Hal Rogers

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Job Corps' 50-year anniversary. Born in 1965, Job Corps was designed as a collaboration between public agencies and private sector businesses and employers to help poor and unemployed young people gain the credentials and employment skills to build careers. Fifty years later, more than 3 million jobless and undereducated youth, employers and local communities have benefitted from this successful model--a comprehensive residential, academic and career preparation program. Each year, more than 50,000 at-risk youth obtain the employment and life skills necessary to start a career. More than 80 percent of Job Corps graduates obtain jobs, enroll in higher education, or enter the military. Furthermore, Job Corps facilities play an important role in their local communities. With 125 campuses across America, Job Corps represents a base of economic activity in American communities that is particularly important during challenging economic times. For example, 228 local jobs are directly or indirectly supported by the average Job Corps campus each year, and $1.91 in local economic activity is generated by each dollar invested in Job Corps. The Pine Knot Job Corps in McCreary County, Kentucky and the Carl D. Perkins Job Corps Center in Floyd County, Kentucky are two successful Job Corps facilities in my district that have made important contributions to their communities. Each year, more than 50,000 high school dropouts, homeless young adults, young parents, students with learning disabilities, and youth aging out of the foster care system enroll in Job Corps because it provides everything they need to start successful careers and become financially independent. Job Corps' open-entry, open-exit model allows dedicated academic and vocational professionals to create self-paced work plans for youth. Counselors, academic and vocational instructors, and residential advisors work with students 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, not only on career pursuits but also on life skills, such as financial literacy and responsible citizenship. I thank Job Corps for its dedication to changing the lives of America's at-risk, jobless and disenfranchised youth. Job Corps remains a community-changing program that affects thousands across the United States. Job Corps continues to evolve and adapt to the changing needs of our youth, businesses and economic conditions and I appreciate their continued dedication.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. That is correct.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. My understanding is that we will take that up later.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I say vote ``yes.'' I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Senate has acted this evening to take up a House bill and amend it to provide a 1-week continuing resolution for the Department of Homeland Security. I rise today to urge the House to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to prevent a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. In a matter of hours, the current mechanism funding DHS will expire. To allow a shutdown of these critical functions would be an abdication of one of our primary duties as Members of the House. It is no way to govern the Nation, and the American people deserve better. It is the 11th hour, and we must act to provide stable, continuous funding for the agencies and programs tasked with defending our home turf. This continuing resolution will last until March 6, allowing us the needed additional time to continue negotiating a path forward on how to fund DHS for the rest of the year. Without any further delay, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this critical legislation.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. My understanding is that we will take that up later.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 33) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to ensure that emergency services volunteers are not taken into account as employees under the shared responsibility requirements contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 33.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I will be brief. There is no money in this bill to fund the President's amnesty program. There is money in this bill to keep the Department of Homeland Security's doors open and in protection of the American people. This will give us time for the bill the Senate just has sent over to us funding the Department; this will give us time to reconcile the differences between the House version and the Senate version, and we will be prepared then to send a bill to that conference committee and, hopefully, then a bill to the President to sign. Madam Speaker, I urge an ``aye'' vote. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close. Does the gentlelady have further speakers?

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 35.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present H.J. Res. 35, a short-term continuing resolution to keep the Department of Homeland Security open and operating until March 19, 2015. This type of bandaid, stopgap funding fix is not the way we should be running things around here. It is the constitutional duty of this body to provide funding for the Federal Government, all of the Federal Government, and this should be done through regular order, without the threat of shutdowns or the lurching uncertainty of continuing resolutions. Mr. Speaker, we face an immediate deadline that makes this continuing resolution a necessity. Without it, the Department of Homeland Security will shutter its doors at the stroke of midnight tonight. This would put thousands of Federal employees on furlough, waste taxpayer dollars, and create instability at the Department tasked with one of the most important functions of government, potentially risking our national security. The House must pass this bill in short order to keep the lights on at the Department of Homeland Security in the near term. Hopefully, this will buy us the additional time necessary. I would prefer and I hope that we pass the full-year, regular DHS funding bill that we negotiated on a bipartisan, bicameral basis last fall. Until both Chambers of Congress agree on how to do that, we must continue to fund the essential daily operations of our homeland security. At the same time, Congress must continue to fight the President's executive actions on immigration, a massive overreach of his constitutional authority and a substantial shift in our immigration policy that I do not support and the American people do not support. I believe we can and should continue the fight on the President's intrusion into our Constitution, but we must also maintain the functions of government that protect the rights and safety given to us by this hallowed document. We have no time to waste, Mr. Speaker. I ask that my colleagues in the House today keep in mind that, as elected Members of the House of Representatives, it is our constitutional duty to fund the government, to protect the people who elected us, and to defend this great Nation. I urge an ``aye'' on the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica).

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 129, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 35) making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2015, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, let's review something. Let's just review briefly where we are and why we are here. The House passed a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security maybe 3 weeks ago in order to give the Senate enough time to consider it and take appropriate action. So the House acted 3 weeks ago and sent the bill to the Senate. The Democrats in the Senate have refused to allow that bill to be brought before the Senate four different times over 3 weeks. Now who is to blame for not funding the Department of Homeland Security? The House has tried. The Senate refused to act, until finally this morning, the Senate took up a clean funding bill for Homeland and passed it. So here is where we are. The House has passed a bill. The Senate now has passed a bill, finally. So what do you normally do? What is the procedure of the Congress when both bodies pass a bill that is different from each other? You go to conference. We have done that from time immemorial. That is the recommended way. That is what is in the Constitution. The conference is necessary, but that is going to take some time. So we need some time to allow the conference to go to work and conclude this problem and work out the differences. Thus, we need this temporary funding bill for the Department, to keep the security of the Nation intact through the Department of Homeland Security while we work out the permanent funding for the Department for the balance of the year. That is where we are. It is fairly simple. I don't know any other way to do it. Perhaps our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have a better idea about how to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate, other than a regular conference committee. A lot of Members of this body are so new to the process that they have never seen or know what a conference with the Senate is. And I think there is some confusion in that regard because people in this body, new to the process over the last 4 or 5 years, have never seen one, and that is sad. So I hope Members will quickly pass this temporary funding bill for the Department and allow the conference committee to go to work. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. There it is. That is the bill the Senate finally passed. It has been 6 weeks--I said 3 weeks, earlier. I am corrected. It is 6 weeks that the House passed a funding bill for the Homeland Security Department, 6 weeks ago, sent it to the Senate, purposefully early, to give them plenty of time to consider and bring forward a funding bill of their own. I have to say the majority over there tried. The Democrats in the Senate stopped consideration of that spending bill four different times over 6 weeks. In the meantime, the House had to sit here waiting for the Senate, and we have been waiting 6 weeks, until just now. Finally, this morning, the Senate has passed a bill funding the Department for the balance of the year, which differs from the House- passed version of that bill, so we have got to go to conference. That is the way the framers set things up. When the House does something and the Senate does something different on the same subject, you have got to bring them together into a conference to work out the differences and come up with a bill for the President to sign. That is where we are. Finally, now, we can go to conference. We could not have earlier because the Senate had not passed the bill. Now, we can go to conference, and we will be asking the Speaker for that designation today. In the meantime, we can't let the Department stop working. Consequently, we are putting before you a bill to temporarily finance them while we go to conference on the main year-end financing of the Department. That is what this is all about. Now, I am glad that the Senate brought the Senate bill and laid it on our desk. Now, it is finally up to us to give the Department a chance to survive and for us to stop the President's amnesty program. By the way, Madam Speaker, there is not one penny in the bill before us, the temporary bill, the CR, there is not a penny in there to fund Obama's amnesty program. We are opposed to it, and there is no money in this bill for that purpose. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter), the chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Appropriations.

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

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I make a point of order against the motion because it is in violation of section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. The adoption of this motion would cause a breach of the 302(a) allocation of budget authority provided by the Committee on the Budget and, therefore, is not permitted under section 302(f) of the Act. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I reserve a point of order on the gentlewoman's motion.

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Madam Speaker, I make a point of order.