Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman: What was the question? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I hope the gentleman is not going to try to use the VA as the standard of care that every American should get. We saw the scandals at the VA, veterans dying waiting to get care. We actually passed legislation this Congress that got signed into law last Congress to allow veterans to go to another hospital that can actually treat them if the VA is not doing the job. And I know a number of people in the gentleman's party oppose that, but our veterans appreciated it. While you might be able to get good care at some VA hospitals, there were--and the scandals, you have seen the ads, those aren't false ads--veterans literally dying waiting to get into VA hospitals, and the VA was telling us there was no secret list when, in fact, there were secret lists that were not allowing these veterans to get proper care. So the VA CHOICE Act was passed specifically to address that problem and, ultimately, allow our veterans to be able to go to another hospital if the VA isn't properly taking care of them. Our veterans deserve the best care. If a VA hospital can't provide it, then someone else should, and, in fact, now other hospitals are. Our veterans have asked for that and now have that ability. But if the gentleman wants to talk about bipartisanship, again, I go back to the bills that passed out of committee unanimously. When those bills came to the floor, they were changed to make them partisan. And if he thinks 5 Republicans out of 197 is bipartisan, I think he needs to go and look back at what, ultimately, is going to allow a bill to become law. To become law, it is going to have to have a lot more support than that, which means the games have to stop being played. The poison pills can't be put in a bill and then expect that to become law. You can pass it out of the House, and it will never become law. So the ultimate goal, I would hope, would be for us to come together to get a bill to the President's desk. The bills that came out of committee unanimously could have absolutely gotten to the President's desk and would be lowering drug prices. Once you start adding things to them--maybe you get a few Republicans here and there--but ultimately you took an unanimous bill and made it a partisan bill and it is not going anywhere. So there is a path, if you want to get it back on track, to get a bill to the President's desk. You can make statement, or you can make law, and I would hope we do both. I hope we actually work together to make something come together that not just can pass the House and barely get it across the finish line, but where we can get overwhelming support. The ability is there. And those bills, by the way, took years to come together, just like the 21st Century Cures Act, a bill that took a long time to put together when we were in the majority, but, ultimately, got to the desk of Barack Obama, and he signed it. It is great law. It is something that, ultimately, is going to help us cure major diseases, and we came together to get that done. It is law. It wasn't just a bill that we passed out of the House in a partisan way. We worked with Democrats and we got it done. It is on the books now. So I would hope, if we are looking at models to use, that we look at the models of those bills that have actually made it all the way through the process where we worked with people on both sides and solved real problems. That should be the objective. Not to make a statement and just work with a few people here and there when you have a roadmap for something that can be overwhelmingly passed out of this House and then get to the President's desk. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Well, clearly, as the gentleman talks about the Grassley bill that is moving through the Senate, let them do their work. Let them find a way to come together with their 60-vote rule and produce a bipartisan bill. I encourage them to do that. They haven't yet, but I encourage them to do that. When the gentleman talks about the ACA, let's be clear, because the vast majority of people on the gentleman's side now--especially in the Presidential campaign, the Democratic candidates for President--are not talking about the ACA anymore. They are talking about what is referred to as Medicare for All. I will yield in a moment, but if the gentleman read the bill, Medicare for All, number one, it gets rid of the private insurance marketplace. Over 180 million people lose that healthcare. Then, if you look at Medicare Advantage, an incredibly popular and successful part of Medicare is gone. It goes away. So 200 million people lose what they have now that they like, and everybody is placed in Medicare, which, as we all know, pays below- market rates. Most rural hospitals said they will close. If that bill passes, they can't even operate. They will close because they can't continue to run and make any kind of profit. They lose money, and they ultimately close down. They have said it. People know, people understand, how the healthcare marketplace works. Know that if you get rid of the private insurance market, that is what is paying for Medicare and Medicaid today. Medicare for All, which, again, is the catchphrase that is being used by every Presidential candidate on the gentleman's side, and maybe they all want to have their own version of it, is a far different place than even the ACA. We can continue and will continue to have a debate about the best way to fix our broken healthcare system, and focus on lowering prices and protecting people with preexisting conditions, but in a way that you can actually let people choose their own plans and buy whatever they want from wherever they want it. That is how people get all other products. Healthcare, for various reasons, doesn't work that way. But, clearly, on the drug-pricing side, there have been a lot of good ideas that came together that would be proven to lower drug prices. If we want to get into the high cost, which I agree is a problem, let's look at the fundamental reasons why it costs billions of dollars, instead of maybe hundreds of millions of dollars, to create a new lifesaving drug. There are reasons that the cost is so high to bring a drug to market. Thank goodness there are companies that are out there that are willing to invest billions of dollars. Sometimes they don't succeed, by the way, and they have to eat that cost. But if they do succeed in finding a new drug that will save lives, it typically costs billions of dollars and years and years of bureaucratic red tape and other processes that they have to go through to finally bring that drug to market. That is where we should focus our energies, on compressing that process so it can happen quicker, addressing other problems within the way that a drug comes to market so that it doesn't cost billions of dollars, and we can have more lifesaving drugs at lower costs. If we are going to ignore that side of the equation and say: Here, we are just going to set the price without addressing the fundamental problems that are leading to such high costs, then all that is going to happen is that nobody is going to make the investment to go find the next lifesaving drug. You will never know what could have happened. We see every day there are amazing breakthroughs in medical technology, and we want to continue encouraging that. Something like the 21st Century Cures Act actually achieves it. Again, we came together to put that bill into law to now allow for lifesaving drugs, especially in areas like cancer, Alzheimer's, and ALS. We are going to get real big breakthroughs. There are already some big breakthroughs because of that. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of items to address there. First, clearly, there is kind of a recoil that seems to happen by Mr. Hoyer and a number of others on the other side when the term ``socialism'' is used to identify the policies that are being--

Mr. SCALISE. First of all, I haven't seen the ad the gentleman is referring to. But if he wants to start going through ads and he wants me to send him some ads where people on his side lie about positions that Members on our side have taken, I will be happy to give him a litany of false ads, misleading ads, then we can go back and forth on that. But if he is trying to hide from the term ``socialism'' when he promotes socialist policies, we can have a debate about what socialism is. It is an ideology, it is not a word that is thrown around, and it involves government control of your life. So when you move bills like the Green New Deal or when you see a Presidential candidate on your side running around saying he is going to go to people's houses and take their guns--that is a candidate for President of the United States on your side--those are socialist policies. If the gentleman doesn't want the term applied, then don't promote that ideology, don't embrace that ideology, reject the ideology. But he won't. You want to try to play it both ways. You want to try to act like you are going to impeach the President, but say you are not going to impeach the President. You want to promote the Green New Deal, but you don't want to bring it to the floor, so your Members don't have to be exposed to the vote. But, ultimately, as long as the gentleman is going to embrace and allow socialist ideas to come forward, people are going to call it for what it is. And if the gentleman doesn't agree with socialism, then just stop embracing the ideology and the actual policies. So when the gentleman talks about a bill where the President said-- and he read it and I will read it again--let's get it done in a bipartisan way; the bill that was filed by Speaker Pelosi yesterday was not a bipartisan bill, it was a hyperpartisan bill. So we are talking about the House bill. The Senate bill is still a work in progress. And we all know how the Senate works. Maybe they produce a bill and maybe they don't, but it is not a final product. The bill that was filed on your side, yesterday, is a bill that most of your own Members haven't even seen, because it was written in secret only from a very far left approach. When Speaker Pelosi, yesterday, was asked if she is willing to negotiate a bill that doesn't allow the government to negotiate prices, she said, ``no, absolutely, positively no,'' so she is not even willing to negotiate. That is not bipartisan. That is not an approach that is going to get a bill signed into law to lower drug prices. You want to lower drug prices. We worked together. By the way, Ranking Member Walden was not even consulted, but Ranking Member Walden worked with Chairman Pallone to bring bills out of Energy and Commerce, for example, to stop a process that currently is legal that allows drug companies, right before the patent expires, when the drug is about to become available for generics, companies, of course, go and make the generic drug. And, right now, the process of the FDA is for a period of time, usually a rolling 6 months, one company is given the exclusive rights to provide the generic for a period of time. Ultimately, other companies are allowed in. But for the first period of months and months, it could be years, only one company has the exclusive right to do the generic. And the drug companies are allowed to pay the generic company not to sell the product. So you only have the original drug. You don't have the generic available because the companies can pay the company not to make the generic. We have a bill called No Pay for Delay. We make it illegal for the drug companies to pay the generics not to make generics. That will lower drug prices. We also improve the process where you can get the drugs to the generic companies earlier so they can make the product. For the companies to actually make a generic, you have to have available the details of what is in the drug so you can make the generic. And, a lot of times, the companies don't give that information to the generic company, so it is harder to get generics, which are lower prices. It is not the government coming in saying, if you think you know what a drug price should cost, or any product should cost, good luck out there in the marketplace. But if you want to stifle innovation, if you want to stifle the ability to actually go and invest and have companies come up with lifesaving drugs, it costs billions of dollars. If you want to lower drug prices, work with us to reform the FDA process so that it doesn't take 10 years and $5 billion to develop a drug. There are real things that can be done in a bipartisan way to address that, and yet the gentleman's party won't do that. They want to sit in a room and come up with a bill that nobody else has seen, that no Republicans were allowed to be a part of, that is not going to become law. So there is a way to lower drug prices. And, again, there was a package of bills passed out of Energy and Commerce, every single Member, Republican and Democrat, voted for it. That is the path right there to get something done and you shelved the bills. You threw poison pills on the bill, so they won't become law. Why not work with people who have the expertise and come to an agreement? That bill could be signed by the President today. People could be paying lower prices for drugs today, but you won't bring that bill to the floor. Why not bring that package of bills to the floor? If you want to come up with other ideas to lower drug prices in other ways, great, let's work on that, too. But, at a minimum, bring the bills that already came out of committee unanimously, that absolutely everybody agrees, Republican and Democrat, will lower drug prices, and you refuse to bring that bill to the floor, that package. Why not do that? Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman consider bringing that package of bills that was unanimous out of committee to lower drug prices? Every Republican and every Democrat agreed on the committee of jurisdiction that these things will lower drug prices, and we can't get a vote on that. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I know we will have more debates next week over the limited number of items coming to the floor. Hopefully, some of these other items can get addressed in a bipartisan way, but I know there are other battles ahead, and we will do our part to try to come together to address these problems. If the gentleman has nothing else, then I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I would just encourage those talks to move as quickly as they can, because as we share the interest of making sure that not only do we have better agreements, which this USMCA deal that was negotiated with Mexico and Canada does have better provisions for the United States, we need to make sure that there is proper enforcement, because if somebody doesn't follow through, then we need to make sure we can hold them accountable. While I am confident that there are already enforcement provisions in the agreement, if they can be made stronger, I know Ambassador Lighthizer is working to find a way to do that, but also in a way that doesn't start the whole process over, where we don't have to open the entire agreement up and then Mexico, which has already ratified it, would have to go back. Canada stands waiting to move on it as well, but right now, we are the holdup. There are a lot of jobs at stake, over 160,000 jobs. Our farmers are counting on this. So many other manufacturing sectors in our economy are counting on this. So, hopefully, we can move quickly to work through these and then ultimately get it passed and move to the next countries that want to enter into agreements with the United States, and ultimately to confront China, to resolve the differences that we are having with China. But I know the gentleman is working on his side. And, again, I would just encourage that we do that as quickly as possible and expedite it and then get it passed, but we will continue working on that. Something else we would like to work on in a more bipartisan way is drug pricing. The President has been very clear that he wants a bipartisan bill that is worked out here in Congress to lower drug prices. There have been many efforts made and, in fact, positive steps taken by the Energy and Commerce Committee to pass a package of bills out of committee unanimously to lower drug prices. Unfortunately, the Speaker took a different turn and, yesterday, had a press conference and then ultimately filed a bill last night, H.R. 3, which was written in secret. Many Democrats don't even know what is in it. But no Republicans were consulted and involved in the process, and it ended up becoming a very partisan bill, much to the socialist left, which wouldn't solve the problem and, more importantly, wouldn't get to the President's desk because it is not an effort that involved any bipartisan cooperation. Again, I point out there was a package of bills that passed unanimously out of Energy and Commerce that would lower drug prices. Both parties agreed. Every single member on the Energy and Commerce Committee agreed. Unfortunately, that was shelved in lieu of this partisan approach. I would hope that we take it more seriously than that and actually work together to get a bill that the President can sign to lower drug prices as quickly as possible. The approach that was taken yesterday does not answer this call, and I would hope we would do better. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, our hearts will be with him during that ceremony and service, and we will all be there for him to lean on us during these next months. At times it is going to be difficult, but we appreciate the fact that he is going to continue to be with us, but probably be leaning on us even more. A wonderful, wonderful family. Mr. Speaker, I would like to shift gears and ask the gentleman about the USMCA trade deal. I know there have been some more negotiations with Ambassador Lighthizer, and just last week, he had sent a letter in response to some of the issues that were raised by the Speaker and her team that is working on USMCA. I know he worked in those weeks after the initial requests were made to try to see how each of those can be addressed, hopefully in a way that allows us to move forward with an actual vote on the House floor on USMCA. Mr. Speaker, I just want to inquire if the gentleman has any timetable or update on where we are in those talks. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for going through the schedule. I know the gentleman joins me in extending our sincere condolences to our friend, my counterpart as the majority whip of the House, Jim Clyburn, on the loss of his wife, Emily. They were married for 58 years, and were a wonderful family. I know she had been battling for awhile and she is in a better place, but for our friend, I know it is a tough time. I got to know his daughter Mignon, who served on the FCC for a number of years during the Obama administration, and she definitely learned from her mom and dad, just a wonderful person. So, I am sure my friend would join me to extend our sincere condolences and our heartfelt prayers to our friend Jim Clyburn and his whole family during this difficult time with the loss of his wife. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Found out that Americans died when it was known that it was dangerous where they were. Why weren't planes circled? You could have flown jets over there in 15 minutes to scare away the people who were attacking that Embassy and killing Americans. We looked into it, and it raised a lot of questions.

Mr. SCALISE. Maybe it should have been more to look into why those Americans died so that it doesn't happen again. Things like that, which shouldn't have happened, we should find out what went wrong. Why did people miss telltale signs and let those people die who shouldn't have died? Yes, those hearings were warranted, but we never filed Articles of Impeachment. We never said we were going to move to impeach so now let's go figure something out, see if we can find something, and even if we don't find something, we are still going to do it. That is reckless. They took an oath, absolutely, like all of us, to uphold this Constitution and protect this country. We have a border that is not secure. We have thousands of people coming over every single day, including people who are bringing drugs, trafficking humans, young kids who are being abused. We all know what is happening. That is the committee of jurisdiction, and they are ignoring it. They haven't produced a single bill to go and solve that problem. Are they okay with what is going on at the border? They don't think that legislation is warranted to address it, to close the asylum loopholes that everybody knows are a magnet that is bringing people over here illegally, coming through other countries that are offering them asylum to come here illegally? But we don't want to fix that problem because the committee is focused on impeachment. We will see what they do. But the American people are watching, too, and the American people are tired of those kinds of games--every single day, focusing their energies and taxpayer dollars on attacking the President, on attacking his family, on attacking his Cabinet members and people who did business deals with him 20 years ago who are getting subpoenaed and who have nothing to do with his Presidency just because they want to harass the President because they don't like the fact that he was duly elected in 2016. The American people did duly elect him President, and he is doing his job. He is carrying out his mission despite all that. Shame on that committee for continuing to abuse their power by going after something whether it is there or not. Every prosecutor knows you don't try to go find something on somebody. You should follow the facts. If the facts lead you to a dead end, then you end. You don't keep looking. It is not there. They want to keep doing it and abusing their power. But there is accountability that happens, too. That is why we have elections. If that is what the committee wants to do, and if that is what the leadership of this House Democratic Caucus wants to do, people are watching. I want to talk about one final thing, and that is USMCA, an opportunity for us to get something big done for this country. I had a meeting yesterday with Ambassador Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative, who I know has been meeting with Speaker Pelosi and her team. In fact, a few weeks ago, the Speaker, through her trade working group on USMCA, sent a letter to Ambassador Lighthizer, identifying some areas that they would like addressed in the USMCA trade agreement. I understand that, last night, Ambassador Lighthizer sent a reply, including things that he has worked with the Democratic majority on, to try to address some of those issues and ultimately get this done. I say this in the most sincere way: I really do think USMCA is something that we can do together, that we can get an agreement with our friends from the north and south. Canada and Mexico have both come to the table and agreed to make NAFTA work better for American workers, for American industries, for our dairy farmers that can't sell their products into Canada right now that will be able to have better open markets, better working conditions. Clearly, we want to make sure there is enforcement, and I know that is being worked through, to put belt and suspenders. At the end of the day, every day we wait means more jobs we are missing out on creating for our economy. I know that there is still the opportunity to get this done, maybe in the next few weeks. We have a whip team that has been put in place specifically for USMCA. I know there are a lot of Democrats that have been working with Ambassador Lighthizer as well, to try to get this done. I would ask the gentleman if he has any idea of where that process is on his side, if there is any idea of a timeline to finally bring this to the floor, pass this important agreement that would send a message not only to our friends from the north and south, Canada and Mexico, but to our friends all around the world, to Japan and other countries that want to get trade agreements with America but this is holding back because they want to see if this can get done. Then, ultimately, let's shift our focus to China and all the countries around the world that want China to have to comply with the rules that everybody else has to comply with, to finally get these tariff fights over so we can have an even stronger economy. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I share the gentleman from Maryland's optimism about the ability to get there, to get this done, to get to ``yes.'' And with the provisions that are already in place on enforcement, if there is a way to make them stronger, I know that that is something that Ambassador Lighthizer has been working with the gentleman's team on. That is why, while the letter was sent 6 weeks ago, Ambassador Lighthizer started going to work right away, sitting down with folks on both sides, including Democratic leadership in the House, to address those as best as both sides could get agreement; and that is where the letter, I think, finally lays out the remedies to those issues that were brought up. It is my hope that, as that is reviewed, we get to a place where we can find agreement and then get it passed. Mexico has already passed it. Canada is waiting on us. And I think we would send a strong signal to the world that, not only is America the best place to do business, with the strongest economy in the world, but we are also able to reach better trade deals, both for Americans and for our friends. Then there are a lot more folks in line waiting for us to be a part of those kind of deals, too. So I look forward to the ability to keep working on that. I would love the ability to work with the gentleman as the Republican whip, the leader, laying out a floor schedule for when that comes, and we can celebrate something big for this country and the workers of America. I thank the gentleman for his work and for this discourse, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. Found nothing there?

Mr. SCALISE. It shouldn't have happened. It should have been stopped.

Mr. SCALISE. Eight hearings, and maybe more should have been had, to investigate why those deaths happened that should not have happened.

Mr. SCALISE. It was unwarranted, what happened there. Fast and Furious, a lot of questions raised. There were multiple times when the President took action where, ultimately, he was found to be out of compliance with the law, where courts reversed what the President did. We never moved Articles of Impeachment for that. That doesn't warrant high crimes and misdemeanors. Surely, we investigated those things, and in most cases, it turned out we were right. With Benghazi, those questions still haven't been answered, about why they died and shouldn't have, because everybody knew the dangers.

Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, there were a number of items that my friend brought up. I will start with the government shutdown that the gentleman referred to last year. When we were in the majority last year, we passed bipartisan bills to fund over 70 percent of the government prior to October 1--no shutdown--more than 70 percent of the government that we worked with Democrats and President Trump to get an agreement on, including defense, so our men and women in uniform did not have that uncertainty and had that full year of funding. All of that was worked out. Clearly, we had a difference of agreement over the Homeland Security Department because of funding for border security. The government shutdown was clearly over whether or not we were going to have a secure border and all the things that were involved, including physical barriers. We resolved it, and the President was able to get over $4.5 billion of new money to continue putting that physical security in place to secure our Nation's border. That took a few more months, but we resolved it. Keep in mind, over 70 percent of the government was fully funded prior to the end of the fiscal year, working with Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate. As the gentleman brags about passing over 96 percent of the bills out of the House, it has to be noted that the majority didn't work with Republicans to do it. The easy thing is just to say that we will just talk amongst ourselves, knowing it will never get signed into law. Of course, a partisan bill is not going to get signed into law when you have a President of the different party or when you have a Senate controlled by a different party. The Senate works differently than us. We can have that debate for another day. We would probably both agree on a lot of the differences we have with how the Senate operates. But because of their 60-vote requirement, they know nothing is going to pass unless they have Republican and Democratic agreement in those negotiations. Let's be clear about what is bottling up those negotiations. There are Senate Democrats in Democratic leadership on the Democratic side who are offering up things that everybody knows are poison pills that would not get signed into law. They are at an impasse. They need to break that impasse. That is their issue. But, Mr. Speaker, you can talk to some of the Senate Democrats who are trying to offer up things that everybody knows will not happen or become law or pass over there, but both sides need to come together. Mr. Speaker, when you pass an NDAA bill--and the gentleman from Maryland knows this. The National Defense Authorization Act is a bill that a Republican-controlled House or a Democratic-controlled House, no matter who has been in charge, we have come together always. Every single year that we have moved an NDAA, it has been bipartisan. This is the first year that the majority broke from that. The majority passed a partisan bill on defense knowing it was never going to become law but not working with Democrats and breaking the tradition that every year we have followed, that Republicans and Democrats would come together and say that we have all of these other differences--and there are a lot of differences that we have that we need to work through. We might get some; we might not get others. But we put defense on the side and said that this is one where we will come together, Republicans and Democrats in every year we did it, including last year when we were in the majority. This year, the majority did not. They broke that tradition. It is unfortunate because, again, that will never become law. My friend can brag they got it done, but they got something done that will never get signed into law and broke a tradition that we have always had that that bill was bipartisan, making sure that we work together to take care of our men and women in uniform in a way that they deserve and in a timely way. I would hope that we would get those things done before October 1. But we all know what came out of this House is not what is going to be a final product. Let's work better to get these addressed, working with Members of both parties and the President, who, by the way, did agree with us on the numbers. We are in agreement. The House, the Senate, and the White House have finally agreed on the numbers. Now it is up to us in the Congress to come to an agreement. It is not just, hey, we passed our bill with just members of our party. It is going to have to mean people work together through those differences as we have done in the past. Sometimes we disagreed. Seventy percent of government was funded last year prior to October 1. Ultimately, we got agreement on the rest. Does the gentleman have anything else to say on that before I move on?

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, let's be clear on the funding of government. From last year, we did fund over 70 percent of the government, and we didn't play a partisan game with our Nation's defense. This bill, the NDAA, you can talk about what both sides should do.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come.

Mr. SCALISE. Let me make this point, because you have made some points that aren't completely accurate. The number we agreed upon--but if you say, Okay, we agree on a certain spending level, that is one part of the debate. But you then go put policies in the bill at that level that undermine, not only our beliefs of what is best for national defense, but what the President needs to do to be able to do his job to secure our border. You did that in the bill knowing that that would make it partisan. It was a bipartisan bill, and then you added provisions, like things that would undermine the ability to secure America's border in that bill knowing it was partisan. If you took that out, you knew it would have been a bipartisan bill, but you left it in. And that is a pattern we have seen from Speaker Pelosi's majority this year. We had a bill in the Committee on Energy and Commerce to lower drug prices--a major problem in this country. Republicans and Democrats worked for months and came up with a bill in the committee of jurisdiction to solve the problem and lower drug prices. And you know what happened? It was a unanimous vote--unanimous vote. People looking at Congress going, Wow, here in the year 2019, on a major issue like lowering drug prices, Republicans and Democrats came together and figured out a way to lower drug prices, and the vote was unanimous. You would figure we would put that on suspension the next day to pass it out, so we could get it signed by the President as soon as possible and lower drug prices as soon as possible. And you know what happened? It just happened a few months ago. As that bill came out of committee unanimously to lower drug prices, the Speaker made a decision that she was going to put a poison pill in it-- after it came out of committee, before it was voted on on the House floor--knowing what that would do. And it immediately became a partisan bill because you put something in that you knew was not going to get Republican support. And so the bill passed out of the House. And you can brag you passed it, but it is not going to go anywhere. It will not become law, but we had a bill that was unanimous out of committee to lower drug prices. It would be signed into law today if you wouldn't have done that. But you wanted to play political games, and it has happened over and over. And so you can talk about what you passed, but when there was a bill that was unanimous out of the committee of jurisdiction, where doctors, people in the healthcare professions, people in business, people on both sides of the aisle that know this issue figured out a way to put all of their differences aside and pass a bill to lower drug prices, you had to make that partisan after it came out of committee unanimously. That is what has been done over and over that undermines the ability for us to get our job done. We could have gotten that done. It could be signed by the President today, and we could all hail that as a major accomplishment. That is just one example, and it is happened over and over again, and it shouldn't happen that way. So, yes, we need to move this process along, but we move it along by working together. Defense could have been done in a bipartisan way. The things that were added in that you knew would make it partisan shouldn't have been put in that bill. It had never happened that way before, ever. We had always passed a bipartisan NDAA bill through the House, and this is the first year that didn't happen. Drug pricing could be solved, but it hasn't happened yet. It should happen. I hope we get it done, but it should have been done in a partisan way when the committee figured out a way to do it unanimously. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, as it relates to the funding of government, I know that it is important that as we finally got an agreement a few months ago to come up with a 2-year budget process where we agreed on numbers of funding, especially for the Defense Department which needs that certainty, they don't want these short-term CRs. They need the long-term certainty so they can go out and acquire the kind of equipment we need to keep our men and women in uniform safe to effectively do their jobs in a safe manner. One of the things I would point out, as the gentleman talked about the Senate process, let's be clear that the House bills that were passed out moved on a very partisan basis. There were no bipartisan agreements as you passed the bills out of the House. The Senate does work differently. The Senate has to have a 60-vote margin to get any bills moved, so they have been in negotiations to try to get, not a partisan agreement but a bipartisan agreement, and, unfortunately, so far, they have had a lot of problems with some of the Senate Democrats who try to put poison pills in those budget talks that would ultimately not yield something that can get signed into law and would not comply with the 2-year budget agreement that we reached. So I would encourage both on our side, there should have been a bipartisan agreement on the bills that are moved through, and at least there are some talks going on, but they haven't resulted in bipartisan legislation that can get signed by the President. The Senate needs to do the same thing. And so we are beyond the time for partisan differences. Now is the time where we need to come together and agree on those things that we can put in a bill that can get signed into law. Drop this idea of these poison pills that everybody knows will gum up the works. Let's get the certainty that we deserve for a full budget process for the year. We are not there yet. If we have to do a short-term budget agreement or short-term CR, then that is one thing that we may consider next week. We haven't seen the final details, of course. It would have to be clean with no poison pills attached to it. But, hopefully, that yields talks that are truly bipartisan, which we haven't, unfortunately, seen to this point. So I would hope that we can get beyond that next week. It gives us more time to have real negotiations that can result in something that can get signed into law and give certainty to our men and women in uniform and all of the other agencies that rely on us doing that work on a bipartisan basis. I would like to shift gears and ask the gentleman about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, USMCA. I yield to the gentleman if he has something to add to that.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I would hope those Senators on both sides of the aisle, as they are having negotiations--and, yeah, they don't have a bill, but they are negotiating. And there are Senators that know that some of the provisions they are insisting upon are things that will not become law because they undermine our Nation's security. And yet, they keep insisting. And so they are not at an agreement, but they need to keep working just like we need to work in a bipartisan way on those issues. And they will get resolved if we do that. And, again, I think if you go look at the example of what the House Committee on Energy and Commerce did on lowering drug prices, it is a great model to follow. That bill should have been brought to the floor. That bill should not have been changed by the Speaker at the last minute to become partisan, and now it is not law. I would like to move on to something that has been troubling that we have been seeing out of the Committee on the Judiciary, and that is this drumbeat towards impeachment. It seems like there is an infatuation by this majority to impeach the President of the United States, whether or not the facts are there. And so there was the Mueller report that went on for years. And all of these members--chairs of your own committees--saying there was evidence that they had, and it was going to show the President colluded here and there. And then it turned out to be false; there was no collusion. We know that. The report showed that. Russia tried to interfere with our elections when Barack Obama was President. Maybe they should be investigating why he didn't do more to stop the Russians from trying to interfere with our elections, but there was no collusion. So instead of saying, Okay, that is it, move on--as the American people would like to see us do--maybe that committee that has jurisdiction over the border, over immigration law, that has serious problems that should be worked out in a bipartisan way, and could be worked out in a bipartisan way, but it is not, because the committee of jurisdiction is infatuated with impeaching the President. In fact, the chairman of the committee just said today: This is formal impeachment proceedings. The chairman of the committee said that today, as they are having a hearing on impeaching the President without even evidence to impeach him. There is nothing to impeach him on. They have Articles of Impeachment drawn up with blanks that they are just looking around to fill in on this witch hunt, and they are just going to look and look and look. Imagine if somebody said, We are going to target a person and we are going to try to indict him. We don't have anything to indict him on, but we are going to write up an indictment and then look around and look around and hope to find something. And that is what is going on in the Committee on the Judiciary. So they had this hearing today. They changed the rules. They had this big drama. The media is all covering it. The chairman says: This is formal impeachment proceedings. And then you look at the rules that they brought forward. The rules that they brought forward allow the chairman to do things he can already do. It was a farce. It was a farce to try to appease the radical left base that wants to impeach the President, even though there is nothing to impeach him on. And instead of just giving it up and focusing on their job, the things they should be focused on, they are just going to keep meandering around on this witch hunt. And I know some in your majority--maybe even the majority leader himself--are trying to distance themselves from it because they know the American people think that it is lunacy to be wasting time trying to impeach the President, even though there is nothing to impeach him on and just driving around on a witch hunt. And so I guess the real question is, if the chairman of the committee--your chairman--today, said: This is formal impeachment proceedings. He talked about, hopefully, by the end of the year they will vote on Articles of Impeachment--``hopefully,'' by the end of the year. There is nothing to impeach him on, and yet they are going to actually go out on a witch hunt and say, We are going to look for something, and by the end of the year, we hope to impeach the President. So I would ask the gentleman: Are you all bringing Articles of Impeachment to the floor? Is the chairman rightly going down an impeachment road? And what exactly are those articles? What are the Articles of Impeachment, if the committee today--your chairman of your committee--said: This is formal impeachment proceedings? What exactly is the gentleman planning on impeaching the President of the United States on? And are you, if he brings those Articles of Impeachment out of committee--blanks that haven't even been filled in--if they bring them to the floor, or if they move them out of committee by the end of the year, as the chairman hopes, is the gentleman prepared to bring that to the floor of the United States House of Representatives? Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).