the new expansion--and the Deferred Action for Parents of American Citizens program, or DAPA, are soon unclogged by the courts to at least reduce the size of this sometimes insurmountable problem that Congress continues to refuse to tackle. That is the alternative. If Congress continues to bring up three bills every week and if none of them are about border security and none of them are about immigration, do you know what? Instead of there being 10 million people here illegally, there are going to be 15 or 20 million here 10 years. That is exactly where this Republican Congress is leading us--towards an America where, someday, there might be more people here illegally than there are here legally. Think about that, Mr. Speaker. This first bill that we are considering before us today is not immigration reform. It is, instead, a 2-month extension of the current surface transportation authorization. Our transportation system is the lifeblood of our country. It dictates our ability to move and manage not only people but information, ideas, products, industries, commerce, jobs. By failing to pass a long-term transportation reauthorization, which will ensure the security of our highways and transit systems for more than 60 days, we are putting our Nation's economic lifeblood in jeopardy. The second bill we will see before us today is not immigration reform. The second bill, instead, is a partisan attempt to inject the ideological priorities of my Republican colleagues into education and research, priorities that are opposed by the very titans of research for whom this bill is ostensibly designed. I will talk more about that in a moment. Of the third bill before us today, I am hopeful. Is it immigration reform? I ask the gentleman from Washington: Is the third bill before us today immigration reform? I am happy to yield to the gentleman for an answer. In reclaiming my time, he is speechless. He is speechless because he knows the truth: the third bill is not immigration reform. The third bill is actually the funding bill for the legislative branch of government. Maybe if the legislative branch of government were actually doing its job we would have an immigration reform bill before us; but, no, my colleague from Washington is speechless because he knows as well as I do that this is not immigration reform, that it is, instead, a funding bill for Members of Congress' salaries and the salaries of our staffs. I guess that is more important than securing our border. I guess that is more important to the Republicans than restoring the rule of law. Let me get into these three bills. The Surface Transportation Act would extend the authority of the government to fund our highways for 2 months--only for 2 months. What that means is we risk wasting $51 billion and, in jeopardizing that funding, risk over 660,000 jobs by failing to do a long-term authorization of the highway trust fund. We all have an interest in this. Any one of us can talk about the importance of transportation in our districts. If you have ever been to Colorado, you will know that there is one major artery to get to our world-class ski facilities and unparalleled 14,000 peaks from the metro area--Highway 70. If you have ever taken it, particularly on a Friday, or have come back on a Sunday, you might very well have sat in your car at a dead stop. If you have been to Fort Collins, which is the largest city in my district and is home to one of our great universities, Colorado State University, you might have found similar circumstances around the long rush hour on Highway 25 north. Waiting 45 minutes in traffic to go 5 or 10 miles is something my constituents do every day-- doubling, tripling, quadrupling their commuting time. These stories aren't unique to Colorado. They aren't unique to my district. I will bet every Member of Congress can share the importance of transportation in their districts. That is why, ostensibly, every Member of Congress says, ``We want transportation. We support roads.'' There are no Republican roads and Democratic roads. There are roads. Yet, by continuing to fail to provide a long-term funding structure for them, we are playing games with the livelihoods of the American people, hurting our own economic lifeblood, wasting people's time as they are sitting in traffic, throwing into jeopardy the status of the jobs of contractors and subcontractors, and risking lives by continuing to repair our necessary bridges and infrastructure that have accumulated safety deficits. I urge my colleagues to consider the irresponsibility inherent in this punt. I would also like to talk about the America COMPETES Act. Now, the original genesis of this bill, which was passed in 2007, was to help America compete in an increasingly global environment across the sciences and to ensure our innovative spirit. My district is a hub for scientific research, and we are excited to have the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado State University, NOAA, NREL, and NCAR. Research that is done in Colorado has ramifications and positive effects across the country, like our space weather lab in Boulder, which helps make sure that air traffic controllers and pilots have access to up-to-the-minute information about solar flares that could alter their trajectories in realtime. This bill, instead of continuing the bipartisan legacy that the original COMPETES Act sets out or instead of replacing our broken immigration system with one that works for our country, seems to cherry-pick winners based on ideology and overturns the historic priorities of the bill. Why else would the dean of Research at CU- Boulder oppose this bill? Why else would our widely respected Secretary of Energy oppose this bill? Dozens of the largest scientific organizations and coalitions--this is supposed to be a science bill-- are saying, ``Don't give us this bill. It will hurt science in our country.'' How does that even make any sense? The efforts of the Republicans to hijack this legislation for ideological interests are utterly transparent. Scientists are saying, ``Go home Federal Government. Don't help us with this bill.'' Again, in yet another instance of Federal overreach, the Republicans are imposing their versions of science on those in the field who are doing work. Finally, this rule brings forth H.R. 2250, also a bill that is not immigration reform. It does nothing to secure our border, but it does make sure that Members of Congress get paid. I am sure Republicans can go home happy about that. It makes sure our hard-working staff gets paid, the committees get paid, and the buildings get repaired. No, I am not against those things. Those are fine things. If we had an all-volunteer legislature, we probably wouldn't have the fine caliber of statesmen we have tackling our national problems here today. But it is not immigration reform, Mr. Speaker. It doesn't secure our border, and it will only continue to increase the number of people who are here illegally in our country while Congress continues to punt and to undermine the efforts of the President to do what he can with the powers he has through DACA and DAPA, which were scheduled to start today. I do want to point out that the underlying draft of this Legislative Branch Appropriations Act is another example of the failure to address many of the needs of our country. There was an effort by my colleague Debbie Wasserman Schultz to put forward an amendment to ensure that House cafeteria workers receive a living wage. You would think we would want to be an example of a model employer. I would hope that we, as custodians of the U.S. Capitol, would take some pride in that we are a model employer; we are a little microcosm of what employers should do, best practices. But there is a Senate employee who is homeless because, on the salary he gets, he can't even afford to rent here in Washington. People who work every day here in the Nation's Capital are living in poverty. I think that we can do better as a model employer. If this were my company, I would take no pride in that. I would like to think that this is our company. It is the United States of America, and we are the board. Let's have employment policies that we as employers can be proud of. I urge my colleagues to vote against the rule and to, instead, bring to the floor immigration reform or better versions of these bills: a science bill that, maybe, scientists support, maybe; or a transportation bill that maybe funds our highways for more than 2 months so that people can plan. It is time we begin working for the American people, not against them. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Kilmer), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.