Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, this budget doesn't make tough choices. The Republican budget makes bad choices. It doesn't cut one single special interest tax break in the Code while it makes deep cuts to our kids' early education. That is a bad choice, not a tough choice. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), a distinguished member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I want to start by thanking the chairman of the committee, Chairman Price, for conducting the business of the Budget Committee in a professional manner. We have sharp differences but have expressed them in a civil fashion. I also want to agree with him with respect to the great job the Budget Committee staff has done, both Democrat and Republican, and agree with him on one more thing--and it may be the last thing I agree with the gentleman on during this debate. Dr. Elmendorf, the current head of the Congressional Budget Office, has done a great job, and we are going to have a little bit more to say about that later. We all believe in America, Mr. Chair, but I do not believe this Republican budget reflects the values and priorities. It is the wrong direction for America. Now, as we gather here today, we are facing some good news, we are facing some bad news, and we are facing some really bad news. The good news is the economy is improving. More people are going back to work. In fact, the private sector has added 12 million new jobs over the last 60 months. It is not all rosy. Many Americans are still looking for work, but the unemployment rate has fallen to 5.5 percent, and trends are good. The bad news is that Americans are working harder than ever, but their paychecks are flat. This is not a new problem, Mr. Chairman. It is not even a problem in the last 2 years or just the last 5 years. It goes back quite a ways. In fact, as this chart indicates, we have seen a growing gap between worker productivity, which has been rising steadily, and the incomes and paychecks of most working Americans. If you look at this chart, it is very interesting, because it goes from 1948 to the 1970s, and you see these two lines are convergent. That means the additional worker productivity--the hard work of American workers--was translated into higher paychecks and compensation for them. But starting around the 1970s, you saw the great divergence. Worker productivity went up. People are working harder than ever, better than ever, but their paychecks and compensation have been pretty much flat. So, where is the value of that hard work going? If people are working harder than ever, why aren't their paychecks keeping track? Well, that additional value of hard work is no longer going to regular working Americans--people working for a paycheck. It has gone, overwhelmingly, to folks at the top. And I don't mean just the top 10. It has gone, overwhelmingly, to the top 1 percent of Americans, who have seen their incomes rise dramatically even as everybody else has pretty much been running in place and flat. So, our challenge to all those people working really hard--harder than ever--is: How can we make sure that they benefit from that increased productivity? Mr. Chairman, we had some hope right after the November election. I remember opening up the newspaper--The Wall Street Journal. There was an op-ed piece by Speaker Boehner and Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, and here is what they said. They said that they were humbled by the opportunity to ``help struggling middle class Americans'' and to deal with ``wage stagnation.'' That is what they said right after the election. But, Mr. Chairman, the very bad news today for the country is, if you look at this Republican budget, it turns out they were just kidding. This Republican budget is really hard on hard-working Americans and those who are looking hard to find a job. It says, Keep working harder, but you are going to get less. It will do nothing to increase paychecks and take-home pay for working families. In fact, it squeezes them even harder and tighter. It will increase the tax burden on millions of families--those in the middle class and those working hard to join the middle class. Amazingly, it just drops the higher education tax credits. It ends the boost in the child tax credit. Millions of Americans will lose access to Affordable Care tax credits. It is not just working families. Students who are working hard to try and get a job are going to find college even less affordable than today. This Republican budget cuts student loans. It increases the cost of student loans. It starts charging students interest while they are still in college. It cuts $90 billion from Pell--mandatory--and more. It is not just students and working families. Seniors who have worked hard to secure a healthy retirement are going to see their costs go up immediately. Prescription drugs will cost more. Copayments for preventive health services go up right away. Nursing home care will get much more expensive as they cut $90 billion out of Medicaid, two-thirds of which goes to help seniors and disabled individuals. Most of the rest goes to families with kids. And then they turn Medicare into a voucher program that will reduce Medicare benefits. So while this Republican budget squeezes hard-working families, increases the cost of college for students, squeezes seniors--higher costs for them--it is great for those who are already in the top 1 percent. It is great for millionaires. In fact, this budget paves the way for the Romney-Ryan plan to cut the tax rate for millionaires by a third. It paves the way. It green lights it. If you look at this budget, it is based on a failed and unproven economic theory--top-down, trickle-down economics--the same old theory, the theory that collided with the real world under President Bush in the 2000s, right? It cut the top tax rate. The theory was that benefits would trickle down and lift everybody up. Guess what? Incomes to the top 1 percent went up. Everybody else ran aground. Yachts went up. Everyone else's boat ran aground. That is what happened. Guess what else went up? Deficits went up, Mr. Chairman, but everybody else was running in place or fell behind. And here is the thing. While this Republican budget makes life harder right away for hard-working Americans--life will get harder immediately--it also disinvests in our future. It slashes the part of the budget we use to invest in our kids' education--from early education and Head Start to K-12 and beyond. It is a sad day when we start chopping away at the ladder of opportunity in this country. It will also devastate the investments our country has historically made in scientific research and innovation, investments that have helped power our economy and keep us at the cutting edge of world technology. And guess what else? It provides no solution, no answer to the fact that in just a few months, in May, we are going to face a shortfall in the transportation trust fund that will result in a construction slowdown this summer. It does nothing about that in the budget. It says: Oh, we're going to come up with something after today--in a couple months. So, Mr. Chair, when I say that this budget disinvests in America, it is not rhetoric. It is a mathematical reality. I want people to look at this chart. This is a chart of the share of our economy that we spend on the investment portion of our budget--the investment in our kids' education, the investment in scientific research like the medical research to help find treatments and cures to diseases like cancer or diabetes or other diseases that plague American families. Here is what the Republican budget does. It takes that investment budget and throws it off the cliff, to the point that it is 40 percent below the lowest level as a share of the economy since we have been keeping records in the late 1950s. Here is a country that invested in the GI Bill. We invested in our infrastructure and the National Highway System. We have invested in our kids' education. This Republican budget disinvests in America. So it cuts all those things. I will tell you one thing it doesn't cut. It doesn't cut one single tax break for the purpose of reducing the deficit. Not one penny. Not one penny to reduce the deficit. We hear that the highest priority is to reduce the deficit; but, yes, let's cut our investment in education. Yeah, let's cut our investment in innovation. Let's not fund the transportation trust fund--but we are not going to cut one single tax break for the purpose of reducing the deficit, not for corporate jets, not for hedge fund owners, not one. Despite all that and despite the deep cuts it makes in our investment, the reality is this budget doesn't balance. It doesn't balance, not by a long shot, Mr. Chairman. This budget takes budget quackery to new heights. It claims to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but it uses the revenues and the savings from the Affordable Care Act to claim balance at the end of 10 years. Senator Enzi, the new Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said that was kind of a budget accounting that he didn't think was right. The Heritage Foundation, they called that question as well in comments last time this came up. Here is the other thing. The budget doesn't account for the almost $1 trillion in tax extenders that our Republican colleagues brought to the floor last fall and are on the way to bringing to the floor now, $1 trillion. If you add that to the deficit, which is real money, it is even farther out of balance. Then they go and claim a deficit dividend based on phantom deficit reductions. Here is the number. This is in the 10th year. This is in the 10th year when they say their budget is really in balance by $33 billion. Well, it is not. If you take out the Affordable Care Act revenue, if you take out the Affordable Care Act savings, if you add in the tax extenders costs that our Republican colleagues keep bringing to the floor, you don't come close to balance, not close, Mr. Chairman. This balanced budget stuff, it just isn't true. It is just not true. It would make Enron accountants blush. I think, Mr. Chairman, most Americans would agree that this budget-- cutting tax rates for the very wealthy, while increasing the tax burden on working families, raising the cost to seniors, raising the cost to students, cutting vital investments--will simply stack the deck even more in favor of the very wealthy and the very powerful and make it harder on everyone else to get ahead. Mr. Chairman, we can do better. We can do much better, and Democrats will propose a budget that promotes a more rapidly growing economy, with more broadly shared prosperity. That will be the right direction for America. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip, who understands the importance of a growing economy--a growing economy with shared prosperity and a growing economy with fiscal responsibility. (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, as we have previously pointed out, this Republican budget keeps the revenues from the Affordable Care Act even as it claims to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Without that level of revenue, along with other savings, it doesn't come close to balancing. No accountant would certify this Republican budget close to balance. I am now pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Michelle Lujan Grisham), a terrific member of the committee and someone who is an expert on all sorts of issues, including health care.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I listened to my friend and the former chairman and his remarks. The reality is that the President's proposal and the Democratic proposal, we don't increase tax rates; but, yes, we do get rid of some of the tax loopholes in the Tax Code that are riddled with preferences that are there not because they make America more productive, but because someone had a powerful lobbyist who was getting a special interest break for them. If you think about it, if the government provides a grant of $1,000 to somebody, that is $1,000 in value; but if I say to you, Of the taxes you have to pay, I am going to give you a special break so it is $1,000 less, that is a pretty good deal, too. The reality is we spend $1.4 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, each year on tax expenditures, more than on Social Security. Now, some of those are for good purposes, good public policy purposes, but some of them are for like corporate jets, and some of them are for hedge fund managers. Here is the thing. We think that we can get rid of some of those tax breaks to help reduce the long-term deficit. Our colleagues would just prefer to devastate our investments in education and other areas, Math is math, to the former chairman. The reality is--and he knows it--that the portion of the budget we use to make these investments, the Republican budget does absolutely cut that to 40 percent below the lowest levels of the shared economy since we have been keeping records. That is a fact. Another reality is that this Republican budget doesn't balance unless you are using phony math. Mr. Chairman, I am now very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), a great member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I would just say to my Republican colleagues, if you want to vote for a defense budget in a straightforward manner the way the Joint Chiefs of Staff have recommended, then vote for the Democratic alternative. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I am just a little puzzled by the comments from the gentleman from Florida since the Republican study group's budget--and I understand the Republican study group consists of about 170 members of a big majority of the Republican caucus--funds defense in a straightforward way that the President's budget does and that the Democratic alternative budget does. I am interested to hear the Republican study group's budget approach to defense characterized as a fake. I think that would be a surprise to the members of the Republican study group. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. When we are talking about the budget and priorities, the chairman of the committee left out one of the biggest areas of ``spending'' in the Tax Code according to the Congressional Budget Office, and that is the amount of spending that goes through a whole range of tax breaks. If you look at this chart, you will find that what the Congressional Budget Office calls ``tax expenditures'' exceed the amount spent each year on Social Security, on Medicare and Medicaid, on defense: $1.4 billion in tax breaks. Now, some of those are for good policy purposes, but some of them and a lot of them are there because some powerful special interest got some special break that helps him and nobody else, and this Republican budget doesn't touch one of those in order to reduce the deficit, not one. It doesn't close one of those $1.4 trillion in tax expenditures to reduce the deficit. What it does do is make life harder for people who are working hard every day. It increases the tax burden on middle class Americans and on those who are working to join the middle class. It raises the cost of going to college by increasing the cost of student loans. It increases the daily costs of seniors, who are going to face higher prescription drug costs and higher fees for copayments--seniors, students, working class families. I started this discussion by pointing out that we have seen worker productivity grow. American workers are working harder than ever, but their paychecks have been flat. Our Democratic alternative budget will address that issue. This Republican budget makes the situation worse. It doesn't do anything to help hard-working Americans get ahead. It says, Work harder, but get less. You are going to take home less, and you are going to get hit with higher taxes because they take away certain important tax benefits for middle-income and working people. Why in the world we would want to pass a budget that makes it harder on hard-working people today and that disinvests in the future of America tomorrow, I don't know. There is a much better way to do it. We will present an alternative tomorrow which does that. It says we should have a Tax Code that is not rigged in favor of making money off of money, but that actually favors people who earn a living through hard work every day. Our current Tax Code actually gives better tax rates to unearned income than to earned income. That doesn't make sense. We propose to provide important tax incentives and benefits to hard- working Americans; whereas the Republican budget just provides another tax rate cut for folks at the top on the failed theory that it is going to trickle down and lift everybody up. That is not the way to accelerate economic growth. The way to accelerate economic growth is to make sure all hard- working Americans can bring back bigger paychecks to provide for their families, to make sure their families can achieve the American Dream. That is an economy in which everyone moves forward together, as opposed to an economy that says to the folks at the top: you have made it; we are going to give you even more tax breaks, and once you climb the ladder of opportunity, it is okay to lift the ladder up after you. That has not been the way our country has worked from the beginning. Let's reject this budget. There is a better way, and we will have a chance to debate that tomorrow. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As I said at the beginning of this debate, the one thing that the Republican budget, unfortunately, will do immediately is make life harder for hard-working Americans. How does it do it? As I indicated, it actually increases the tax burden on working Americans--middle- income Americans and people working their way to the middle--while providing another tax rate cut for folks at the very top. For people who are working harder than ever and feel that they are just on a treadmill, it doesn't help them at all. In fact, they are going to move farther behind, in addition to the fact that they are going to pile more costs on to students by increasing the cost of student loans. It is right there in their budget. They are going to start charging you interest while you are in college. They are going to start charging seniors with high prescription drug costs even more because they are going to reopen what is called the prescription drug doughnut hole. I don't know how that is good for seniors in America. It is hard on seniors, hard on students, hard on working families. The Democratic budget, like the President's budget, meets those priorities. For example, working families are facing huge childcare costs, so we propose a significant expansion of the child independent care tax credit. We make it a little bit easier for those families who are working but who want to make sure their kids have quality childcare. We make it easier for them by providing them a significant tax credit for that cost. For couples who are working, we scale back the marriage penalty so the second worker doesn't begin work at the same higher tax rate as the first worker in the household. That is the kind of important relief we provide to middle class families and to those working to join the middle class. The Republican budget actually gets rid of some of the important provisions that are already there to help those families, but our budget does this in a fiscally responsible way. As we have seen, the Republican budget doesn't balance, not by a long shot. I mentioned a quote in my opening remarks. I am going to quote the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Mr. Enzi, who said: One of the problems I have had with budgets that I have looked at is that they use a lot of gimmicks. Now, when there was anticipation that ObamaCare would go away and that all of that money would still be there, that is not realistic. I would like to see us get to real accounting with the budget. That is what Senator Enzi said; yet this budget assumes the revenue from the Affordable Care Act at the same time it repeals the Affordable Care Act. What the President's and the Democratic budgets do is put us on a fiscally responsible path, reducing the debt to GDP ratio and doing it in a way that improves economic growth and provides for more shared prosperity, not a budget that provides another round of tax cuts for folks at the top with the hope that somehow it is going to trickle down and lift everybody up. Somebody who knows a lot about these areas is someone who is both a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott). (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, on March 18, 2015, I was unavoidably detained and missed one vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no'' on rollcall No. 125.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, as a supporter of 529 college savings plans--including the College Savings Plans of Maryland--I am pleased to support today's legislation, which makes three common sense technical changes to these valuable savings tools. First, HR 529 makes the purchase of a computer and internet access a qualified expense for 529 accounts, reflecting the reality that computers and the internet are a modern necessity for today's college students. Second, the bill allows students who receive refunds from colleges to reinvest those refunds back into their 529 accounts, provided that reinvestment occurs within 60 days of a student leaving college. And finally, the bill eliminates the existing aggregation requirement for purposes of calculating distributions that are includible in a beneficiary's taxable income. Mr. Speaker, unlike other tax bills that have come before us recently, today's legislation does not seek to permanently extend temporary provisions of the code without paying for that permanence-- and it does not add tens of billions of dollars to the national debt. Rather, HR 529 makes several modest improvements to a program already permanently authorized in law--and it does so at a much lower cost. Accordingly, I will cast a yes vote.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I heard some of our colleagues saying we are opposing this on the basis of process. Really? Cutting nutrition assistance programs for 3.8 million Americans is process? You know what else their budget did? It cut the category of spending that we use for the Women, Infants, and Children program to the point that 200,000 women, infants, and children would have been cut off of supplemental nutrition assistance under the Women, Infants, and Children program. Process? Really? I thought our colleagues were saying they wanted to fight hunger. That budget last year, the one I am holding in my hands that passed here, you know what else it did? It did not extend tax credits for vulnerable people. It did not extend the earned income tax credit bump up. It did not extend the child tax credit. At the same time, they had a budget, and I suspect they will again this year, that cuts the top income tax rate for millionaires. That is what they do. We can do a lot better, Mr. Speaker. That is what Democrats are saying. We can make these reforms to the Tax Code. We can make the charitable deduction permanent, but we can do it in a way that doesn't hurt other programs for hungry people. We can help hungry people through one mechanism without hurting those same people through another mechanism. That is why the President said he was going to veto this bill, not because it helps the deduction for charitable giving. This is a bill that says we are going to help some hungry people. But you know what? We are going to do something else in our budget that actually hurts those same hungry people even more, much more. Now, I am also holding in my hand the Democratic budget that was presented last year. You know what we do? We permanently extended this charitable deduction--permanently--just like this bill. But you know what we did not do?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. So I just want to be clear. In our budget, we extended permanently this charitable deduction to fight hunger, the fighting hunger incentive. We did that. But you know what we did not do? We did not cut the food and nutrition program, SNAP, by 20 percent. You know what we did not do? We did not cut the part of the budget that funds the Women, Infants, and Children program so that 200,000 people would not have the benefit of that. You know what we did do? We cut a lot of the corporate tax breaks. We said we should not have a Tax Code that actually rewards American companies that move American jobs and capital overseas, so we would cut down on those. In that way, we were able to pay for them. That way, Mr. Speaker, we were able to extend the charitable deduction permanently, but we were also able to avoid cutting the Women, Infants, and Children program and avoid cutting the food and nutrition programs. That is what we are saying. Unfortunately, the bill before us today, what they are saying is, by increasing the deficit, yes, we are going to extend this program to fight hunger; but, on the other hand, when their budget comes around next year, they are actually going to pass stuff that hurts those same people even more. What we are saying is we don't have to help people by hurting people. We can do it all if we are willing to cut some of those corporate tax breaks, tax expenditures, spinning the Tax Code for major corporations that are put there because they have good lobbyists in Washington. So let's do this the right way. That's the way we did it in the Democratic budget last year. That is the way we will do it in the Democratic budget again this year. Let's not help people by hurting other people or even hurting the people we are trying to help. Mr. Speaker, I regretfully urge that we reject this bill and do this the right way.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my friend from Michigan. Mr. Speaker, things are not always what they seem, and this is one of those cases. It is unfortunate because tax incentives for charitable giving are the kind of issues we should be handling in a bipartisan way. We should be working together in a bipartisan manner to reform our Tax Code and this as part of that. Unfortunately, we are not doing that today, and this bill along with the series of other bills that will be coming to the floor in the days to come will add $350 billion to our deficit over the next 10 years. Mr. Speaker, most of the bills that are coming next are permanent extensions of tax breaks to major corporations. In the process, they don't pay for any of that. They don't close a single corporate tax loophole to provide those tax breaks. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am holding in my hand the budget that Republicans passed in this House just a year ago. Now we have the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means--he was chairman of the Committee on the Budget, a good friend of mine. In their budget last year, they said they would not do what they are doing today. They passed a budget saying they would not have tax extenders that added to the deficit. I am reading right here from the budget that I think passed unanimously with Republican votes. It says they will only do these tax extenders if such measures would not increase the deficit for the period of fiscal years 2015 to 2024. Here we are, less than a year later, throw their budget out the door. Why did it matter? Because last year they wanted to pretend their budget was in balance after 10 years, and they knew that if you had these tax extenders that were unpaid for, they wouldn't have a balanced budget. It wasn't balanced anyway, but no matter, that is why they did it. Now, why does this matter beyond the fact that the Republican majority did one thing last year and is doing something different today? It matters because when you increase the deficits, our Republican colleagues are going to come right back around to us and say: You know what? The deficits are going to go up, and so we have to cut some of the investments that are supposed to help vulnerable people--the very people our Republican colleagues say they want to help today. They are going to say: Deficits are going up. We have got to cut those programs. You know how we know that? Even before they increase the deficit like they are doing today, they were cutting those investments last year. In fact, while they are claiming to fight hunger today, here is what the budget from last year did: it would have cut the food and nutrition programs by 20 percent, $137 billion. That would have ended nutrition assistance for 3.8 million Americans. Now, I heard one of my friends and colleagues, Mr. Roskam from Illinois, saying Democrats are opposing this.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, once again, House Republicans are wasting America's time with another pointless vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. If this bill were to become law, it would rip away affordable health insurance coverage from millions of Americans, allow insurance companies to once again deny coverage based on pre-existing health conditions, and increase costs for seniors with Medicare. We could spend our time debating and voting on legislation to promote economic growth and ensure that American workers share in the economic gains that they help produce. We could debate and vote on ways to boost middle-class take-home pay through targeted tax reforms, paid for by reducing tax giveaways to special interests and the wealthy. We could have a vote in the House--at long last--on bipartisan immigration reform legislation, or on a plan to replace meat-ax sequestration spending cuts with a smarter deficit-reduction plan. Instead, we vote for the 56th time on whether to repeal or undermine a law that has already done so much to make insurance companies more accountable, hold down the growth of health spending, and improve American families' economic security by making sure they all have access to affordable health insurance. The Affordable Care Act is not perfect. Like Medicare and Social Security before it, the law will benefit from adjustments over time. If Republicans were serious about improving the United States' health care system, we would sit down and hammer out real improvements to the Affordable Care Act based on what we have learned as the law has taken effect. Instead, we are voting on a bill that basically says we can pretend that more than four years' worth of public- and private-sector actions implementing the Affordable Care Act to make affordable health care in this country a reality can simply be swept aside. This is nothing more than a Tea Party talking- point fantasy masquerading as a piece of legislation. And after four years, we are still waiting for the Republican majority to fulfill their promise to develop a replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Finally, I am very curious to see how Congressional Republicans will square this vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act with their much- vaunted promise to develop a balanced budget. The Republican budgets for the last two years would not have come anywhere close to balancing without the revenues and health care savings generated by the Affordable Care Act. There is a glaring inconsistency here. Enough is enough. It is time for our Republican colleagues to get over their fixation on bashing the Affordable Care Act and instead get on with the real work of rebuilding a prosperous American middle class.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 351, which would create arbitrary and rigid deadlines for Department of Energy (DOE) approval of LNG exports. Rather than speeding up the approval process, this unnecessary legislation would likely force the Department to deny projects because they will not have the time to fully consider their impacts. The Department of Energy is one of two agencies that must approve LNG export terminals. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must first approve the terminal infrastructure, and then DOE must consider whether or not each facility's exports are in the national interest. That DOE review encompasses a number of considerations, including the environmental and domestic energy price impacts. DOE has been working to refine this process and has approved several terminals, dramatically increasing the amount of LNG that will be exported from the United States. This shift in U.S. energy policy, from import to export, requires a complete review of the cumulative impact. For example, we should carefully monitor and control methane leakage along the natural gas supply chain, which has a potent impact on climate change. And a number of domestic manufacturers have expressed concern about the impact of exports on energy prices here at home. I am not opposed to some responsible expansion of LNG exports, but it must be done in a way that protects the environment and American taxpayers. The Department of Energy has been charged, rightly, with protecting the public interest in this process. We should not arbitrarily short-circuit that critical effort. I urge a no vote.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this unnecessary legislation, which would place arbitrary deadlines on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decisions, potentially forcing them to deny applications because they simply do not have enough information to make a credible determination. FERC has received high marks from the Government Accountability Office for its predictable and consistent application process. This bill would needlessly disrupt what is already working, forcing FERC to abide by rigid deadlines no matter how large or complex a project happens to be. If other agencies with permitting authority on a project fail to report to FERC within the bill's timeline, FERC would become a kind of ``super-permitting'' agency, with the ability to issue permits on the agencies' behalf without the expertise necessary to make those decisions. By rushing a functioning and important process, this bill jeopardizes the environment and public health. With a number of high-profile pipeline spills requiring costly clean-up across the country, we should not needlessly short-circuit the process that is intended to make sure pipelines are built safely. This bill would prevent federal agencies from doing their job to protect taxpayers and communities, and I urge a no vote.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 185, the so-called ``Regulatory Accountability Act.'' Today's bill is yet another attempt by House Republicans to limit the ability of federal agencies to enforce commonsense rules and regulations. While supporters of this rehashed bill claim it is needed to curb overregulation, in reality, it would simply prevent federal agencies from doing their jobs and working to ensure there are safeguards in place to protect consumer health and safety. In fact, H.R. 185 would create more red tape by imposing over 60 new barriers in the federal rulemaking process. One of the most burdensome provisions in this legislation requires agencies to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for all proposed rules and possible alternatives, even if the rule is limited in scope and has a minimal economic impact. Moreover, agencies would be obligated to adopt the option that was the least costly in the short term, without taking into account the long term impact and costs it would have on public health and safety. This is a myopic way to govern and would create paralysis within the rulemaking process. President Obama has already implemented significant reforms to the rulemaking process. In January 2010, the President signed an Executive Order that required agencies to determine if the benefits of proposed rules are justified considering their cost to society. He required an interagency review of overlapping rules and regulation between agencies that may prevent innovation in the private sector and instituted a policy to allow agencies to consider input from affected public and private stakeholders and experts when developing rules and regulations. Moreover, federal agencies under President Obama issued significantly less rules during his first four years in office when compared to President Bush's first term. At a time when Congress should be doing everything it can to create jobs and improve the economy, this bill is nothing but a distraction. I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the misleadingly titled ``No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.'' This deceivingly-titled bill does nothing more than dramatically restrict the ability of women to purchase affordable health insurance without forfeiting their constitutionally protected right to buy health coverage that includes reproductive services. Federal policy, including explicit language in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), already prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. Existing law in the ACA states that any individual who joins a plan that covers abortions will pay an additional fee that goes into a separate account; this was specifically designed to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not spent on abortions. The fee is only paid by people who knowingly joined a health plan that covers abortions, and any abortion (except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother's life) coverage is paid out of those accounts--not by taxpayer dollars. The ACA also provides that individuals purchasing their health care from the recently established exchanges can, depending on their income, access tax credits and ensure that their health care plan is affordable. This bill would deny women access to the tax credits on their health plans even though the tax credit does not cover any of the cost of plans that include abortion coverage. In other words, women will be denied access to affordable health care if they exercise their right to use their own funds for abortion coverage. This is unacceptable and violates the careful balance established in the ACA. Whether women purchase their insurance through the marketplace exchanges or receive it through their employers, millions of American women would be denied their choice of affordable health care coverage. A woman's right to choose her own health care is a fundamental one, and the Congress should not tell women how to manage their private health or reproductive care. Sadly, this legislation will do just that. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this assault on women. This bill was a mistake the first two times it was proposed, and it remains a mistake today. Instead of attacking a woman's access to health care, we should be focused on accelerating job growth and increasing the paychecks of working Americans.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 240, the FY2015 Homeland Security Appropriations bill, which included the adoption of five anti-immigrant amendments. By including these policy riders, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided to hold hostage and disrupt funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Failure to promptly fund the Department of Homeland Security puts our country at risk. At the end of last year, House and Senate Appropriators came to a compromise agreement on funding for the Department of Homeland Security at a level of $39.67 billion, $1.5 billion above the President's request. This agreement contained funding for many important programs vital to our national security interests. Unfortunately, Speaker Boehner decided to abandon that agreement and instead have a negotiation between the far right and the far, far right. In particular, I strongly oppose the inclusion of an amendment offered by Congressman Aderholt that would deny the use of any funds or fees for the administration to implement the President's Executive Action on immigration that was issued last November. As many legal experts have determined, there is clear precedent for this action, which seeks to further secure our border and prioritize deporting felons over families. In fact, over the last 50 years, every President has used executive authority to take limited action on immigration, including six Republican Presidents. I was also very disappointed that an amendment offered by Congresswoman Blackburn was adopted in final passage of this bill. This amendment would prevent Dreamers in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) from renewing the two-year Deferred Action they have already received. This would effectively end the DACA program-- which has already provided temporary protection for 700,000 individuals who were brought to the United States as children--and would subject hundreds of thousands of Dreamers to deportation. If our Republican colleagues want to address immigration issues, they should start by taking up legislation to fix our broken immigration system. Over 18 months ago, the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill with bipartisan support. House Republicans allowed that bill to die in the House without allowing it to come to a vote. Republicans should come up with a proposal to reform our broken immigration system. They should not threaten to defund the Department of Homeland Security because of their inaction. It is especially unfortunate that these anti-immigrant amendments were adopted because the bill that had previously been agreed to contained funding for many critical programs. Specifically, I appreciate the robust funding in the bill provided for the SAFER and AFG fire grant programs which have helped pay for emergency vehicles and increased staffing needs at a time when the numbers of volunteer fire fighters across the country has been declining. Furthermore, in light of this week's cyberattack on the U.S. Central Command's Twitter account, I am encouraged by the bill's funding for cyber security programs. I am also pleased to see the increased funding provided for the Secret Service, which has experienced well reported challenges last year. Mr. Speaker, now is not the time to play politics with our national security. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, the legislation we are being asked to vote on today is identical to legislation that failed on the suspension calendar last week--and so is now being brought back to the floor under a closed rule, without possibility of amendment. I opposed this bill on both policy and procedural grounds last week, and because nothing has fundamentally changed on either score, I will do so again today. Mr. Speaker, this unwieldy legislation is comprised of eleven, mostly unrelated titles--a few of which I have supported in the past, some of which I probably could support on a freestanding basis in the future and several of which either need a lot more work or simply should not be supported. In particular, as an advocate of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, I think we should tread very carefully before modifying or weakening something as central to financial reform as the Volcker Rule, which Title VIII of this legislation would do with respect to collateralized debt obligations. Additionally, while I am strongly in favor of giving employees more ownership opportunities in the companies they work for, I also believe those employees deserve to know the value of the stock they are being offered, and that is something Title XI of this bill fails to do. For these reasons, I urge a no vote.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3, which would circumvent the legal approval process and grant blanket automatic authority for TransCanada to ``construct, connect, operate, and maintain'' the Keystone XL pipeline and cross-border facilities. Every cross-border pipeline must undergo a vetting process to make sure that it is in the national interest. This process has been ongoing at the State Department and has been complicated by disputes over the route, most notably in Nebraska, where their Supreme Court ruled on the issue just this morning. Today's legislation would provide a special deal for one company to bypass federal permitting requirements. Additionally, the oil that would be transported by Keystone XL, tar sands oil, is currently exempt from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund that is used to fund the response to leaks and accidents. This means that the American public would bear the risks for the immediate cleanup costs from any potential accidents or leaks from the pipeline. Congressman Earl Blumenauer introduced legislation last night, which I am proud to cosponsor, to close that loophole and ensure that TransCanada and other companies transporting tar sands oil share responsibility for those costs by paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Democrats are offering a motion today to address this issue for the oil that would be transported through the Keystone XL pipeline, and I hope my Republican colleagues will work with us to close this loophole. Ultimately, there is no reason to give special treatment to a single, foreign company, which would be exempt from permitting requirements and from paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. We should reject this bill and allow the State Department to complete its ongoing review.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 30, the so-called ``Save American Workers Act of 2015.'' Republicans claim this bill is a fix to the Affordable Care Act and vital to protecting American jobs. But that's simply not true. According the non-partisan CBO, raising the threshold for employers to provide coverage from 30 hours per week to 40 could lead them to shift more employees to part- time work, end employer-sponsored coverage for one million people, and leave up to half a million completely uninsured. Even conservative analyst Tuval Levin agreed, writing recently in the National Review, ``Putting the cutoff for the employer mandate at 40 hours would put far, far more people at risk of having their hours cut than leaving it at 30 hours.'' On top of the assaults on workers' hours and benefits, CBO estimates the bill would increase the federal deficit by $53 billion over the next decade.'' Republicans have brought this irresponsible bill to the floor on the heels of more news that the Affordable Care is working. Yesterday, Gallup released data showing the percentage of uninsured Americans is declining steeply and HHS announced that nearly 6.6 million Americans selected plans or were re-enrolled in the federal exchange since open enrollment began. As I have said before, I am more than willing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make genuine, reasonable improvements to the Affordable Care Act. Along these lines, I want to commend Congressman Joe Courtney for bringing an altemative proposal to the Rules Committee yesterday. Unfortunately, today's bill does not meet the definition of a genuine, reasonable improvement. Finally Mr. Speaker, if Republicans were really serious about helping employees they would support the CEO/Employee Paycheck Fairness Act. The bill is simple. It says if corporations want to be able to deduct the bonuses and compensation for their CEOs and other executives over $1 million, they better be giving their employees a fair shake. I urge my colleagues to reject the 40-hour bill and join me in a real effort to support American workers.