Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this reckless plan to shut down the Federal Government. House Republicans are playing games with people's lives--with hundreds of thousands of federal employees and with the people around the country who depend on the services they provide. And they are doing this in order to prevent millions of Americans from signing up for more affordable health care. My colleagues know that this legislation cannot pass the Senate, and that the President will not sign it. That is why they have offered legislation to ensure that our military personnel and the Defense Department civilians who support their work will continue to get paid even in the event of a government shutdown. And while I support that measure, I would expand it to include all federal employees, whose work is no less essential to the operations of our government and, in many cases, to our national security. This bill ignores those federal employees who protect our borders, care for our wounded service members, work to discover treatments and cures for diseases, and provide vital services that touch virtually every American family. They should not be pawns in this political game, and should not go without pay because the Congress cannot do its job. I urge the Speaker to bring up a clean continuing resolution without extraneous and unrelated poison pills so that we can avoid this shutdown and keep the government working for the American people.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, with respect to the current status of H.J. Res. 59, the clean CR, if this body were to take it up and pass that bill, would that bill go back to the Senate or would that bill now go directly to the President?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry with respect to the current bill before us, H.J. Res. 72.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. So to further clarify, if both Democrats and Republicans were to agree to bring the Senate-passed CR before this House, it would come up for a vote now; is that correct?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Georgia. If you want to help our veterans tonight, we should take up the Senate-passed clean CR bill which keeps the government open for our veterans and funds programs that help their children and grandchildren, like education, like scientific research at the National Institutes of Health. And as we heard from the Speaker, if we take that bill up and pass it, it will be on the President's desk tonight, and he can sign it, whereas this bill just goes back to the Senate. So why aren't we doing that? Well, it was reported in The Washington Post, since the Republicans want to shut down the government, now they're going for the Cruz idea for plan B. ``House GOP will go with Cruz's idea for plan B.'' That's Senator Cruz. So again, Senator Cruz is calling the shots here in the House of Representatives. But here's what's particularly strange and cynical: our veterans are being used as props here. I don't think the American people understand that if we were to pass the CR tonight for veterans, it is actually a higher level of funding for the veterans by billions of dollars than what is in your bill before us today. So how can you say you want to help veterans by sending the Senate a bill with less money for veterans instead of sending immediately the President a bill with billions of dollars for veterans? This cuts the amount that this House voted for for veterans in June. It cuts billions of dollars. Every Member of this House who voted in June on that Veterans appropriations bill who votes on this is voting for a cut from what this House provided for veterans earlier this year, and it represents a cut compared to the continuing resolution that we could send tonight to the President's desk and have him sign. So, yes. If you really want to help veterans, Mr. Speaker, you should take up the Senate bill. Send it to the President. It will be done tonight at a level billions of dollars higher than this Republican bill. Let's help our veterans, and let's help tonight.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, if the Democratic leader and the Republican leader were to give their consent, as you indicated, to bring that bill before this body and this body then adopted that bill, voted for it, would that bill then go to the President?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. So this bill that we're currently discussing would go to the Senate?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, if this bill were to pass the House, would this bill go directly to the President, or would this bill go to the Senate, H.J. Res. 72?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. As the Speaker knows, a number of Members of Congress have asked unanimous consent to proceed to the Senate and pass the so- called ``clean CR.'' I want to understand the rule. My understanding is that if the Democratic leader and the Republican leader both give their consent to that, then that bill would come before the body now; is that correct?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Will the gentleman yield on that point on Medicare?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank the gentlelady. So what do you do if you don't want to negotiate, if you don't want to compromise? You back the country up against the wall, and here we are with that strategy. The idea is, since you don't want to compromise in the regular order, let's try and get what we want by threatening to shut down the United States Government. If that doesn't work, we are going to make sure the United States Government can't pay its bills on time so that we can enact our radical agenda that way because you're not willing to do it through the regular process of compromise. So nobody should be fooled about this idea of trying to get fig leaf cover on going to conference on this. We should have voted on the bill and kept the government open. It is a shameful day for the United States Government and especially for this Congress.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank the ranking member. Mr. Speaker, since the very moment the Affordable Care Act was passed, we have heard a massive campaign of misinformation and distortions from our Republican colleagues. From the beginning, we heard about death panels. Then we heard it was going to be the government takeover of health care. That earned them the independent PolitiFact lie of the year in 2010. Tonight, Mr. Speaker, on the floor, we just hear massive distortions, and what's shameful is that they want to use that now as the cover to shut down the United States Government. They want to use that so that, tomorrow, millions of Americans can't sign up for or access affordable care. Members of Congress--all of us--we have affordable care, but, tomorrow, you want to deny that affordable care to millions of Americans and take it away from the millions of Americans who already have protection as a result of the Affordable Care Act. That is shameful. Now, this notion that they are going to go to conference on the continuing resolution is a fig leaf that's not going to get them any political cover. The only way to have kept the government open tonight, which is now closed, was to take up the Senate's continuing resolution and fund the government. Yes, then we should go to conference on the budget. Mr. Speaker, we have been trying to go to conference on the budget to negotiate our differences since March, when this House passed a budget and the Senate passed a budget. In fact, back in April, I and my Democratic colleagues introduced a very simple resolution saying that the Speaker should obey the regular order and appoint budget negotiators here from the House to meet with the Senate. What did the Speaker do? Nothing. He blocked the ability to have those budget negotiations. We actually voted on it three times in this House. My Republican colleagues voted against the opportunity to appoint budget negotiators. In the United States Senate, what happened? On 18 occasions, Senator Lee and other Republican Senators blocked the effort to go to budget negotiations. Now, Senator McCain said that was insane for Republicans in the Senate to do because he pointed out that our Republican colleagues claimed that they wanted to work on these budget negotiations all along. They said ``no budget, no pay.'' What they forgot to tell the American people was that they didn't mean a Federal budget. They meant the House passes a budget and the Senate passes a budget, but then they were going to block the effort to negotiate the differences. Now, why would you block that, Mr. Speaker? Because, when you go to a budget negotiation, you've got to compromise, and you've got to meet the other party halfway. You've got a Tea Party right wing in this House that refuses to compromise. So what did they say? We're not going to go to conference. We are going to vote three times against negotiations. In May, in June, and in July, no negotiations.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. The other thing that's really puzzling is while our Republican colleagues want to shut down the government to prevent the American people from getting access to the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and access to the exchange, where you have a marketplace of different plans being offered and a little help for those who are stretched thin and can't afford it, while our Republican colleagues want to shut down that part and other important parts of the Affordable Care Act, guess what the Republicans kept in their own budget? They kept the Medicare savings. I remember Mitt Romney and the Vice Presidential candidate saying how those were going to be the ruin of the country. Well, guess what? In the Republican-passed budget that virtually every Republican Member of this House voted for, they kept those savings. And guess what else they kept? They kept the same level of revenue that would be generated by ObamaCare. Just check the Heritage Foundation statement. Every penny of revenue from ObamaCare, that level of funding is assumed in the Republican budget. So here we have Republicans running around the country saying they've got a balanced budget, which is balanced because of ObamaCare, and now they're here saying they want to defund ObamaCare. You just can't have it both ways. Don't shut down the government. Let's pass the bill that came out of the Senate, send it to the President, and get it done tonight.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, a simple question: Why is the Speaker of this House denying this House the opportunity to have an ``up-or-down'' vote on a clean continuing resolution to keep the Federal Government operating tomorrow and beyond? Why is he not allowing a vote? Why is he not allowing Democrats and Republicans together to have a vote on keeping the government open? Because, Mr. Speaker, if he had that vote, it would pass. It would pass on a bipartisan basis and the government would still be operating. So, apparently, the Speaker is afraid that we would actually pass a bill to keep the government going. So why is he not allowing the people's House to do the people's business? Well, we've been seeing this playing out around the country in the last couple of weeks. You've got a far-right extreme Tea Party element in the Republican Party that is dictating what's happening here on the floor of this House. Senator Cruz is running the show on the floor of this House. Mr. Speaker, why don't you just quicken it up and pass Senator Cruz the gavel and let him run the House? Now why is it that this group of Members wants to shut down the government? Because tomorrow, millions of Americans are going to get access to affordable health care. Millions of Americans are already benefiting from the protections of the Affordable Care Act. But tomorrow, millions more will get access to affordable care. Republicans are so bent--at least this Tea Party faction--on blocking that from happening and preventing those millions of Americans from getting access to affordable care, they're prepared to shut down this government. That is a scandal.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chair, today's legislation proposes to give two of the world's largest, foreign-owned mining companies--Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton--2,400 acres of the Tonto National Forest, which has been protected since 1955, in exchange for land the companies currently own. The companies believe the Federal land contains significant copper ore deposits. I am not opposed to responsible domestic energy and mineral production as long as Americans get full value for the use of their resources and environmentally sensitive areas are protected. Today's legislation does not meet either test. The bill includes a convoluted appraisal process that fails to take into account the copper deposit on the land and requires no future royalty payments for that resource. It does not require mitigation or even analysis of damaging effects on the local ecosystem, waiving environmental review and Endangered Species Act protections. Finally, the bill does not guarantee preservation of traditional Native American sacred sites. Ultimately, the bill gifts an environmentally sensitive and historically significant area to a foreign company without proper review or compensation for the American taxpayer. I urge a no vote.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this continuing resolution, which is part of a reckless plan from our Republican colleagues to shut down the United States government unless we shut down the Affordable Care Act, a law that is already providing protections to children in this country with pre-existing conditions and seniors on Medicare with high drug costs. Moreover, as the Republican majority plans to potentially shut down the government, they refuse to take action on the sequester, which is causing real harm to our economy. The independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that at this time next year we could have up to 1.6 million fewer jobs in this country as a result of the sequester. We could see economic growth cut in half. The Democrats have a proposal to replace the sequester with targeted cuts over a period of time to big tax breaks like oil and gas subsidies. This is a plan that would achieve even more deficit reduction without the job-killing, meat-ax cuts to the programs that grow our economy. Our country needs practical solutions, not self-inflicted economic wounds. I urge my colleagues to oppose this damaging continuing resolution and bring up my legislation to replace the sequester and avoid a government shutdown.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1526. While I support efforts to find consistent funding for rural schools, this bill goes too far, increasing logging to unsustainable levels and undermining the existing environmental laws that protect our public lands. H.R. 1526 creates ``timber production zones'' in every national forest that must meet timber volume targets set at half of what the forest grows each year. Ultimately, this would require logging and road building in currently protected, roadless areas and would limit public input and scientific and judicial review. The bill also creates an expedited environmental review process for governor-designated ``high risk areas,'' that could open roadless areas to grazing and timber harvests. Finally, the bill authorizes ``community forest designation areas'' that devolve forest management from the federal government to state boards. This would reverse 100 years of forest management precedent and limit or eliminate access for recreation, hunting, and fishing. Our national forests are a public resource and must be sustainably managed for generations to come. Today's bill would undermine that mission, and I urge a no vote.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows in a new Congress, all the legislation that was considered in the previous Congress goes away. The fact is that in this Congress, we've not had one concrete proposal from our Republican colleagues to replace the sequester.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my friend, the ranking member of the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, it is simply reckless for our Republican colleagues to say they will shut down the United States Government unless we shut down the Affordable Care Act, a law which is already providing protections to millions of children in this country who have preexisting conditions-- like asthma, like pediatric cancer, like diabetes--and to millions of seniors on Medicare who have high drug costs; but what's also irresponsible and undemocratic is that the Republican majority has refused to allow us even a vote on a plan to replace the sequester. Now, what's the sequester? The sequester is Washington speak for a job-killing mechanism. It's meat-ax, immediate, across-the-board cuts that are doing damage to our economy. You don't have to take my word for it. The independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which is the referee around here, says that, at this time next year, we could have up to 1.6 million fewer jobs in this country as a result of that sequester. By this time next year, we could see economic growth cut in half as a result of the sequester. Look, the good news is the economy is growing, and the bad news is that it's growing very slowly. The last thing the American people need is a self-inflicted wound by this Congress that slows down the economy and puts fewer people back to work, but that's what the sequester does. We should do something about it, which is why the Democrats have a proposal to replace it, to replace it with targeted cuts over a period of time and, as Mr. Andrews said, targeted cuts to big tax breaks, like oil subsidies. If you do that, you will eliminate the bad parts of the sequester, but you actually get the deficit reduction part. In fact, our plan would give you even more deficit reduction during the period of this plan. We've tried eight times now to get a vote on that--just a vote. In this House, the so-called ``people's House,'' we haven't been able to get a vote. I hear our Republican colleagues say they don't like the sequester--I hear them say that to their constituents--but what they don't tell them is they've denied us the chance to have a vote on a plan to replace the sequester seven times. Mr. Speaker, guess what else they don't tell them? How many times during this Congress have our Republican colleagues put a plan on this floor to replace the sequester? Zero. Zero times. Now, Mr. Cole, I have to correct you because we have now a concrete plan to replace the sequester for 2014. It's right here. We'd like a vote on that plan, Mr. Speaker. We'd like a vote. We think Members should be held accountable when they go back home and tell their constituents they want to get rid of the sequester and then come here to the United States Congress and deny us an opportunity to have that vote, deny the people of this country the right of accountability for their Members of Congress. So let's take action today. Let's vote ``no'' on the previous question, and then this House can have a chance to vote on our plan to replace the sequester and get rid of the drag on the economy, which, according to the CBO, is going to cost us up to 1.6 million jobs. That's democracy. That's just letting this House work its will. What I'm afraid of, Mr. Speaker, is that our colleagues are afraid to have that vote in the light of day. There is no other explanation for why they would be denying the American people that opportunity. So what I ask is: either say to your constituents you really do like the sequester, and you support the sequester, and you don't mind the jobs that are being lost as a result of the sequester, or vote for our sequester replacement, or at least come to the floor of this House with one of your own because, right now, we've tried eight times for a vote, and our Republican colleagues have tried zero times in this Congress to replace that sequester. So we ask that you vote against the previous question and give the American people the chance to hold us accountable for what we say at home. Hold us accountable right here in the Halls of this Chamber.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, once again on the Floor today we have a program with historic bipartisan support made divisive by the most extreme wing of the Majority party. For decades, the Farm Bill has coupled programs for our nation's farmers with food assistance for our most vulnerable citizens, including children and the elderly. In June, the Senate passed a Farm Bill with a bipartisan vote of 66-27. But here in the House, rather than working together for a solution that gives certainty to farmers and maintains the safety net for the hungry, we have seen a one-sided process that first stripped food assistance from the Farm Bill altogether and now proposes draconian cuts to the program. Slashing $40 billion from SNAP would eliminate benefits for 4 million Americans. It would damage the safety net for our most vulnerable citizens--nearly half of SNAP recipients are children and 16.5% of households receiving benefits include seniors. Many are veterans or Americans out of work through no fault of their own in high unemployment areas. These are not lavish benefits--in my home state of Maryland, the average SNAP benefit is only $128 per month. These are critical dollars that help fight hunger as American families work to get back on their feet after the recession. The current Farm Bill is set to expire at the end of this month. But rather than move forward, the majority has brought forth an extreme proposal that is a nonstarter with the Senate and the President. It's time to stop these partisan games--I urge a no vote.