Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. But if the Speaker didn't hear the gentleman make the request, but the gentleman did, in fact, make the request, then can we reconsider the vote?

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, that recognition was sought.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to reconsider the vote by which H.J. Res. 28 was passed.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I would ask the gentleman to yield. There would be an opportunity for you to do, in fact, that, and that would be a motion to vacate the previous vote and postpone reconsideration until next week so that Members could be here and actually cast that vote in the Chamber when everybody is back. That motion is in order. If the gentleman would not object to it, we could actually achieve that.

Mr. SCALISE. Clearly, there are Members who have left. Clearly, there are Members who are here. We can compel Members to return if, in fact, it is agreed to, to have the vote now. But if it is not agreed to, to have the vote now, we do have, within our purview, within the rules, the ability to delay the vote until Members can come back that are not here. So for those of us who are here and want the vote, and for those who have left who would also like that vote, the majority does have it within their purview to work with us to agree by unanimous consent to vacate the previous vote and then bring it back for a vote on the House floor when everybody can come back. And I do want to bring up that the majority leader made reference to the minority leader in terms of what we have been working with the White House on. The President has made it clear that he wants to negotiate, and the President has also made it clear what he is willing to sign and not sign.

Mr. SCALISE. I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I appreciate the fact that now there are a lot of Members who have left the Chamber. But, at the same time, the gentleman from Kentucky did stand and ask for a recorded vote. Whether or not it was heard or not, we will, obviously, have to watch the tape. But it is an important piece of legislation that Members, I am sure, from both parties would like to be recorded on, not just to have a voice vote, which we are opposed to because it didn't reopen the government with border security, and, obviously, we are in the middle of negotiations that we are trying to resolve on that. However, there would be a motion that, I believe, Mr. Speaker, would be in order that would resolve this for the time being while we make sure that everybody has got the opportunity to be back for the vote, and that would be to ask unanimous consent to vacate the previous vote and postpone reconsideration until we return next week.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to reconsider the motion that was laid on the table on H.J. Res. 28.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I know that we are closing this. I do want to go back. Last year, when the President signed the omnibus bill to keep the government open, at that time he said: This won't happen again. He laid down a marker last year that, okay, he will go along with a bill that is far short of what he needs to secure the border, but he wasn't going to do it again. That was a year ago. So everybody has known that this issue is going to have to get resolved because lives are at risk. The President, like we did, took an oath to protect this country. That is what this is about. We surely want to open up all areas of government, but keeping the border secure is part of that. And so when the President signed the bill last year, he said: It is not going to happen again. Now, obviously, when we came to this year, there were some people telling the President the votes weren't there to put the money in place to secure the border. In fact, the now Speaker, when she was minority leader, went to the White House and told the President: The votes aren't there in the House to fund your request for the wall.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who is the majority leader of the House, for our first official colloquy.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland. I appreciate his kind remarks and would return those as well. The gentleman is well-versed at this process and is a noble battler in the debate of ideas. I look forward to having continued conversations about, not only the areas where we may have some differences, but how we can find common ground. The gentleman is very good at working with both sides to find common ground, and, obviously, right now we are in the middle of one of those differences that hopefully can get resolved. As we have been in these meetings at the White House with the other leaders, both House and Senate, Republican and Democrat, the unfortunate thing is that we have been at an impasse. The President, through his Department of Homeland Security, has made a formal request and a detailed request for the amount of money it will take to secure our border; to properly give our agents--the people who are risking their lives to keep our country safe--the tools they need. It requires a lot of things. It might require more border patrol agents, more tools and technology, but clearly also physical barriers. That seems to be the area where we have had an impasse. I know that as the President put a formal offer on the table backed up by the experts at the Department of Homeland Security for what it will take to secure the border, up until this point, we haven't seen a formal proposal response to counter that offer, if, in fact, the gentleman's side does agree that we need to secure the border. The President has made a formal request that came from our experts at the Department of Homeland Security. The only offer I have seen put on the table is the Speaker's offer, and I am not even sure if it was serious, when she said she would support $1. Now, I know the gentleman from Maryland would hopefully recognize that $1 is not a serious counteroffer. The President has had multiple meetings at the White House and has continued to extend an invitation for whenever there is a serious counteroffer that can be backed up with an explanation of how that can actually secure our border, if, in fact, that is the objective of the other side. Can the gentleman from Maryland share with me when that counteroffer will be made, when a formal, serious proposal to get our government back open and secure our border will be put on the table?

Mr. SCALISE. Reclaiming my time, Lindsey Graham did say we need to build the wall. Lindsey Graham has a different solution, I am sure, than the gentleman from Maryland. So let's be clear. And I was speaking to Senator Graham last night about this. He wants to start building the wall. And clearly, your side has not been willing. And the President, by the way, in the meeting in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room, 2 days ago looked at the Speaker directly and said: Okay. We don't agree even on some of these other areas of government that haven't been open, but if you will agree to work with me on the wall, I will support another 30 days of keeping all government going, even on the areas we disagree, but to open everything up and continue negotiations on the wall. And the Speaker said no. We could have everything open today, but the Speaker is the one who is being held hostage by the far left elements of your party because she is yet to agree to anything, not putting more than $1. She said on TV last week she would support $1. That is an insult. And I have yet to see, in any of the meetings I have been in, her willingness to support more than that. And so we could have everything opened today. That offer has been put on the table. The President, himself, has said you can write the definition of the wall. You can ban cement wall. The President has already acknowledged he would be willing to support that. He would be willing to support a lower number if you can justify how it secures the border, but that offer has never been put on the table. We could end this crisis today. Twenty-one days in is too long. And there is a solution. But the solution includes, it is not going to be your way or the highway. You can't say: ``No, we want everything or nothing.'' You have got to be willing to put something on the table that will secure the border of this country, or just say you are not for border security. But you can't say you are for border security and then not agree to more than $1. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman is finished. We will, obviously, have more time to go back and forth on this, but let's keep in mind a few facts. First of all, the last shutdown of the United States Government was dubbed the Schumer shutdown because the Senate minority leader wanted to force his way on DACA.

Mr. SCALISE. Reclaiming my time, those were not our bills. The House had a negotiation going on with the Senate. The Senate, as the gentleman knows, passed some bills--not all of the bills that were brought to the House floor, but brought some bills that were different from the House bills. As you know, when the Senate passes a bill and the House has a different version, you go to conference committee. You don't just say: ``We are going to take the Senate bill.'' Also, as you brought that bill to the floor, the Speaker, the majority leader brought to the floor as part of that package a bill that did not pass the Senate floor, a bill that would have reversed the Mexico City policy. That change was dramatic because that would have allowed taxpayer money to go to foreign government entities that provide abortion. It has been the policy of this country, since Ronald Reagan went to Mexico to deliver that speech and create the Mexico City policy, that we don't give taxpayer money to fund abortion. And I know that has gone back and forth through different administrations. This President has made it very clear that he will strictly enforce the Mexico City policy. That bill on the floor would have reversed it. That is not language that passed the Senate floor. In addition to that, if you go back throughout these negotiations, at the very beginning, the President has been talking about a crisis at the border. The crisis at the border is very real. In our first meeting with the leaders in the Situation Room at the White House, both the Speaker and the minority leader of the Senate interrupted the Secretary of Homeland Security every time she tried to go through this new crisis that we are seeing. It is not just the drugs, which are dramatic and we need to stop. It is not just the human trafficking, which is dramatic and we need to stop. It is not just the murders that are happening. There are murders that happened in so many States. In your State of Maryland, just recently, someone who is in this country illegally from El Salvador was sentenced to life in prison without parole in Montgomery County, Maryland, for the murder of someone, and he had no remorse for his crime. We just saw a police officer in California who was murdered by someone who came back and forth through this country illegally multiple times because we don't have physical barriers to secure our border. So that presentation was interrupted, and we never got through the full presentation; but ultimately, the Secretary of Homeland Security has laid out why we have a crisis at the border, and it needs to be resolved, and they went into a detailed breakdown of costs to secure the border. So at issue right here, now, is a difference in amount. If your side truly does agree that we have to secure our border, which I have heard the Speaker, the minority leader, and others say they need to secure the border, yet they haven't been willing to agree to more than $1 in the request that has been made by the administration to secure the border. So the real question is, at the heart of this debate, if we are all for border security, we can talk about border security. In fact, back in 2006, President Obama, when he was a Senator, talked about the need for securing the border when he voted for the Fence Act. The minority leader, Mr. Schumer, at the time voted for the Fence Act. That language, the language--and you can call it whatever you like: a fence, a wall, cement, steel slats. But ultimately, it is law, language that allows what can and can't be built. The language that Minority Leader Schumer at the time voted for in 2006 would have given the Department of Homeland Security many of the tools they need in language, but not the money. And so now we are at a point where, if it is all of a sudden he is against that kind of physical structure that he was for in `06, he ought to explain why, and so should others who have maybe changed their position. But if the language in 2006 would give the Secretary of Homeland Security the tools they need and the authority they need to actually start securing the ports of the border that are between ports of entry--we have ports of entry, and everybody knows where those are. And we, by the way, stopped a lot of really bad people from coming into our country at ports of entry. What we don't know is how many people come through the areas where we have no ports of entry, where we have no borders. Everybody recognizes that you can't just stop people at the points of entry and then have no protection in the hundreds of miles--we are talking about over 500 miles of unprotected area of this country on the southern border where there is a crisis that is growing every single day. And if we acknowledge that--now, I know the minority leader and the Speaker went on TV the other night and said it is a fabricated crisis. How could you call this a fabricated crisis when you see deaths, when you see over 90 percent of the heroin that comes into this country and kills Americans every single day is coming across our southern border. That is not a fabricated crisis. Those are real serious things that are happening, that are bad. There are good people who come to this country. America is the greatest country in the world for letting people in legally. We let over a million people into our country legally every single year, and it enriches our country. It is a legal process. And there are millions of people waiting to come to this country the right way. So while we recognize that greatness of our country, we also recognize that there are people who are bad people who come into our country every single day as well, and we need to have the tools to secure our border so we can stop that. So the real question is: How much money is the other side willing to support to actually secure the border? If the department that is tasked with keeping our country safe is saying they need $5.7 billion, if you agree to a smaller number, if you want to put on the table a smaller number--it is not $1, and let's at least recognize that was an insult. So if it is not $1, then what is the amount you will support and put on the table to start a real negotiation to solve this crisis? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman for one moment.

Mr. SCALISE. Oh, it lasted very shortly because the gentleman from New York realized he was on the wrong side of the issue, just like right now your side is on the wrong side of this issue opposing border security. Let's be very clear what the fight is about, and it shouldn't be a fight. It is a fight because the President has said: Here is a proposal that my Department of Homeland Security has brought that said these are the tools they need to keep the country safe with a crisis at the border. It can't be denied. I know some on your side want to deny it. I don't think the gentleman from Maryland denies it. But, clearly, when the Senate minority leader and the Speaker of the House go on national TV and say it is a fabricated crisis at the border, the American people see what is happening at the border. We can debate how best to solve it. The President, through the Department of Homeland Security, has put down a proposal of what it is going to take. This is not a new idea. Obviously, the President ran on this as a front-and-center issue. He not only ran on it, but he was elected by the American people as President to carry out border security and build a wall. It was part of the national debate. I know some people on your side don't even want to recognize that that election occurred and the result, but it happened.

Mr. SCALISE. You were not the majority leader when that happened. He was elected on that. We were still in the majority. Let's remember why we are here. To think that this is some new idea the President is bringing forward is ignoring the history, and let's go through some of that history. Obviously, it was front and center in the presidential election, and he was elected in large part on building a wall to secure our country's border. Then we go to the first spending bill as he was President, and we had a disagreement. There were a lot of things that we were in disagreement on. We wanted to rebuild our military, and we finally came to a 2-year agreement to do just that. It was critically important to start rebuilding the military of this country that was decimated, to give our men and women in uniform who risk their lives for our country a much- needed pay raise. We finally did that. In that negotiation, the President wanted and he was talking about $25 billion for full border security, to build out the full 550 miles that are not secure right now, and they are well identified. The gentleman from Maryland knows those areas where we haven't built walls. Sure, we have got some money to build walls. There is about 120 miles of wall being built, wall that is not all cement. Some of it is steel slats. Let the experts figure out the best way to secure our border. We are not the architects of the border. Let the experts be that. But there is some wall being built, but not enough, especially in the areas where Federal law today prohibits wall from being built. You want to know how ridiculous some of the laws are right now that we are trying to change? Federal law prohibits the President from building walls in the most cost-effective way, in the most efficient way. Why would we have those kinds of prohibitions in law? We passed a bill through the House before the shutdown happened. You voted no. A lot of your side voted no. I think all your side, in fact, voted no. But it was a bill the President would have signed that would have given him the tools he needs to secure the border. It went over to the Senate. The reason it didn't get to the President's desk is not because there wasn't Republican support. They have a 60-vote rule in the Senate. I can disagree. You might even disagree, I don't know. I disagree on that. On appropriations bills, they should at least let the majority rule so we can properly govern this country in a more efficient manner. But they have a 60-vote requirement. So the Senate minority, the Democrats in the Senate, all voted together to block it, and that led to a shutdown. That bill would have kept the government running and secured the border, but Democrats voted no in the House, Democrats voted no in the Senate, and so we have a shutdown. How are we going to get out of this? How are we going to get it resolved? We can talk about hostages. We can talk about the people on your side of the aisle who refuse to support any border security with a dollar amount behind it. You can use words all day, but words don't secure our borders. Borders secure our border. Walls and barriers secure our border. The President has said that you can call it and define it whatever you want. He has been very flexible in wanting to negotiate. But in every one of those meetings, there has not been a counteroffer put on the table by your side. If we want to resolve the crisis, it involves both sides coming together. The President is already out there publicly, in our meetings, saying he is willing to negotiate and come to a different place. You should work with your side to come up with definitions, to come up with a different dollar amount. But it has to end in securing our border. If we all agree on that, it has to end in the actual language and dollars to accomplish that objective. The President said: I will give you 30 more days. Even though we don't agree on some of these other things, I will agree to sign that into law, if you will agree to work with me on the wall. The Speaker said no. It was the Speaker who said no, not the President. That is why we are at day 21. We didn't even need to be at day 1. We passed a bill out of the House. The Senate killed it because every Democrat voted no. So here we are. Republicans and Democrats and everybody in this room know how we can solve this problem, but it is not by you all sitting there and saying we only are going to support a dollar and nothing more. Real money has to be put on the table to solve the crisis. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. And so now we need to talk about how to fund the wall, how to fund the structure, call it what you will. And again, the President, himself, has said you can title it however you want. You can ban cement fencing. But at the same time, what Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer voted for in 2006 is the authority to build what is needed, but they didn't put the money there. It is time to finally back up the word. It is hot air until you put the money on the table. So the money has been put on the table by the Republicans, at least an offer, backed up with real data of where the money would be spent to secure this country. There has not been a counteroffer. So let's talk now about the final issue, and that is adjournment. I know later today the House will be voting to adjourn. Last week, the House, under the Democratic majority, as you proudly talk about the fact that you all are in the majority, you all voted to adjourn. We voted not to adjourn. We should stay here to get this job done, to finally have a real negotiation to solve our differences. We can solve our differences, but we are not going to solve them by continuing to adjourn every weekend when we should be negotiating and getting the government back open and securing the border. On this final thought, would the gentleman address the vote, the motion that will be made later to adjourn that we oppose? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. We had over 218, clearly.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland. And when you look at the women who are coming across through this trek to try to cross the border, first of all, asylum has been offered by Mexico to all of the people as part of that caravan. Thousands of people were offered asylum, work permits--turned it down. There is a legal way to seek asylum. It seems to me, if another country offers you asylum and you want to leave your country, you take the asylum, but they turned it down. But the women who are coming over, Doctors Without Borders has done a study and said that over 30 percent of the women who are on this trek have been sexually assaulted or worse. We should all want to address this crisis. There is a way to solve the crisis. If we talk about hostages, both sides can use terms. But when the President of the United States and the White House look at the Speaker and say, ``I will sign a bill that contains things that we have yet to negotiate that I don't agree with; I will sign it if you agree to keep negotiating,'' and the Speaker of the House said no, that is the my-way-or-the-highway approach that is wrong. The President has put multiple things on the table, has offered to negotiate on terms, on dollars, on every front, and not one counteroffer. That has got to change. We can solve this crisis, but it is going to involve both sides being willing to put something on the table to solve the border security crisis. I hope we can get there, and we will keep working at it. I appreciate the comments and the thoughts of the gentleman from Maryland, and I truly do believe that he wants to solve this. We have some differences. Let's keep working and get it done. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. Good for you, and, obviously, things have changed. But when the minority leader then told the President the votes weren't there to fund the wall, maybe the President took her at her word and thought that was an accurate assessment of the House. It turned out she was wrong. We passed the bill to fund the President's request. The House had a difference with the Senate. It is surely not the first time in this country's history where the Senate passed one bill that was short of what we needed to secure the border, and we came back and passed a bill to fully fulfill the President's request to secure the border. So we ended up at an impasse not because there weren't enough Republican votes, but because there were no Democratic votes to do that. And now we are here today. Let's talk about quotes. He wants to quote Republicans. I will quote a Democrat. I won't tell you who it is first. In 2006, when there was a bill to put $50 billion in place, over 25 years, for border security, this Democrat in the Senate said it will authorize some badly needed funding for better fences and better security along our borders, and that should help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country. That was in 2006, for over $50 billion for border security, and the Democrat who said that was then-Senator Barack Obama. So you can quote Republicans. I will quote Democrats.

Mr. SCALISE. That bill passed, but it didn't put the money there, and that is why we are here. And again, he can talk and give great speeches and say we need $50 billion, but if you don't appropriate the $50 billion, the money is not there to actually build the fencing that is needed.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the committee for yielding time to talk about this important program. I want to thank the gentlewoman from California for her consistent commitment to making sure that the National Flood Insurance Program is there for families who need it, families all around the country, not just families, by the way, Mr. Speaker, in coastal areas. This is a program that affects every community in our country. It is a program that affects millions of people throughout the country, hundreds of thousands in my home State of Louisiana, but people from all around. It is an important program. Mr. Speaker, I would love for this to be a private program, where there were great options all around for people to buy private flood insurance. Unfortunately, today there aren't; and so because there aren't those private options, the only game in town is NFIP. So it is incumbent upon us to make sure that this program works. And it has got to be a program that is fair for ratepayers and fair for taxpayers. Mr. Speaker, over the years, we have had many different long-term and short-term reauthorizations. It is well-documented. It has been one of the frustrations of trying to get consistency in the program, but, in the meantime, it is important that this program move forward. Too many people are counting on NFIP to be there for them that have a closing on a home this week; maybe somebody's buying a new house for Christmas and they have to have flood insurance. We need to make sure that that program is there for them. So it is important that we continue to keep this going, while negotiations will go on to see if we can get a long-term solution. The House came together and figured out a way to get a 5-year reauthorization, but the Senate wasn't able to put it together. I have no doubt in the future we are going to have those negotiations and find a way to get a long-term reauthorization for the program. I appreciate all the efforts that are being made. But, in the meantime, people know that you can't just have this program expire as those negotiations go on. So, with that said, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all the parties involved who are negotiating in good faith to try to get this done. Again, I want to thank the gentlewoman from California for her continued efforts to make sure that people, millions of people all across this country have that program. I want to thank the chairman for his years of service. It has been a long time. We have worked together, both former chairmen of the RSC, and I know he is going to have brighter days ahead. I am sure he is glad that he will have a few more days to live out his current career, but I appreciate the gentleman from Texas' service over these years to our country in Congress.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chairman's leadership on this. Mr. Speaker, this is about keeping America safe. This is not a complicated vote, but it is an important vote that really defines whether or not we are going to stand for border security in this country. For decades it has been promised. There have been bills going back to the 1980s where we were promised that we were going to get a secure border, and it never happened. So now we have a President who ran on this issue. This isn't something that just popped up. It was front and center during the campaign. He said: I am going to secure the border. I am going to build a wall. The people on the other side, our Democrat friends, said they didn't want that. Some of them actually said they want open borders. Some on the other side, Mr. Speaker, have said they want to abolish ICE, the very border patrol agents that are keeping the interior of America safe. Who are ICE? Who are the people they want to get rid of, Mr. Speaker? Those ICE agents, last year alone, saved over 900 kids from human trafficking. That is stuff that came across our border. We are a Nation of immigrants and a Nation of laws. My great- grandparents came here from Italy, and I am proud of that. We, by the way, Mr. Speaker, let more than a million people into this country legally every single year. The most generous country in the world. We should be proud of that. For those people who want to say it is a country of closed borders, this is about getting back to rule of law. This is about keeping America safe and saying there is a legal way to come here. President Trump has said that. Even on asylum, he said, if you want to seek asylum, there is a legal way to do it. But it is pretty hard to claim asylum, Mr. Speaker, when you came through Mexico and you forced yourself across that border and Mexico said: We will offer you asylum. We will even offer you work permits and a job--and you said ``no.'' So it is really hard to say you are claiming asylum here in America when you turned down asylum in Mexico when you were coming across their border. So it is not about asylum. It is about rule of law. What do you say, Mr. Speaker, to the millions of people from other countries all around the world who are waiting--in some cases 10 years, 15 years, 20 years-- to come to America legally? They are waiting in these theoretical lines, and they are doing it the right way. Then you have got a few thousand people who say: We are just going to storm across your border regardless. And the President stands up and says: You know what, I want to secure this border. We have a choice to make, Mr. Speaker. Are we going to stand with the President and say we are going to give you the tools to secure the border or not? It is a straight-up vote. You are either for border security or you are against border security. Let's not hide behind it. When you saw that meeting at the White House last week when you had the Senate minority leader and the future Speaker of the House going over to the White House, they didn't want to give the President money for the wall because they didn't want to give him a win. You saw them. They were bragging. They just wanted to assign blame: Are you going to take blame for the shutdown? But they said: We don't want to give you money for the wall. And they have said it since. So if they have got a personality conflict with the President, don't let the security of this Nation get in the way of that. This President said: This is something I believe in because I care about the American people, and I have a responsibility to keep this country safe. I wish everybody who came here across the border wanted to come here to seek the American Dream. But, Mr. Speaker, we know that there are people that have come across this border with ill intentions for our citizens all across the Nation. Again, I mentioned last year the 900 children who were saved from human trafficking. My colleagues have talked about the opioids, the illegal drugs that come across our border. Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security says, on average, every single day in America, 10 known or suspected terrorists try to come into this country illegally. Some on the other side have said: Oh, the number is not 10. Okay, then, what is your number? How many terrorists coming into this country illegally every single day are enough? I say none. There is a legal way to come here. Those are the people, by the way, that we know of. How many people that want to break our laws, that want to do harm to our citizens, that want to jump in front of other people who are trying to come here to America the right way, how many more people have tried to come across that we don't know about because we don't have a secure border? So we have a President who says: I need tools. And, oh, by the way, there are some things that are in law. Right now, we, in law, tell the President where he can and can't build the wall, what materials he can and can't use. So he has got ideas. Mr. President has shown ideas of how to actually build a better border security wall at a cheaper cost, and yet the law prohibits him from building it cheaper, in a better way, more efficiently for the American people. How ridiculous is that? So we remove that in this bill and tell the President he can build the wall however he wants, in the most efficient way, to keep America safe. Again, Mr. Speaker, as I close, we have got a choice to make. There is going to be a bill before us in a few minutes that we get to vote on to say, are we going to stand up for the rule of law and keeping this country safe and supporting the President's ability to secure America's border or not? You can vote ``yes,'' or you can vote ``no,'' but don't hide behind politics. This isn't about the personality of the person in the White House. It is whether or not we are going to respect the rule of law and keep America safe. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize John McCarthy as he is promoted to Captain in the United States Coast Guard. Captain McCarthy graduated from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1997, and after two years of service aboard USCGC FORWARD, he received orders to flight school where he trained to be an HU-25 Falcon pilot. After four years of service, Captain McCarthy reported to Air Station Washington, D.C. as the Operations Officer. Following two years of service as the Military Aide to the President of the United States, Captain McCarthy served at Coast Guard Headquarters within the Office of Budget and Programs. In 2014, Captain McCarthy returned to the Aviation Community as Executive Officer of Air Station Washington, D.C., and in 2017, I had the pleasure of welcoming him to my staff as a Legislative Fellow. During his time in my office, he has been a tremendous asset to our legislative team, and has represented the best of the USCG. I congratulate Captain McCarthy on his promotion within the United States Coast Guard and thank him for his twenty-plus years of service to our nation. This significant achievement distinguishes him as among the United States Coast Guard's most trusted and capable senior leaders.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding, and I really want to thank my colleague, Mr. MacArthur from New Jersey, for his leadership in bringing this amendment forward, which would reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program on a short-term basis through hurricane season. Why are we here, Mr. Speaker? We are here because, first of all, the House did take strong action to pass a 5-year reauthorization of NFIP that included really important reforms, reforms that I was happy to work with the chairman on to pass through the House. But, ultimately, as the bill went over to the Senate, we kept hearing story after story that the Senate was going to pass something, and then a month would go by and another month would go by, and, ultimately, the Senate still hasn't passed anything to reauthorize this program. So it leaves us here literally days before the program expires. Mr. Speaker, we can't play some game of chicken with the lives of millions of families that represent, by the way, all 50 States. All 50 States participate in the National Flood Insurance Program. This isn't something that just applies to coastal communities. You have got every inland State as well that have families that rely on this program to work. Mr. Speaker, what kind of program would we like to see? I would love to see a vibrant marketplace with private sector company after private sector company that would offer options to families just like we have with car insurance or homeowners insurance. But we don't have that today. So what we need to do is usher in reforms like the Ross-Castor legislation, Mr. Speaker, that I am a cosponsor of. Ross-Castor, by the way, was included in the House-passed bill. There are other important reforms that encourage communities to get better mapping from FEMA. Some of those reforms were included in the Royce-Blumenauer legislation which, was also in the House-passed bill. So we could talk about the reforms that are needed, and I encourage us to get those kind of reforms done. But at the midnight hour, let's at least keep this program going for a few more months while we continue negotiating, and let's get a long-term deal that actually has the reforms that will make this a sustainable program with private sector involvement for years to come. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote.