Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank my colleague and friend from Georgia for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, with this package of bills, the majority is taking a sledgehammer to civil litigation. I know that my colleague and I are not going to agree with that because I listened intently to what he had to say. But it is closing courthouse doors to ordinary people who are injured in the workplace and makes it harder for working people wronged by the rich and powerful to seek justice. First, H.R. 985 is really a solution in search of a problem. It uses the false notion of rampant fraud in the legal system to shield corporate wrongdoers and deny their victims relief. Second, H.R. 906 has the potential to further victimize asbestos victims. Third, H.R. 720 would roll back significant improvements to the Rules of Civil Procedure and repeat a failed experiment that led to a decade of problems in the courts. By requiring mandatory sanctions that tie judges' hands, we saw an avalanche of unnecessary litigation. The majority is wasting time and taxpayer money to make changes that evidence and the experts tell us are not necessary and could actually cause more harm than good. It doesn't make sense. But consider, Mr. Speaker, how the majority conducted itself on health care for a decade now. Almost immediately after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, 13 Republican State attorneys general filed a Federal lawsuit opposing health reform. That was back in 2010. Since that time, the majority has voted over and over again-- more than 60 times--to undermine the ACA. CBS News has highlighted that it costs the taxpayers an estimated $24 million a week to run the House of Representatives. Think how many millions of dollars of legislative time the majority wasted on these votes that never had any chance of becoming law under the previous President. They wasted taxpayers' dollars and they wasted precious time. The majority spoke again and again about repeal and replace, and all the while, they didn't have a thing in the world to replace the health care with. Former Speaker John Boehner recently made that clear, and it wasn't until this week that the majority finally let Members of Congress and the American people see their latest effort--and it would be a catastrophe for families across the country. More and more groups and individuals are lining up against it. People would be forced to pay more for worse coverage if they could afford any coverage at all. The bill would also defund Planned Parenthood, which more than 2.5 million people, men and women, rely on for lifesaving preventive care, like cancer screenings and STI testing, every single year. It is truly astonishing that the majority is trying to rush through this bill without a Congressional Budget Office estimate about how much it would cost or what impact it would have on the insurance market. Let me quote from a Washington Post story this morning written by the great Karen Tumulty: While it is not uncommon for panels to consider legislation without the Congressional Budget Office first weighing in, veterans of the process say that doing so on bills as far- reaching as the healthcare overhaul is rare and ill-advised. We don't have any idea how many people would gain or lose coverage without the CBO estimate, but we do know that this bill would take us back to the days before the Affordable Care Act when American people were on their own to try and get health care without any real safeguards in place at all; when families were liable to go bankrupt from heavy healthcare costs in a year's time, and the ACA protects them from that by saying that once an insured person has spent $4,500 a year on health care, the insurance company will pay the rest, and for a family, $12,500 to insure them. That is something so rarely talked about that is in this bill that I think is of vast importance, and we would lose that. Billionaires would get a tax break, but working families probably couldn't afford health care. We are rushing through this healthcare bill without a proper understanding of its cost or its impacts. The majority completely skipped the hearing process and, therefore, hasn't heard from experts or doctors or people battling an illness--except, I guess, what is going on torturing people over in the Energy and Commerce Committee where they have been there since, what, over 24 hours now. So we were encouraged yesterday when we learned at the Rules Committee that White House Secretary Sean Spicer had said at a briefing yesterday: Every Member of the House and the Senate will be able to have their opportunity to have amendments offered through the committee process and on the floor. It looks like we are not going to have that opportunity. And I do not have enthusiasm for the notion that we will have an open rule since, under this Speaker we have not had any, and the Democrats long to be able to offer some amendments to this bill. I certainly hope that that might be the case. Now, the only way that happens is through the open rule. As I said, we haven't seen one of those in Speaker Ryan's leadership. I hope the majority follows through with the White House's promise of an open rule because, more than anything on this, the American people deserve an open and transparent process as this bill moves forward. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that would require a CBO cost estimate to be made publicly available for any legislation that amends or repeals the Affordable Care Act which may be considered in the Energy and Commerce or Ways and Means Committees or on the House floor. The Committees on Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce are marking up repeal legislation today. Legislation this significant should not advance through the committee process, let alone the House, without first hearing from our nonpartisan budget experts at CBO on what the cost and overall impact would be. Mr. Speaker, one of the most enduring symbols of fairness is Lady Justice, who is depicted holding the Scales of Justice that represent fairness in our courts. That central idea is embodied in the fact that justice in the United States of America is supposed to be delivered fairly, without any bias toward wealth or privilege. It is no secret that sometimes we do struggle to live up to that ideal. We have seen evidence of that far too often recently. But, Mr. Speaker, this Chamber shouldn't be actively working to tilt those scales toward the rich and the powerful, but that is what this legislation would do. Considering these bills wastes their money and fritters away the time we should be spending addressing our crumbling infrastructure and the skyrocketing cost of education. And, Mr. Speaker, today we got from the American Society of Civil Engineers the new grades on our infrastructure. This year we get a D minus, and we should certainly do better than that. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment into the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, I think I need to make this point one more time. I really believe that everybody in this House understands that not a dime of Federal money is used for abortions. It never has been, never will. There is meticulous care taken by Planned Parenthood to separate those funds. They have never been questioned in any way by the IRS as to how those funds are being used. I am sick and tired of everybody saying you can't give anything to Planned Parenthood. The money that goes to Planned Parenthood from this Federal Government goes to reimburse for services rendered for the things I had talked about before: cervical cancer tests, cancer tests of all sorts, and health care that they cannot get anywhere else, such as screening for STDs. That is totally separate. Yet, that fable that Federal money is used for abortions if you fund Planned Parenthood is totally false. I think it is time that grownups that can read in the House of Representatives do away with that notion. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardenas).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank my colleague from the Rules Committee for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Before I start, I include in the Record a letter from over 20 healthcare provider organizations regarding the danger of cutting certain providers off from title X funding because they also provide abortion with private funds. February 3, 2017. Hon. Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, Washington, DC. Hon. Charles Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, Washington, DC. Hon. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Leader McConnell, Speaker Ryan, Leader Schumer and Leader Pelosi: As organizations representing health care and public health professionals and the people they serve across the country, we strongly oppose any effort to prevent Planned Parenthood health centers from participating in federal health programs, including Medicaid and the Title X family planning program. Any proposal to exclude Planned Parenthood from public health programs will severely curtail women's access to essential health care services, including family planning, well-woman exams, breast and cervical cancers screenings, and HIV testing and counseling. At a time when there is much uncertainty about the future of affordable health care in our country, it is dangerous to cut off access to the life-saving preventive care that Planned Parenthood provides to some of our nation's most vulnerable patients. Planned Parenthood health centers play a crucial role in improving the health and lives of people across the country. In fact, 2.5 million women, men and young people rely on Planned Parenthood for health care every year. For many women, Planned Parenthood is their only source of care-- offering basic preventive services that are fundamental to women's health and well-being. More than 50% of Planned Parenthood health centers are in areas with health professional shortages, rural or medically underserved areas. In 2014 alone, Planned Parenthood health centers provided nearly 400,000 cervical cancer screenings and more than 360,000 breast exams. Additionally, Planned Parenthood provides contraceptive services for over 2 million patients and more than 4 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. These services improve women's health, prevent an estimated 579,000 unintended pregnancies, and decrease infant mortality. Policies that would exclude Planned Parenthood from public health funding would hurt millions of patients and undermine health care access in communities across the country. Limiting access to Planned Parenthood's approximately 650 health care centers across the country would prevent patients from having timely access to basic preventive health care services. Approximately 60 percent of Planned Parenthood patients access care through Medicaid and Title X, in addition to those who rely on other essential programs, including maternal and child health programs and Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) breast and cervical cancer screening programs. In some states, Planned Parenthood is the only provider participating in Title X, and more than 50 percent of Planned Parenthood health centers are located in a medically underserved or health professional shortage area. Because federal law already requires health care providers to demonstrate that no federal funds are used for abortion, prohibitions on funding for preventive care at Planned Parenthood health centers will only devastate access to these life-saving services. In addition to limiting patients access to health care, defunding Planned Parenthood is not cost effective. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that approximately 390,000 women would lose access and up to 650,000 patients could face reduced access to preventive health care within a year should Congress act to block all Medicaid patients from receiving care at Planned Parenthood health centers. The CBO also projects that excluding Planned Parenthood health centers from receiving reimbursement through the Medicaid program would result in a net cost to taxpayers of $130 million over 10 years because of the increase in unintended pregnancies without the contraceptive care provided by Planned Parenthood. Other publicly funded health centers would not be able to compensate for the loss of affordable family planning and reproductive health care services provided by Planned Parenthood. Every day, we see the harmful impact that unequal access to health care has on women and communities across the country, and we therefore strongly support policies that improve access to affordable, quality health care. Policies that would deny Planned Parenthood public health funds only serve to cut millions off from critical preventive care, and we strongly oppose any effort to do so. We also recognize this as part of a broader effort to undermine access to safe, legal abortion and curtail access to other reproductive health care by limiting the ability of abortion providers to participate in public health programs. Sincerely, American Academy of Nursing, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Nurse-Midwives, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Medical Student Association, American Medical Women's Association (AMWA), American Nurses Association, American Psychological Association, American Public Health Association, American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, Doctors for America, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality. Midwest Access Project, The National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health, National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, National Medical Association, National Physicians Alliance, North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology (NASPAG), Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health, Nursing Students for Sexual & Reproductive Health, Physicians for Reproductive Health, Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Society of Family Planning.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from myself and 161 other Members to Speaker Ryan opposing the Republican majority's efforts to undermine title X family planning programs and women's access to health care. Congress of the United States, Washington, DC, February 14, 2017. Hon. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Speaker Ryan: We write to express our grave concern for efforts to undermine Title X family planning. Despite promises to focus on jobs and the economy, Republicans have started the 115th Congress with a total assault on women's choices, access to care, and economic security by: Charging ahead to sabotage and dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA) while making no promises to preserve vital protections for women; Providing little to no details on their plans to replace ACA, while making a point to announce that their ACA repeal package will block access to Planned Parenthood, a high- quality, long-trusted provider of reproductive health services; Rushing to impose and dramatically expand the global gag rule, harming women around the world; and Advancing the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act (H.R. 7) through the House, effectively banning private insurance companies from covering comprehensive reproductive health services. Now, with their most recent effort to weaken the Title X national family planning program through the Congressional Review Act, Republicans have demonstrated that they will stop at nothing to limit women's access to vital health care. Sadly, this includes contraception and family planning services that all women need. For more than 40 years, Title X has served as a cornerstone of safety-net care. As the only dedicated source of federal funding for family planning, Title X allows a diverse network of providers to deliver high-quality care to low-income, uninsured, or underinsured individuals and to those seeking confidential care. In 2014 alone, Title X-funded clinics helped prevent approximately 904,000 unintended pregnancies, 326,000 abortions, and 439,000 unplanned births. In addition to direct clinical care, Title X also supports critical infrastructure needs for health centers, including new medical equipment and staff training that are not reimbursable under Medicaid and commercial insurance. This infrastructure is vital to ensuring safe, quality care at health centers which serve and provide basic health services to high-need populations. Throughout both Democratic and Republican administrations, Title X has been interpreted to prohibit state actions that block providers or classes of providers from participating in a Title X project based on factors unrelated to a provider's qualifications to perform the required services. The networks include providers ranging from state, county, and local health departments as well as hospitals, family planning councils, Planned Parenthood affiliates, federally qualified health centers and other private non-profit organizations. In fact, in instances when states have passed laws to limit provider participation in Title X, federal courts have consistently held that those state laws are contrary to, and preempted by, federal law. In response to a growing number of states targeting family planning providers for exclusion from key federal health programs, including Title X, the previous Administration proposed the regulation ``Compliance with Title X Requirements by Project Recipients in Selecting Subrecipients.'' The regulation, which was finalized in December 2016, helps ensure patient access to family planning services and supplies through qualified providers by reiterating that ``no recipient making subawards for the provision of services as part of its Title X project may prohibit an entity from participating for reasons other than its ability to provide Title X services. During the rulemaking process, the Department of Health and Human Services received more than 145,000 comments, the vast majority of which supported the rule. Women across the United States, and the men who support them, have had enough. It is unconscionable that this common sense clarification has become a political football for members of Congress who want to limit women's access to comprehensive reproductive health care. We urge you to stand in support of women and oppose this assault on contraceptive access and care. Sincerely, Judy Chu, Louise Slaughter, Diana DeGette, Frank Pallone, Jr., Earl Blumenauer, Suzan DelBene, Lois Frankel, Alcee L. Hastings, Brenda L. Lawrence, Sean Patrick Maloney, Jerry McNerney, Danny K. Davis, Eliot L. Engel, Raul M. Grijalva, William R. Keating, Barbara Lee, Doris Matsui, Gwen Moore, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Jan Schakowsky. Jackie Speier, Peter A. DeFazio, Katherine Clark, Dina Titus, Linda T. Sanchez, Mike Quigley, Mark Pocan, Grace F. Napolitano, Alma S. Adams, Mark Takano, Grace Meng, Yvette D. Clarke, Kathleen M. Rice, Brian Higgins, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Pete Aguilar, Betty McCollum, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Suzanne Bonamici, Luis V. Gutierrez, Raja Krishnamoorthi. Scott H. Peters, Anna G. Eshoo, James P. McGovern, John Yarmuth, Wm. Lacy Clay, Gene Green, Jimmy Panetta, Jose E. Serrano, Joseph P. Kennedy, III, Carol Shea-Porter, Jared Huffman, Nita M. Lowey, Carolyn B. Maloney, Niki Tsongas, Andre Carson, Jerrold Nadler, Chellie Pingree, Zoe Lofgren, Seth Moulton, Kurt Schrader, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger. Sander M. Levin, Rick Larsen, Bill Foster, Frederica S. Wilson, Adam Smith, David Scott, Pramila Jayapal, Paul Tonko, Kathy Castor, Marc A. Veasey, Ted W. Lieu, Peter Welch, Ami Bera, Eddie Bernice Johnson, G.K. Butterfield, Steven Cohen, Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Daniel T. Kildee, Beto O'Rourke, Julia Brownley. Marcia L. Fudge, Tony Cardenas, Joseph H. Crowley, Marcy Kaptur, Alan Lowenthal, Bill Pascrell, Jr., Albio Sires, Eric Swalwell, Joyce Beatty, Ron Kind, Pete Visclosky, Cedric L. Richmond, Al Green, Darren Soto, Juan Vargas, Mike Doyle, Bradley S. Schneider, Donald S. Beyer, Jr., Raul Ruiz, Elizabeth H. Esty. Salud Carbajal, Robert A. Brady, Derek Kilmer, Gregory W. Meeks, Emanuel Cleaver, Theodore E. Deutch, Mike Thompson, Hakeem Jeffries, Adriano Espaillat, David N. Cicilline, Tim Ryan, Val Butler Demings, Adam B. Schiff, Brad Sherman, Rosa DeLauro, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Jim Himes, Donald Norcross, Michelle Lujan Grisham, Matt Cartwright. John Conyers, Jr., Gerald E. Connolly, Debbie Dingell, David Loebsack, Stephen F. Lynch, Keith Ellison, Mark DeSaulnier, John Garamendi, Denny Heck, Jamie Raskin, Nydia M. Velazquez, Sheila Jackson Lee, David E. Price, James R. Langevin, Colleen Hanabusa, Robin L. Kelly, Terri Sewell, Ben Ray Lujan, Josh Gottheimer, Susan Davis. Cheri Bustos, Michael Capuano, Jacky Rosen, Norma J. Torres, Donald M. Payne, Jr., A. Donald McEachin, John Lewis, Joe Courtney, Ruben J. Kihuen, Brendan F. Boyle, Jared Polis, Ann McLane Kuster, Jim Cooper, Charlie Crist, Anthony Brown, Filemon Vela, Ed Perlmutter, Lisa Blunt Rochester, John Sarbanes, John B. Larson. Members of Congress.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, the majority is in the midst of an unprecedented and relentless assault on women's health--and many other regulations while we are at it--that are being overturned every day here. Although it pledged to govern by prioritizing jobs and the economy, the majority is, instead, escalating its war on women with H.J. Res. 43, a dangerous continuation of its never-ending crusade against access to health care for women. The majority started the 115th Congress by moving quickly to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act, a law that finally barred insurance companies from treating women as being a preexisting condition. Without this law, women once again would pay a higher rate for coverage than men. Think about that for a moment. If everybody doesn't know it, before this law, single women paid from 10 to 57 percent more than men for their health insurance in States that allowed gender rating. A lot of people don't understand this, but it costs American women nearly a billion dollars every year. But Republicans are rushing to repeal the Affordable Care Act without anything to take its place. The majority has also advanced H.R. 7, a sweeping bill that would go beyond even the Hyde amendment, a 40-year provision that has been around for four decades too long. This legislation wouldn't just make this amendment permanent; it would also place unprecedented limits on women's access to reproductive health services even if they wanted to pay out of their own pockets to access constitutionally protected abortion services. These moves by the majority, along with the President signing a dramatic expansion of the global gag rule immediately after taking office, have brought millions of people pouring into the streets in protest. During the National Women's March, millions of people marched all across the country and even around the globe to defend women's rights. These marches were likely the largest day of protests in American history. More than half a million people took to the streets right here in the Nation's Capital. They were peaceful, without a single arrest reported anywhere in the country. Far from respecting those rights, the majority is today considering a measure that marks an entirely new front in their war against women's rights. This is the most serious threat facing women so far in this Congress, and it is only February. Programs supported by title X help provide lifesaving preventative healthcare services like contraception, cancer screening, and STD testing to the men and women who need them most. It is outrageous that the majority today is trying to allow conservative State legislatures to pick and choose who can provide this essential care with Federal money. That is one of the worst things in the world. The luck of the draw of where you live will determine whether or not you have access that is entitled to all people from the Federal money. This would threaten health centers from coast to coast. Mr. Speaker, we are facing the same problem today we faced for a very long time: men in blue suits and red ties determining what women can and should do when it comes to their own health. They believe the majority of persons--women--in the United States are incapable of making their own decisions. Do you think that about your own mother or your wife? Because Washington, D.C., is controlled by this Republican majority, the stakes for women are higher today than they have been in generations, as we turn over laws passed by the elected government of the District of Columbia. Mr. Speaker, Republican leaders in Congress turn a deaf ear to the majority of Americans who oppose this dramatic government intervention into women's health care. They, unfortunately, have the votes to pass it, but they will have to reckon with the overwhelming majority of the public who understands it is time for the government to get out of the business of taking away women's healthcare rights. Mr. Speaker, let me take a personal moment to speak about the departure of a long-time member of my staff on the Rules Committee. I have always believed that this committee is like family and that we have one of the most respected staffs on Capitol Hill. Adam Berg, the deputy staff director and counsel on the Democratic staff personifies this. After a decade of working for the Rules Committee, Adam is beginning a new chapter on a different committee in the House of Representatives. His knowledge and guidance these last years have been immeasurable. During his time here, he has married his wife, Erika, who is beautiful and talented, and became a father to his daughter, Ariel, who was singing songs with her mother at the age of 3 months. That is a precocious child. Adam has played a key role as this committee brought landmark legislation to the floor of the House, including Dodd-Frank, the Affordable Care Act, and legislation to raise the Federal minimum wage. The committee wouldn't have been as effective without Adam's counsel, and he will be greatly missed. I wish him nothing but the best in his new endeavor. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Panetta).

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield myself the balance of my time to close. Mr. Speaker, we are deeply concerned by reports from our intelligence community regarding the foreign interference in our most recent election. The fears have only been compounded by the troubling revelations published in The New York Times last night that members of the Trump campaign had been in frequent contact with Russian intelligence officials during that campaign. Mr. Speaker, the future of our democracy is at stake. We are seeing the same kinds of things that have happened all over Europe, as governments have been changing away from democracies. It is at stake here, and it is time this Republican-controlled Congress does its job and gets to the bottom of this. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Swalwell's and Representative Cummings' bill which would create a bipartisan commission to investigate foreign interference in our 2016 election. 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.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I recently had the privilege of meeting hundreds of constituents who traveled from Rochester, New York, to Washington, D.C., for the Women's March on Washington. Some of them came with three generations, and it was most impressive, but it is troubling to me that we are fighting many of the same battles that were fought and won generations ago. The unprecedented marches and rallies that have been happening are necessary because of efforts like this to continually chip away at women's healthcare rights. The sad reality is that politicians have always worked to put up new roadblocks between women and their health care. It has always been my personal belief that when faced with a decision that needs to be made about a pregnancy, a woman should consult whomever she chooses--certainly her husband, her spiritual adviser, her medical adviser, but no one wants to wait in the room until a Congressperson gets there to make the final decision. We are going way beyond our depth to try to make that decision for persons. The government should not be in the business of doing that. The majority has made attacking women's constitutional rights the first order of business this year, working alongside our new President, and it is shameful. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, the other measure before us today would repeal the Alaska predator rule which protects the interests of all Americans in national wildlife refuges while banning some of the most inhumane tactics for killing, like killing black bears from an airplane and killing coyote pups in their dens. We should be listening to scientists who study and understand these species, not an ideological minority that sees every animal with teeth as a threat to civilization and a potential addition to their trophy hunting collection. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed Roll Call vote numbers 66 and 67. Had I been present, I would have voted Aye on both.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall vote numbers 62, 63, 64, and 65. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on vote numbers 62, 63, and 65. I would have voted ``aye'' on vote number 64. Personal Explanation

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank my colleague for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, it is unconscionable to me that the majority is prioritizing a repeal of the Affordable Care Act as its top priority for the 115th Congress as the Nation's infrastructure crumbles and as the cost of education continues to skyrocket. It is particularly outrageous that this budget puts the wheels in motion, as my colleague has said, for a repeal of the healthcare law without there being anything to take its place. This budget would also increase our Nation's debt by $9.5 trillion over the next 10 years. Apparently the party that has tried to claim the mantle of balanced budgets for years doesn't really care about fiscal responsibility. It is the first step toward defunding Planned Parenthood, which serves 2.5 million patients--men and women--across the country every year and provides preventative care, like birth control and cancer screenings. It seems to me, for the majority of my adult life, I have been trying to defend Planned Parenthood. The excuse given that the community health centers can pick up the slack is so enormously wrong that the community health centers are scared to death that they are going to be asked to try to pick up that slack of 2.5 million patients. That is absolutely a cover for something that doesn't make any sense at all. I was shocked to read a study over the summer that found that the rate of pregnancy-related deaths in the State of Texas, since they did away with Planned Parenthood, seems to have doubled since 2010, making Texas one of the most dangerous places in the world to have a baby. What was happening in Texas during this time? The State legislature was not only making cuts to family planning clinics where many low-income women received the only medical care they got, but the State was absolutely refusing to expand its Medicaid program, which would have given lower income women desperately needed access to prenatal services.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. The point being--and one of the things we talked about last night at Rules--is that, of the many States in which the premiums, they thought, had gone reasonably high, these were also the States that did not expand Medicaid or set up the exchanges, which were intended to cut the costs. While the causes of maternal deaths are complex, certainly leaving women without access to medical care will not do anything to decrease that mortality rate. Today my Republican friends want to inflict the same harm on pregnant women all over the country by taking away the Medicaid expansion and by taking away money for clinics like Planned Parenthood. I cannot believe that in this day and age and in this century it is even contemplated. I know the American people are paying attention because every day in my office we get between 20 and 30 calls--and have for the last 2 or 3 weeks--begging us not to repeal the ACA. This agenda has the potential to devastate millions of people from coast to coast. Instead of solving problems, the majority is on the verge of creating new ones for families all across the country.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Frankel).

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to present my opposing view. I thank my colleague for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, the new fiscal year began more than 2 months ago. Yet, here we are again, considering another continuing resolution just hours ahead of a midnight Friday deadline to fund the Federal Government. Make no mistake, we are here today up against the threat of another shutdown because of the majority's inability to do its most basic job of funding the government. It is a shame that we have, once again, resorted to short-term measures instead of passing long-term appropriations bills. In fact, the last time that Congress enacted all 12 regular appropriations bills on time was 1994. As a result, the Chamber continues lurching from crisis to crisis. This is the same type of leadership that has brought our Nation years of political brinksmanship, including fiscal cliffs, near defaults on our national debt, and a government shutdown as recently as 2013, which experts from Standard & Poor's estimate to have taken $24 billion out of our economy. And for what, Mr. Speaker? So that the majority can play politics with government spending and try to negotiate a more conservative, partisan appropriations package with a Trump administration and a Congress under one-party Republican rule. It is especially troubling that the majority has taken the unprecedented step of including a provision in this spending bill to change the congressional rules to hasten the confirmation of President- elect Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, retired General James Mattis. That should not be in this bill, Mr. Speaker, but was stuck in here to expedite that movement. The law that was changed clearly states that a Defense Secretary must be out of uniform for 7 years to qualify for a waiver. Certainly that was not done capriciously. It was done so that we can keep civilian control of the military, which is one of the pillars of our democracy. Now, I join with my colleagues in respecting General Mattis' lifetime of service and his dedication to our Nation. At the same time, the civilian leadership, as I have said, has been the cornerstone of our democracy. To risk losing it risks losing a very precious and important tenet of democracy that states that the United States military must be under civilian control. That is no small thing, Mr. Speaker, but it will be done here with a single vote. I am pleased to see, however, that this package includes $100 million in grant funding to Flint, Michigan, to address the ongoing water crisis that has forced residents to drink and bathe in poisoned water for years. Mr. Speaker, I am painfully aware of the lifelong impacts that children will be forced to live with as a result of toxic metal in their water. The neurodevelopmental damage will be staggering, in addition to impacts including hypertension, renal impairment, and anemia. We know that we have to protect the water we have, Mr. Speaker, because we don't manufacture it. The resolution before us today would also bring up the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act. I join my colleague from Georgia in saying how important a bill this is. Those of us who abut the Great Lakes are happy that the Great Lakes Restoration money is there, which will help to remediate 20 percent of the world's fresh water contained in those five lakes. It will also increase funding for dredging small harbors, like the Port of Rochester, which ships and receives an average of 95,000 tons of material each year. Commodities that pass through this port generate more than $6 million in local salaries through my district each year. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, the majority has stripped important language from it, including the Buy American provisions, which we are perplexed by, since they have been in there for years in the past. When asked the question of why it is not there, we really didn't get a straight answer; but the Buy American provisions would require the Federal Government projects to use steel that was made here in America. It is especially disappointing, since President- elect Donald Trump has built several of his hotels with Chinese-made steel despite his pledging to ``Make America Great Again.'' The majority also removed a provision that would have allowed us to utilize funds to improve port and harbor reliability that sit idle in the U.S. Treasury. One other issue that was concerning to us was that the CR does not extend a provision from all of the past years' omnibus bills that exempt returning foreign workers from the H-2B visa. I don't know of any issue most recently that has caused more consternation in my office. I have had almost 100 calls from all over the country saying that they are very dependent on it; and our colleague, Congressman Long from Missouri, said yesterday that it was critical to the State of Missouri to get this in. Unfortunately, we were unable to do that. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui).