Jared Polis

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, President Trump campaigned on the promise of job creation; however, his budget paints a starkly different and darker picture. It cuts job training programs by 39 percent. It would lead to massive job losses with its cuts. In this body, we talk a little about jobs, but we are 7 months into the 115th Congress and have failed to pass any major jobs bill. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to say that I have an amendment in my hand that will generate thousands of American jobs. When we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative DeFazio's bipartisan bill, H.R. 2510, the Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act. The bill will create thousands of new American jobs through increased investment in our Nation's wastewater infrastructure. 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, reclaiming my time, our Rules Committee can waive germaneness. But it would be an appropriate bill to include, as Mr. DeFazio pointed out, ironically, there are some jobs that this bill will create: people selling oxygen on the street, pulmonologists, and, yes, asthma inhalers because more people will suffer from asthma, and kids with asthma won't be able to spend as much quality time outside if this bill were to become law. Instead of continuing this kind of work that raises healthcare costs, and increases asthma and cancer, we should be focusing on issues that create jobs we want. We don't want the air to be so bad that there is somebody selling oxygen canisters on the street. We want jobs in renewable energy and making our air cleaner, in new forms of energy efficiency and bringing down people's utility bills because we use less energy. That is what excites people and that is what is good for our air. Instead of focusing on those kinds of needs or, God forbid, shrinking the deficit or halting the handout of subsidies to special interests, they are talking about ideas here like this, that further diminish our standing as a world leader and further diminish what makes America special and our quality of life. I hope all Members look in the mirror and think about our health, the health of our children, the health of our elderly relatives, and those most at risk. And we ask: How would this bill affect them? The answer is obvious. It only serves to hurt them. It only serves to make people sicker. It only serves to increase costs, destroy economic value, and create additional risk for our environment. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, during rollcall Vote No. 384 on H.R. 2786, I mistakenly recorded my vote as ``no'' when I should have voted ``yes.''

Mr. POLIS

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, since the Republicans are talking about a bill that makes the Clean Air Act work better, even though, in many ways, that is the opposite of what the bill does, I have offered an amendment that will actually do that. It will make the Clean Air Act work better to keep our air clean so we can breathe more freely, reduce asthma rates, and reduce cancer rates. My amendment would very simply close a very glaring loophole that our current Clean Air Act has--a loophole that every day harms the freshness of the air and the health of my constituents in my State and so many others across the country. My amendment, which is based off of legislation that I have introduced, along with many other cosponsors, four times, including in this Congress, called the BREATHE Act, would close the oil and gas industry's loophole to the Clean Air Act's aggregation requirement. Currently, oil and gas operations, like the one here, are completely exempt from the aggregation requirement in the Clean Air Act. Under the aggregation requirement, small air pollution sources that cumulatively reduce as much air pollution as major sources, like a power plant, are actually rounded out entirely of the protections of the Clean Air Act. Oil and gas is exempt, and they shouldn't be. While one site like this has emissions that are significant, you can imagine having 20,000 of these in one county, which we do in my home State of Colorado, and that cannot conceivably be rounded down to zero. That is the equivalent of several large power plants. We should look at them in the aggregate, where they are close to one another geographically. The aggregation requirement is actually intended to protect the public from small air pollution sources that might individually seem innocuous, but cumulatively account for large volumes of toxic substances that are put in the air. We have areas of Wyoming and northern Colorado that have worse air quality than Los Angeles, not because of one or two or ten extraction sites, but because of tens of thousands within an immediate vicinity. The oil and gas industry currently does not have to aggregate or pull together its small air pollution sources. They round them down to zero. Rounding one or two down to zero is not an issue. Rounding 20,000 in one county down to zero leads to dirtier air, higher asthma, higher cancer rates. If we round down every fracking pad to zero in an area where there are 100 of them, zero times 100 is still zero. But if we multiply a small amount of pollutants times 100, that can equal a great deal of pollutants, not to mention times 1,000, times 10,000. This provides a more holistic fix to make sure that our air is clean. My amendment also adds hydrogen sulfide to the Clean Air Act's Federal List of Hazardous Air Pollutants, which was originally on the list but was, in my opinion, wrongly removed by Congress. The Clean Air Act completely exempts hydrogen sulfide from the list, even though hydrogen sulfide already has been scientifically associated as the cause of a number of health issues, including nausea; vomiting; headaches; and irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat. Hydrogen sulfide often may be released from well heads, pumps, piping, storage tanks, and flaring, which is what we are seeing here. In fact, 15 to 20 percent of all natural gas wells emit hydrogen sulfide, even though control technologies are inexpensive and are already deployed to curtail those hydrogen sulfide emissions. This amendment ensures our oil and gas industry takes the measures that we need to avoid the release of hydrogen sulfide into communities by adding hydrogen sulfide to the List of Hazardous Air Pollutants and by listing oil and gas wells as a source of hydrogen sulfide. My amendment simply makes the Clean Air Act work better. You can't round something significant down to zero, when you have a lot of them concentrated in a particular area. Of course, there is an impact on air quality from 1,000 or 10,000 wells that operate in one county. Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chair, I would like to point out that the Rules Committee granted the necessary waivers to allow this amendment to be considered, as they often do, and this amendment was also considered in a similar bill last session. That is because it is relevant to the subject matter at hand. The Rules Committee often waives those requirements. This bill, as he pointed out, does two different things, both appearing in different sections of the Clean Air Act. My amendment will, very simply, make sure that oil and gas operators play by the same rules as other industries. It doesn't mean that flaring won't occur. It will, and it does. For those of us who live in and around fracking, that is a fact of life. What it means is, whereas, you have the argument the industry has made that if you have one or two of these sites and you round the profile of emissions down to zero, just simply doesn't hold water when you have 1,000 or 10,000 active wells in a very limited area. We can't round that down to zero. It is simple math. The profile of emissions from that site is greater than several large power plants, if you have 10,000 wells. Mr. Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in tribute to Kaye Fissinger, a late resident of Colorado, who passed away at the age of 73. I only got to know Kaye during her time in Colorado the last 11 years of her life. I got to meet her through her work in founding Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont that initiated a successful fracking ban for the city of Longmont and dealt with the disposal of fracking waste products in the city of Longmont. While, unfortunately, that fracking ban was later overturned by the Supreme Court, the legacy of her citizen activism should be inspiring for all of us. Her friend, Marisa Dirks, said: ``She was a fierce warrior for democracy and for our environment. . . . `' Our mutual friend, Bob Norris, said: ``Kaye was dedicated to many aspects of having a better and safer environment for all.'' Kaye is somebody who, as a citizen, was able to pull people together and had more effect on keeping people safe than the politicians. Kaye truly helped give voice to the power of the people, and her legacy will live on with all those who were touched and protected by her actions.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule for providing debate on the National Defense Authorization Act, often called the NDAA, and also the Gaining Responsibility on Water Act. First let me address that act. They tried to create an acronym called the GROW Act, Gaining Responsibility on Water, trying to make it seem like it actually might help things grow, when it actually picks winners and losers in water-- and the losers are the environment, the State of California, and many others. There are also a lot of problems around the process for the GROW Act. It bypassed hearings and markups. In fact, up until this bill was published on the Rules Committee website, only lobbyists and a few Republicans even knew what many of the provisions in this bill were. This kind of backroom dealmaking is one of the reasons the general public holds Congress in such low esteem. There is an immense amount of opposition to this legislation, including from conservation groups, fishing groups, Native American Tribes, and the State of California. Mr. Speaker, I have several letters that I include in the Record in regard to opposition to H.R. 23. One of the letters is signed by groups ranging from the American Bird Conservancy to the Animal Welfare Institute, to the Humane Society and a number of others, discussing how this bill would dramatically weaken protections for salmon, birds, and other fish and wildlife. Another letter that I include in the Record is from a former colleague of ours, now the attorney general of the State of California, Xavier Becerra, and, finally, a letter from the Governor of California as well. Please Oppose H.R. 23 July 11, 2017. Dear Representative: On behalf of the undersigned organizations, we write to urge you to oppose H.R. 23 (Valadao, R-CA). This bill would dramatically weaken protections for salmon, migratory birds, and other fish and wildlife in California's Bay-Delta watershed and would threaten thousands of fishing jobs in California and Oregon that depend on the health of these species. In addition to gutting critical federal environmental protections in California, H.R. 23 also preempts a wide range of state environmental laws and would prevent the State of California from protecting and managing its own water and wildlife resources. In addition to these provisions focused on California, the bill also includes titles that would reduce public and environmental reviews of new dams and water infrastructure across the Western states. Both the Obama Administration and the State of California opposed similar legislation in recent years, including opposition to H.R. 3964 (Valadao, R-CA) and H.R. 5781 (Valadao, R-CA) in 2014, and H.R. 2898 (Valadao, R-CA) in 2015. California has just emerged from a devastating drought, and the state is taking proactive steps to protect cities, farms, and the environment from future dry spells. However, several provisions in H.R. 23 would undermine California's efforts by permanently preempting critical state laws that protect salmon and other native fisheries and the jobs they support. In addition, this legislation would effectively repeal and preempt state and federal laws and a binding settlement agreement that require restoration of the San Joaquin River and its native salmon runs, instead permanently drying up 60 miles of California's second longest river. H.R. 23 not only preempts state law as applied to federal water projects in California, but it also preempts the application of state laws to the State Water Project and virtually all water rights holders in California's Bay-Delta watershed. This extensive preemption of state law in H.R. 23 is contrary to over a hundred years of Reclamation law and would set a dangerous precedent for other Western states. H.R. 23 would also override the Endangered Species Act, increasing the risk that winter-run Chinook salmon and other native fish species are driven extinct. Further, H.R. 23 could devastate wildlife refuges that provide habitat for millions of birds that migrate along the Pacific Flyway by undermining the refuges' water rights and threatening critically important funding sources. H.R. 23 would also eviscerate the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act, eliminating instream flows to benefit salmon and funding for habitat restoration projects, which help to mitigate the adverse effects of the Central Valley Project. The impacts from these provisions would reverberate along the entire West Coast, affecting fishing jobs and related industries in Oregon and Washington that depend on salmon from California's Central Valley and threatening populations of waterfowl and shorebirds that migrate to and from Alaska and Canada each year. In addition to these provisions focused on gutting environmental protections in California, H.R. 23 also includes several titles that would weaken the public's right to know and environmental protection across the western United States. For instance, the bill's dam permitting provisions would give the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation unprecedented control over the environmental review process and could undermine the ability of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and N.O.A.A. Fisheries to share expertise and inform the development of major infrastructure investments. These provisions would make it difficult, if not impossible, for responsible agencies to meaningfully analyze proposed projects and could limit the public's ability to weigh in on infrastructure that could affect communities for decades. H.R. 23 has not been the subject of a single committee hearing to receive public input from the State of California, hunting organizations, sport and commercial fishermen, tribes, or conservation groups, even though the bill could greatly interfere with state water rights and cripple the ability of state and federal agencies to manage limited water resources for all beneficial uses. Last year Congress passed legislation addressing California's water operations in the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act of 2016 (P.L. 114-322). H.R. 23 would undermine that legislation, which supporters claim requires that state and federal water projects are operated in compliance with state law and the Endangered Species Act. H.R. 23 also threatens thousands of fishing jobs in California, Oregon, and beyond that depend on healthy salmon runs from the Bay-Delta. The closure of the salmon fishery in 2008 and 2009 resulted in thousands of lost jobs in these states. The livelihoods and recreational interests of salmon fishermen, Delta farmers, fishing guides, tackle shops, bird watchers, waterfowl hunters, and communities across California and along the West Coast depend on the environmental protections that H.R. 23 would eliminate. For these reasons, we respectfully urge you to oppose H.R. 23. Thank you for your attention. Sincerely, American Bird Conservancy, American Rivers, Animal Welfare Institute, Audubon California, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Endangered Species Coalition, Environmental Protection Information Center, Friends of the River, Humane Society Legislative Fund, International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Institute, Klamath Forest Alliance, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, San Juan Citizens Alliance, Sierra Club, The Bay Institute, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Western Nebraska Resources Council, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, the only winners under this bill are actually a few large agricultural producers who will take all the water, leaving none for many others. This bill is a water grab, plain and simple. The so-called GROW Act provides no new water, but it takes the existing water and gives it to those with the best lobbyists here in Washington. Instead of this highly partisan bill, we should be taking steps to actually grow the water supply for everybody, with water recycling, with water conservation, water efficiency, many other nonideological, nonpartisan fixes, water infrastructure that can actually help deliver water to small farmers, protect our environment, and, yes, our legitimate agricultural producers as well. Unfortunately, instead, we are stuck with this so-called GROW Act, which jeopardizes fishing jobs, preempts State conservation laws, overrides the Endangered Species Act for salmon and wildlife, weakens critical safeguards under the NEPA process, and undermines water rights. In doing so, this bill would permanently destroy California's rivers, Bay-Delta Estuary, needed fisheries, and the thousands of jobs that depend on those natural resources. This bill is not a balanced protection. It picks winners and losers and hands over water rights to those who are present for the backroom deals in Washington. Let's go back to the drawing board. I come from the State of Colorado, and we know how important water is. Let's find a way to find a bipartisan path to grow the water supply across the Western United States. Let me address the other bill that is contained in this rule, the NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act. For 56 straight years, the United States Congress has come together to craft policies and recommendations for the United States Armed Forces and to put those policies into law under the authorizing statute for our military. Without question, this bill is one of the most consequential and important items that Congress undertakes each year. Personally, I have found objections to policies, and I have been a fan of other policies contained in these bills while I have been in Congress. And I want to commend the work of my colleagues, Democratic and Republican, who serve on the Armed Services Committee for their important work on this legislation so important for our national security. Many of my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee have served or do serve in our military. Members of the committee are dedicated public servants, they are experts in their field, they travel and learn and hear from experts, and they set aside many of their political differences to do what it takes to keep America safe and secure, something that Republicans, Democrats, Independents are all committed to. We need to make sure that we give our military the tools they need to safely carry out the tasks that the Commander in Chief and elected officials ask them to undertake. I commend the committee for putting forth a bill that takes constructive steps in filling military readiness gaps, requiring strategies from the administration and the Department of Defense with regard to contingencies in several countries, and acknowledging and planning for the real climate change threat that is posed to our national security. Yet the work of the NDAA is not limited to members of the Armed Services Committee. The Members of this body as a whole, Democrats and Republicans who don't serve on that committee, have submitted over 400 amendments to do what each one of us believes would, in some way, improve this bill and strengthen our national security. But the work of NDAA continues, and before this week is over, I expect to see the Rules Committee make in order an even greater number of these amendments. We took the first step in this rule by making a few dozen amendments in order, and we will continue that work in Rules Committee this afternoon as we thoughtfully go through the 400 amendments so a representative number of those from my Democratic and Republican colleagues who don't have the opportunity to serve on the Armed Services Committee can present those ideas for consideration by the full House. But for all the hard work that the Armed Services Committee has done, what we have before us this week is essentially an argument that needs to be solved by the Budget Committee and can't, frankly, be solved by the authorizing committee. What we are doing is we are having a very strange debate in this body. We are having effectively a budget debate within the defense bill. We are discussing authorization levels, when we know that the real discussion and battle over tradeoffs will be around the funding levels, not so much the authorization levels. One of the tricks that we worry about is by blatantly disregarding the proper use of the overseas contingency fund and by deliberately flouting limitations set by the Budget Control Act, this Armed Services authorization bill has been completely overtaken by the debate on the Federal budget. So this week we see a debate about the inability to pass a budget, adhere to a budget, and balance our budget, and, rather, we are operating kind of in this lala world of, if we had all the money in the world, here is what we would do, but as my Democratic and Republican friends know, we live in a world of tradeoffs, and we as Democrats and Republicans will need to decide what those tradeoffs are. That is not being done in this bill, and, in fact, it is one week less that we have to have those important discussions about how to actually secure America and protect our country. If the debate over armed services wasn't such a serious topic, I would, frankly, give the Republicans kudos for building such an elaborate and complex budget scheme. It is very clever, more so than the traditional overseas contingency gimmicks that have been presented within recent years. It took me a little while to even understand what this budget gimmick was, and I am going to now seek to explain it. The Defense spending budget is capped at $549 billion by the Budget Control Act of 2011. $549 billion is the maximum that would be spent on defense. This bill authorizes $621 billion as its discretionary base budget authority. That means that the bill we are debating today goes $70 billion in spending above the spending caps that Congress agreed on. That is all deficit spending. That means Congress will increase the deficit by $70 billion under this bill, but it gets worse. The United States has been embroiled in conflict abroad since 2001, and many administrations, Democratic and Republican, have requested another pot of money that we call the overseas contingency fund. These funds, as the name indicates, are supposed to be used for paying costs that are incurred due to U.S. engagement in contingency operations, not baseline operations. And they are exempt, rightfully so, from the budget caps, because we never wanted to constrain our ability to provide funding for an unforeseen contingency situation that becomes a necessity for our national security. This year, however, the bill provides for $74 billion for this overseas contingency fund, a full $10 billion above what was even requested by the President. Now, a reminder, the Republicans haven't actually produced a budget this year, so we can't exactly make a comparison between the President's budget and the Republican majority's budget. I think one of the reasons they might be afraid to is they will show substantially increased deficits with these tax-and-spend Republican policies that have come to typify the Republican approach to grow our government with every new spending bill. What the NDAA does is it takes this overseas contingency account, which is often called the slush fund for the Pentagon, it adds $10 billion to that fund, but instead of paying for future contingencies, that will pay for baseline operations. Some of that $10 billion goes to the unfunded priorities of the Pentagon, things it couldn't quite fit in the $621 billion, which already increases Federal spending by $70 billion. So it is just throwing money, Federal money, your taxpayer money, Mr. Speaker, hand-over-fist, without a plan, indebting future generations for spending money today. The Pentagon gets more big ticket items they want. And, likewise, it is hard to argue with funds being allocated to operations and maintenance. We are all for maintenance, we are all for readiness, but we are all for understanding the tradeoffs that we have. We cannot simply continue to spend irresponsibly, indebting future generations. At some level, Mr. Speaker, and I think this kind of throwing additional money well above and beyond the budget caps reaches that level, we make our Nation less secure rather than more secure by making us economically beholden to foreign nations and indebting future generations of Americans. Congress has set limits on how much we can spend on defense versus nondefense. So when we run out of money under this NDAA plan, either we are going to be forced to spend more, which is what you and I can predict what will happen, of course that is what is going to happen, or they are somehow going to find the money elsewhere, which I can pretty much assure you, Mr. Speaker, is not going to happen. That is a prediction that I am giving you. And not having seen a budget, by the way, this is, we think, why Republicans haven't come up with a budget, because they know they can't make enough devastating cuts to possibly pay for this military increase, and they certainly don't want to put their name to paper on those cuts. And we all know what is going to happen. They won't make those cuts, spending will go up, debt will go up. I mean, that is what we know will happen. We have been here before, seen that movie. Now, again, theoretically, Draconian cuts can be made to schools and Head Start and NASA and medical research, money fighting the opioid epidemic, homeland security, police. Yeah, theoretically they can devastate everything inside of our country, leaving a hollowed-out core, a well protected hollowed-out core, but I know Republicans aren't cruel enough to do that. Instead, they are going to kick the can down the road and indebt future generations and make our country less secure by borrowing money from China and Saudi Arabia to fund today's military, making us economically beholden to the very foreign powers that represent a real geopolitical threat to American interests. That is why budgets matter, that is why these budget gimmicks that are being used through the overseas contingency fund matter, and that is why we need to have a budget debate, not a fake budget debate in the context of a national defense debate, which is what is being done here today. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego), a distinguished member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in April, President Trump and congressional Republicans rolled back the FCC's rule to protect Americans' personal information and their internet browsing history. By doing so, they effectively sold personal privacy to the highest corporate bidder. Today is Net Neutrality Day of Action, protesting the FCC's proposal to end equal access to online content, which would destroy the internet as we know it. What better day to also protect the future of our privacy by undoing the Republicans' reckless rollback that placed cable profits above our privacy and consumer protections. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Rosen's Restoring American Privacy Act, H.R. 1868. This bill will restore Americans' privacy protections and tell internet service providers they can't sell their customers' personal information without the knowledge and consent of the customers. 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, to discuss our proposal, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Rosen).

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Vermont.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This bill has several other policies I want to address. For one, it ties our participation in the critical New START with Russia to a separate Europe-focused treaty that Russia is not in compliance with. The New START is a nuclear arms reduction treaty between our Nation and Russia, and we should not remove ourselves from that, from an agreement that allows us to inspect and gather information about Russia's nuclear facilities. In addition, this rule, if adopted, would fail to extend the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance, causing it to expire in May of 2018. The Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance is a program that was originally created in the NDAA, and goes a long way to helping to mitigate the problems that recipients of the Defense Department's Survivor Benefit Plan face. There are other provisions of this bill which I object to in their current form but are going to be debated through amendments very likely over the course of the next week. For instance, the bill currently prevents the transfer of any detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. This detention facility that is extralegal should be closed, not repopulated, and we certainly will have that debate this week. This bill, unfortunately, also authorizes far too many funds and continues to overfund our nuclear weapons activities, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, in fact, as much as $1 trillion over the next 30 years, for a stockpile of weapons that, even if substantially cut, would be enough to end life on the planet. I testified before the Appropriations Subcommittee with regard to this matter and argued how can we possibly go before the taxpayers back home and say we need to overfund our nuclear arsenal to destroy the world seven times instead of five, or five times instead of three. One would think that ending life on the planet once would be more than enough, and it is hard to argue from taxpayers that they should, in fact, pay for this planet's destruction multiple times. We also continue to use force in our ongoing operations in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. I join my colleagues from the other side of the aisle in calling for an updated Authorization for Use of Military Force. To date, Congress has taken zero meaningful actions toward achieving that, yet we hear on this floor regularly from my friend from Alabama and others that Republicans and Democrats need to do that, especially before we put another soldier in harm's way. That is the role of this body, and it is time to stop avoiding the task of writing an Authorization for Use of Military Force. Have that debate and make it happen. These are the types of questions we should be debating, but instead we are continuing to avoid those and plunging our Nation deeper into debt without a real budget plan. Instead of focusing on real questions about how to improve our defense, the general debate on this bill will largely focus on budget tricks. This debate on this budget should happen on the floor, in the Budget Committee, in a budget passed by this body. One of the amendments I offered with my colleague, Ms. Lee, that we will be debating, would cut 1 percent of the money authorized in that bill. That would help. It would be a starting point. It would still be a spending level above the budget caps, but at least 1 percent in the record, reckless deficits from this Republican spending bill. At some point we have to make decisions about tradeoffs, about the directions of our budgets, our entitlements, our discretionary, our revenues, our defense, and our nondefense. We can't resign ourselves to plunging future generations into further debt. My amendment with Ms. Lee is a small, first step taking a stand against unsustainable budget levels that make our Nation less secure rather than more secure. It is the wrong way to do things. It is the wrong time to have this debate. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule so we can go back to the starting board and discuss the items that my Republican colleagues agree are important in terms of the use of the Authorization for Use of Military Force, ending the budget gimmicks, and figuring out how to balance the budget, rather than plunge our Nation deeper into debt. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight the need for bipartisan immigration reform. Until Congress addresses our broken immigration system; secures our border; provides a pathway for people who have been here a long time to be able to eventually earn full citizenship; and provides a way for people who are here illegally and required to register, get right with the law, and get in line behind those who have come legally, it will remain a problem in cities and communities across our entire country. There has been a failure of leadership in this body, the United States Congress, to actually address our broken immigration system. There has been a failure from both sides to provide a pathway forward for a problem that only Congress can solve, and that will only get larger until we take it up here. Last week, I visited the ICE detention facility in Aurora, Colorado. I witnessed and talked to family members and mothers who had been taken away from their American children over something as minor as a speeding ticket. We can, and we must, do better as a nation. We need an immigration system that reflects that we are both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. I call upon my Republican and Democratic colleagues to work together to achieve this end.

Mr. POLIS

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

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I might consume. Mr. Chairman, at a time when we need to balance our budget and prevent a legacy of debt from being left to the next generation, it is really time to ask ourselves: Not only should we blast through the budget caps, but can't we afford to at least make a small and important step towards protecting our fiscal security as a nation, which is a critical part of our national security? By spending beyond our means, we make ourselves economically beholden to other nations like China and Saudi Arabia. That makes America less secure rather than more secure. As structured, the NDAA is fiscally irresponsible. We have had a number of discussions about that, that outside of the context of a full budget discussion, it is hard to talk about exceeding the Budget Control Act by 72.5 billion, an additional $10 billion of base spending. It is a broader discussion about the budget that needs to be had. What my amendment would do, very simply, Mr. Chairman, is give authority to the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Energy to reduce the overall amount of money authorized in this bill by 1 percent. It excludes personnel and health accounts from being included in these reductions. A 1 percent reduction still leaves us well above the original Defense cap spending levels that I actually support. If I had my way, I would keep those budget numbers for defense spending, but I think this 1 percent is a very reasonable compromise for those of us who believe that we need to at least show a symbolic gesture towards fiscal responsibility as we head into the budget negotiations. In this bill, there are many overfunded accounts. Accounts are funded at levels above and beyond what our own military requested. A 1 percent reduction in that context is extremely reasonable. It is $6.2 billion out of this bill. I have no doubt that there are many ways to find the excess money in the bill that we would leave up to the military to reach that spending level. We can consider numerous programs. This doesn't have to be across the board. We can consider programs where the bill authorizes procurement levels that exceed the President's request and the military's request. My colleague from Massachusetts pointed this out during the bill's markup when he introduced an amendment to reduce the number of littoral combat ships from three to the Navy's own request of one. We are effectively blocking the Navy from making a fiscally reasonable decision. There are dozens more--helicopters, aircraft, and missiles--than the President even requested in his budget. So we are not going to cut every one of those items. Many of them have found their way onto the unfunded priority list which the Pentagon provides the Congress. In a perfect world, if we had all the money in the world, we could have included all those items. But at some point, we have to make some decisions about the direction of our military budget, and we can't allow ourselves to be convinced that somehow we can sustain this level of spending. We can't. Frankly, even with this 1 percent cut, the level of spending is unsustainable and plunges us further into debt; but I think, hopefully, that is the least that Democrats and Republicans in Congress can come together around as a simple first step. My amendment is a very small first step. We don't have to choose between protecting the homeland and fiscal restraint. When Congress is imposing spending that the military itself doesn't even want, here is a vehicle to hand the military the ability to rein in some of that unnecessary spending that reduces our national security rather than improves it. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on my amendment and take this modest step towards fiscal responsibility. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chair, the gentleman asked why aren't there cuts for other agencies. That is not the bill we have before us. We have the National Defense Authorization bill before us. I have supported similar cuts in various agencies when we have had those appropriations bills on the floor. This is the biggest bill on the authorization side, and then, of course, the companion appropriations bill. This is over 40 percent of our discretionary expenditures, and the authorization for 40 percent of our discretionary expenditures is in this bill. So a 1 percent cut is very meaningful in this bill. That doesn't mean that 1 percent cuts in other areas aren't meaningful, too. They are. There is no single other area that is as important, fiscally, as this area, and I think it would set a positive tone for reining in out-of- control spending. There are many accounts that are funded at levels above President Trump's request. So if the gentleman is saying somehow that this cut would leave anybody unprepared, he is basically saying that President Trump's budget would leave the military unprepared or leave people poorly equipped. The truth is there are many of us who support vastly lower spending levels and believe that those are sufficient for national defense. That is not even what this amendment does. It simply reduces spending just over $6.2 billion. It still blasts through the budget cap. Mr. Chair, the ranking member has indicated that he supports this bill, and I deeply respect his expertise in military preparedness. I encourage my colleagues to unanimously adopt my amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, Al Green of Texas, for bringing forward a resolution simply acknowledging the importance of this month to the millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans across the country. Al Green's resolution stands in stark contrast to the silence of the Trump administration. For the first time in nearly a decade, there was no White House proclamation to celebrate Pride. And, you know what, Mr. Speaker, we are all proud of being Americans, and we all are proud of our heritage, and we are proud of who we are. Just as people are proud of their Irish-American heritage, or their Catholic heritage, or they are proud to be women or proud to be men, people who are LGBT in our country no longer need to stay in the closet. They can be fully authentic with who they are, and they can celebrate in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood with their allies, and other LGBT Americans. Mr. Speaker, I got to participate in the Pride festivities in Denver this year, and I am looking forward next week to, for the very first time, being the grand marshal of a parade, the Colorado Springs Pride Parade. I have never had the opportunity to be a grand marshal before. But I am glad that Al Green and his cosponsors, including myself, are lending their voice, to say that this body, the House of Representatives, wants to, of course, honor and respect the full diversity of our country, and in the inclusive spirit, celebrate the civil rights accomplishments of the LGBT movement as well as recognize the work ahead to make sure that LGBT Americans are fully equal under the law.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, this week, Senate Republicans are very likely to vote on a bill that would take away health insurance from 22 million Americans, people like Marcia and Grace Kohler in Boulder, Colorado. The Kohlers, like many other families, were able to have access to healthcare through the Affordable Care Act. At the age of 8\1/2\, Marcia's youngest daughter, Grace, was diagnosed with childhood leukemia. She endured 26 months of extensive treatments and several chemotherapy sessions per week. In Marcia's own words: ``Going through this process without the assistance of healthcare is unimaginable. It brings tears back to my own eyes.'' We are simply not a nation that turns its back on our most vulnerable citizens. 39 percent of all children in this country are supported on Medicaid, 64 percent of nursing home residents, and 30 percent of adults with disabilities. I hope my colleagues in the Senate right now think of Grace and all those like her. I hope that they think about the millions of Americans that will have the rug pulled out from underneath them if they pass their cruel bill. For some it is a matter of debt or taxes, but for many it is simply a matter of life or death.