Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my chairman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity to do great things together, and occasionally I come down to this floor and I put my heart into it. I don't just put my heart into it on the floor, I put my heart into it for hours and hours, day after day, in the Rules Committee. I put my heart into it on the Transportation Committee. I put my heart into it on the Budget Committee. Mr. Speaker, do you know what? Sometimes I lose. Sometimes I lose. But what makes this process great is we both come down here and do the very best that we can. Let's not describe what is going on here for the American people as some sort of proofreading error, as some sort of rush job where folks didn't have time to do it right. That does a disservice not just to the Members of Congress, but to the staff that work through these issues with us side by side, day after day, week after week, month after month, and, yes, in the case of this bill, year after year. We have a choice with how we spend our days. I am proud that we spend our days doing fundamental tax reform. It has been far too long. We don't call it once in a generation because it is a rhetorical tool. We call it once in a generation because there are men and women in this Chamber who were not alive the last time that we did it. It is important, and I am glad we are doing it. The Senate has every right to do what the Senate did yesterday. And by ``the Senate,'' I mean the minority Members who insisted on their point of order. We could have sent this bill to the President's desk with protections for homeschooling parents who are doing their very best to provide for their kids, but my Democratic colleagues said no. So this bill is still going to go to the President's desk. It is just not going to have those protections. I believe that is a mistake. I hope we will come back together. I hope we will right that wrong in the coming days. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman so much for his leadership on this issue. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair for his leadership on this issue. Regular order takes some time. I am glad we are getting it done.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. We were in the Rules Committee last night, Mr. Speaker, and we were having this same kind of conversation. We were going through the list one by one by one of all the families and how folks were going to benefit, about the children and graduate students, folks facing medical challenges. We went through one by one by one and talked about all the folks who were going to benefit from this great tax cut, and it was powerful. But I was reminded, Mr. Speaker, that when we started this conversation, it wasn't even a tax cut conversation. It was an economic growth conversation, Mr. Speaker. It was an economic growth conversation. Where we have ended up is there are going to be tax benefits for every single working family in the country, but where we started was how do we get those wages for working families up? How do we get job creation up? How do we get America growing, not at these stagnant rates of Obama years, but back at powerful rates as we saw in the Bush years, as we saw in the Clinton years, as we saw in the Reagan years? That was the conversation. Mr. Speaker, if we had historically normal economic growth--not fantastic economic growth--historically normal economic growth, we would have a balanced budget in this country today. There is an economic consequence of economic failure. What we have done in this bill, Mr. Speaker, by allowing businesses to expense their investment, allows them to make their employees more productive on day one. That is going to have a powerful impact, not just on employee wages, Mr. Speaker, but on economic growth across the entire country. This bill is not about should we pay taxes. We must. This bill is about how we pay taxes. Can we do it better? Does America need to be the worst in the world? Or can we be first in the world? We are answering that question today. We are answering that question today. And with every single vote a Member in this Chamber casts, it is not about is everything in this bill exactly the way you would have crafted it. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, for me, it is not. The question is: Does this bill move us in a direction of competitiveness across the globe? It does. The question is: Does this bill focus on wages and growing those wages? It does. The question is: In this opportunity that we have, did we take it or did we waste it? We haven't answered that question yet, Mr. Speaker, but I believe that later on today we will. We are going to answer in the affirmative. Give us a chance. Should it have taken us 31 years to get to this place? It should not. Can we make a difference together today for the country? Yes, we can. It will be a lasting difference. It will be a powerful difference. It is going to be one of the proudest votes I have had an opportunity to take in this Chamber, and I appreciate the opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his leadership on this.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my chairman for yielding me the time. I want to thank him for his leadership. The ranking member, I appreciate her leadership as well. She was exactly right. These are two House bills that the Senate combined that we passed unanimously here. This veterans trucking language was language that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Brownley) and I introduced together upon learning that of the more than 54,000 medical professionals that are allowed to certify folks for Federal trucking licenses, only 25 of those worked in the VA system. Of 54,000, only 25 were available to our veterans. We said that is not right, so this House came together. We expanded. All the physicians of the VA became available to serve our veterans through these trucking certifications. The bill went to the President's desk, and he signed it. Then we had folks come back. We had advanced practice nurses, we had physicians' assistants, we had folks working throughout the VA healthcare system who said: You know what, we, too, are licensed to provide these physicals; and if you change the language, we, too, will be your partner in serving veterans. Again, Julia Brownley on the Democrat side; I on this side; my ranking member; Ms. Norton; my chairman here, Mr. Graves; we came together and now we have a further improvement to language that the rules are still being crafted for down at DOT. Mr. Speaker, folks don't think there is cooperation in this Chamber. Folks don't think that we are able to work together in this Chamber. This is an example of what goes on every single day. Constituents raise problems. Republicans and Democrats get together to solve those problems. I am so grateful to my friends on the committee for their leadership to get this done. To Ranking Member DeFazio and Chairman Shuster, I thank them as well for their leadership.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity, over the last couple of weeks, to bring a number of bills from the Financial Services Committee to the floor. We talk so much about regular order and having a process where the committees are doing their work, where the authorizers are deep into the details, and then we are bringing those bills to the floor for the entire House to vote on. We have that opportunity again today. Mr. Speaker, the rule today brings two bills to the floor: H.R. 2396, which is the Privacy Notification Technical Clarification Act, it brings that under a structured rule, making in order the only amendment that was offered, a bipartisan amendment, offered by Mr. Clay and Mr. Trott; and it also brings H.R. 4015 to the floor, Mr. Speaker, which is the Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act of 2017. We did not have any germane amendments offered to that measure in the Rules Committee last night, so we bring that under a closed rule today. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleagues--as is the way of my chairman on the Rules Committee--notice was sent out to all Members, and will continue to be sent out to all Members, for each set of bills that we consider in the Rules Committee soliciting any amendments or ideas that folks may have. We sent out that notification, but, for these two bills, we received only one germane amendment. Mr. Speaker, I won't go into great detail about these individual bills because we are fortunate to have the sponsors here on the floor for the rule today. But what I do want to say is that this is another series in a line of commonsense, authorizing pieces of legislation, things that move through committee in a bipartisan way, that are going to make life just a little bit easier for the American people. We have a chance today, if we support this noncontroversial rule, to bring these two noncontroversial bills to the floor and make that difference together, a difference we all came to Washington to make. Mr. Speaker, I ask all of my colleagues to consider supporting this rule as well as supporting the two underlying pieces of legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say sometimes there is a lot of pressure on the Rules Committee. You come down here and you have got some of the most knowledgeable folks on both sides of the issue, on both sides of the Chamber, and you have got to be prepared to refute detail after detail after detail that might confuse folks back home. It gives me great pleasure today to not have to spend any time refuting anything that my friend just said because the important thing about developing a reputation is that it is just laughable to suggest that Republicans are coming to the floor today to undermine privacy. It is laughable to suggest that Republicans are coming to the floor today to increase paperwork and red tape. And it is not only laughable, but it is inaccurate to suggest that it is Republicans coming to do this, Mr. Speaker. These are bipartisan bills coming to the floor today. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Trott). His bill passed out of committee 40-20; a huge bipartisan vote coming out of committee. It went through a hearing; it went through a markup; it was everything that makes this institution work properly. I appreciate him for bringing the issue forward to talk about the tremendous bipartisan effort that he has put together.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Colorado is right. Time management is an important issue here on the floor, and we have got to manage it, whether it is closing statements or whether it is floor time throughout the day. Every bill we bring to the floor is not going to be the most important bill that we bring to the floor, Mr. Speaker, by definition. I hope that my colleagues were listening intently to my friend from Colorado, not necessarily during his opening statement, and certainly not during his closing statement, but during the middle statement where he was talking about his vast knowledge of corporate boards and corporate structures. I have the pleasure of serving on the Rules Committee with Mr. Polis, Mr. Speaker, and there are not going to be many Members of this institution who have either been more successful in their private life, not just talking about it, but doing it, when it comes to leading institutions, and Members who work harder to try to find some common ground to move things forward. I was just telling Ms. Rossi on my staff, Mr. Speaker, that it troubles me more when Mr. Polis is on the floor and we can't find agreement, because I believe very often he tries harder than most to find that agreement here. Mr. Speaker, you see it on the front page of the newspaper day after day after day, folks talk about this institution as if we will never find agreement with each other. There are some issues of principle where finding agreement is hard, where we just fundamentally disagree with one another. It is not the case today, though, Mr. Speaker. Today, the case is that we have two bills that moved through regular order in the Financial Services Committee. That means, Mr. Speaker, that the committee took up the legislation first, that the committee sorted out the legislation first, and, Mr. Speaker, these bills, both of them, passed the Financial Services Committee with big bipartisan votes. There are many opportunities for us to come to the floor and talk about things that divide us that we will never find agreement on. That is not today. Today, we have a chance to come to the floor and talk about differences that we can make together. Differences that are not just bipartisan, but differences that are nonpartisan; good ideas that can make a difference one life, one bill at a time. Mr. Speaker, these bills are coming today under a closed rule for one, under a structured rule for the other. That is true. For the uninitiated, Mr. Speaker, that means that amendments aren't going to be offered. It doesn't mean that amendments weren't allowed, Mr. Speaker. We sent out the call to the entire House of Representatives, 435 Members. We said we have two bills coming before the Rules Committee; we want you to send us all of your ideas, all of the different ways that you think these two bills can be improved. We got back one idea. One. And we made it in order for a vote on the floor of the House. Dadgummit, Mr. Speaker, I think it is going to make the bill better. I intend to support that amendment that we made in order. It is a Democrat amendment. It came from my friend Mr. Clay on the other side of the aisle. I intend to support it because I think it is going to make the bill better. Are there issues that are complex, that are partisan, that are structured in such a way that having an open rule isn't the choice that gets made? Of course there are. Of course there are. I think my friend is right to criticize the majority when the process gets closed down in this way. But today, Mr. Speaker, I think my friend is wrong to suggest that the process is being closed down. The process was opened up to the entire institution. One amendment was received, one amendment was made in order. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that will be a practice that we continue going forward. Two good bills today, Mr. Speaker, if my colleagues support this rule: one from my friend Mr. Trott, one from my friend Mr. Duffy, and the bipartisan amendment offered by my friend Mr. Clay. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this rule, and then I hope they will come back to the floor and support the underlying bills as well.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 657 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say that I agree with my friend. I, too, said to the FCC in 2015: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I thought the first 20-plus years of the internet were marked by innovation and freedom, and I wanted to keep that innovation and freedom flowing. The Obama administration wanted to insert itself into the internet infrastructure in ways that it had never inserted government in infrastructure before. And from the numbers that I have seen--my friend may have different numbers--suggests that infrastructure investment has declined over those 2 years, first time in the history of internet infrastructure investment. Mr. Speaker, reasonable men and women can disagree, but, understand, internet freedom and innovation is exactly what we all want to protect. Unfortunately, it is not what this rule is focused on today. This rule today is focused on simplification and expansion coming out of the Financial Services Committee. Mr. Speaker, one of the gentlemen I had the pleasure of being elected with in 2011 is the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy). He is one of the sponsors of one of these bills we have before us today. He has been a leader in the financial services field in his 7 years here. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy) to talk about the impact that his legislation will have on the process today.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin, the sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I don't disagree with a lot of what my friend from New York had to say when it comes to the facts. I do disagree with the conclusions that are reached there, Mr. Speaker. We do need to do a better job of working together. Now, sometimes that means Republicans and Democrats, sometimes that means the House and the Senate, sometimes that means the White House and the Congress. We need to hold each other accountable, but we also need to give each other credit for our successes. The gentlewoman talked about important issues relating to education and improving workforce. We passed together in this institution a continuation of career and technical education funding. We reauthorized that program together, led by G.T. Thompson on my side of the aisle, by Mr. Krishnamoorthi on your side of the aisle, by Chairwoman Foxx on our side of the aisle, by Ranking Member Scott on your side of the aisle. We grappled with that issue together. We did it together, because it was the right thing for the American people, and now it sits in the United States Senate without action. We came together, and we funded the government. We grappled, line by line, section by section, we did it together, and now it sits in the United States Senate. Mr. Speaker, what needs to be said, one can describe it as Republican incompetence. One can describe it as Democrat intransigence. But we, as a House, have come together and gotten our work done. The Senate cannot, and why the Senate cannot is because it requires 60 votes to get something done over there under Senate rules. In order to have 60 votes, you have to have Democrat votes. If the Senate changed its rules tomorrow and made it just a Republican majority institution, they could move all of these bills without delay. Far from being a reflection of incompetence, it is a reflection of a commitment to a bipartisan effort on the Senate side. We can poke them and poke them and poke them and, just one day, folks might get their wish, and we may make that a completely Republican streamlined process over there. But be careful what you wish for. We don't have to kick each other in the shins all day long, every day, over here. We have success after success that we have earned together. We should spend more time celebrating those successes, Mr. Speaker. Among those successes is the bill I mentioned earlier, offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga). Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga) to talk about the hard work, the effort, and the success that he has been able to accomplish in a bipartisan way.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would be interested sometime, Mr. Speaker, having a team building expert take a look at some of our proceedings here on the House floor and see if they think that the conversations that happen here bring us closer to working together on serious solutions, or push us further away. I agree with my friend from Michigan; we need to get about the business of the American people. The business of the American people is not figuring out who to blame, it is figuring out how to fix things. And to continue to perpetuate the inaccurate message that we don't collaborate on those issues is to do our bosses, the American people, a terrible disservice. On bill after bill to combat the opioid epidemic, we have come together in this institution. We have passed these bills in a collaborative way and sent them to the United States Senate. Bill after bill on human trafficking, we have come together in this institution. We have passed these bills. We have sent those bills to the United States Senate. Mr. Speaker, we are talking about funding the American Government. I have been in this Congress since 2011. I got to vote, for the very first time, on funding the Centers for Disease Control, which sits right in my back yard in the great State of Georgia. I got to vote, for the very first time, on funding the National Institutes of Health, which do such amazing research, both for our seniors and for our children. The kind of talent that we have there, Mr. Speaker, boggles the mind. We came together, and we funded those institutions in the annual appropriations bill for the first time ever. Now, we can spend our time together talking about who hates children and who hates old people, and why it is everybody is an untalented buffoon; or we can recognize that, on issue after issue, we come together and get about the business that our bosses sent us to get about. I don't think any of us are going to be rewarded by figuring out who to blame. I think we are going to be rewarded by getting it fixed. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney), who has worked, through the Financial Services Committee, again, in a bipartisan way, to deal with local community financial institutions and local home buyers who are getting shut out of the process by an overly burdensome Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I opened with a discussion about how we all care about these American homeowners who are trying to get, oftentimes, into their first home, and how it is that we protect them better. We disagreed about how to protect them. Do you do it through the CFPB and Federal regulation? Or do you do it through more local hometown institutions being governed by their neighbors? We agreed on what the need was, but we disagreed on how to get there. What is so frustrating to me--I still feel like a relatively new Member of this institution, Mr. Speaker. I guess I am not any longer-- is that we seem to have one standard when we are in the majority and a completely different standard when the other guy takes over the institution. It seems to me that principles should be principles irrespective of who sits in your chair. The very first big vote I took when I got here in 2011, Mr. Speaker, was to fund the United States Government in February. Why? Because when Democrats ran every single facet of government--they controlled the House, they controlled the Senate, and they controlled the White House--they didn't get it done. They couldn't get it done. It is hard to do sometimes, Mr. Speaker. I will take you back. You weren't in this institution at that time. The year is 2010. The first CR that they passed went from October 1 to December 3, about the same length of time as the one that we passed. They weren't up to anything nefarious when that happened, Mr. Speaker, and I resent the implication that we have been during that same path. They needed a little extra time and they took it. When that CR expired, Mr. Speaker, they then went and passed, lo and behold, a 2-week CR--a 2-week CR from December 4 to December 18. They needed a little more time. They passed one for 2 more weeks to get themselves a little more time. That didn't work out, Mr. Speaker. They still weren't able to get it done in those 2 weeks, so their next CR, Mr. Speaker, went from December 19 to December 21. Three days is what they found to be the right number to extend funding of the Federal Government so they could continue to get their work done, Mr. Speaker. When that 3-day CR didn't work, they then punted altogether; and when my freshman class came in in 2011, we took over and we funded the government instead. Mr. Speaker, we can describe what happened when my friends last controlled this institution as an abominable failure, or we can describe it as a frustrating failure but something that happens in this institution. It happened when my friends ran it. It happens when we run it. We need, on behalf of the American people, to get on a better track. Let me stipulate that is true. But let me ask my friends to stipulate, Mr. Speaker, that for the first time in a long time we are on a better track because we came together in this institution and we got our work done. The Senate hasn't, and I am frustrated by that, but I want to give them a little more time. For my friend from Michigan who asked the question, ``What difference does 2 weeks make,'' I would ask anyone who has that question to Google ``continuing resolution'' and ``Department of Defense.'' If you think that continuing to fund the government one day at a time with a continuing resolution, or even 12 months of the time during a continuing resolution, if you think that is the definition of success, Google ``continuing resolution'' and ``Department of Defense.'' Every single day that we fail to take up in the United States Senate the large full-year funding appropriations bill, we do a disservice to every single man and woman in uniform. If we have a choice here today, Mr. Speaker, between doing that disservice to those men and women for 2 weeks or 6 weeks or 8 weeks or 12 months, I choose to. If you wonder what difference it makes, ask any man or woman in uniform. There is a reason, Mr. Speaker, as hard as the appropriations process is, that you and I took up the defense portion, the Homeland Security portion, the national security portion all the way back in the summer and passed it out of this House before the end of July, because we knew how important it was. We knew how mission critical it was, and we wanted to give the Senate the most time we possibly could. I am frustrated, too, but let us not describe these failures as partisan failures, as an effort by one side or the other to subvert the process. These are failures. But 2 weeks, Mr. Speaker, is going to be less of a failure for our men and women in uniform than would be 3 weeks, 4 weeks, or 12 months. I am sorry that we are here, but this is the best circumstance that we can create to allow our Senate time to succeed. They cannot succeed alone. Republicans cannot succeed there alone. It requires a bipartisan majority to succeed. Let us not pretend this is a partisan problem. This is an American challenge, and I believe we are up for it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I thank my friend from New York for helping me to bring the rule today. Mr. Speaker, I believe in truth in advertising, and of all the things that you heard the Reading Clerk read, when he went through word for word for word from this rule, you heard not one word about taxes today. Why? Because we are not talking about taxes today at all. Because nothing that we are doing today has anything to do with taxes at all. Because of all the successes that we are down here to partner on today, tax is not one of them. What is on the list today? Well, in the spirit of truth in advertising, Mr. Speaker, shutdowns aren't on the list either. In fact, the opposite is true. If we pass this rule today, we will fund the government. We will prioritize keeping the doors open. Mr. Speaker, habits are hard things to break, and we are in two very bad habits in this institution. One is failing to see the merit in what the other side is offering. We have two Financial Services bills today that break that pattern, that see the merit in working together and collaborating together, and we bring two bills to the floor that this entire institution can be proud of. We have another bad habit of ascribing to the other side's motives that I believe are not worthy of this institution at all. A government shutdown would be one of those things. We are, in good faith, working together--Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, Congress and White House--to get about the business of the American people, and it is hard. But it is worth doing, and it is worth doing right. If I have to choose between fast and right, I choose right. We have got a chance today, with the passage of this rule, to bring up two bills that our colleagues, in bipartisan ways, have worked through on the Financial Services Committee that will make a big difference to families and businesses across this Nation. We have an opportunity today, if we pass this rule, to bring up a continuing resolution that guarantees to every single American that the doors are open, the lights are on, and we continue and have an opportunity for the Senate to move final legislation. I want my colleagues to support this rule. I want my colleagues to support the underlying bills. But, Mr. Speaker, more than anything, I want my colleagues to take pride in the successes that we have achieved here today. CHIP funding, Children's Health Insurance funding, is at risk, but not because we haven't succeeded. We have. All we need is one more signature from the Senate. CDC funding may be at risk, but not because we haven't succeeded. We have. We just need that bill to get across the floor in the Senate. Our troops are on the cusp of receiving a well-deserved pay raise. Why? Because we came together and we passed it here. We just need it to get across the floor of the Senate. And there is not one of those items or a dozen more that I could list, Mr. Speaker, that will move across the floor of the Senate in anything but a bipartisan way. Do you want bipartisanship? If you want cooperation, if you want success, we have our chance today. Vote ``yes'' on this rule, Mr. Speaker. Vote ``yes'' on these underlying bills, and let's get together and get the Senate across the finish line as well.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 647.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I hope you were listening as the Reading Clerk was going through this rule, because there was a lot of meat in this rule today. Ordinarily, and, in fact, historically, we will do a bill and we will do a rule; we will do a rule and we will do a bill. This rule today makes three bills in order, three important bills in order. I am proud to be able to carry this rule today. I hope my colleagues will see the merits of it as I do. The rule provides a structured rule for the debate of two bills out of the Financial Services Committee. One is H.R. 477, Mr. Speaker, the Small Business Mergers, Acquisitions, Sales, and Brokerage Simplification Act of 2017. The second is H.R. 3971, the Community Institution Mortgage Relief Act. The rule also provides for consideration of a continuing resolution, H.J. Res. 123, which provides appropriations through December 22, as final year decisionmaking and negotiating goes on. It also allows the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, CMS, to reallocate existing funds for the CHIP program through December 31, 2017. Mr. Speaker, I want to start off talking about the Financial Services bills. We will have some members from the Financial Services Committee come down. They can talk about it in details that I cannot. It was a fascinating hearing that we had in the Rules Committee last night, Mr. Speaker. We had the chairman, Mr. Hensarling from Texas, and we had the ranking member, Ms. Waters. It was a conversation about how we protect people, how do we serve people better. Now, the Community Institution Mortgage Relief Act, Mr. Speaker, is the result of small community banks and local credit unions saying: We are having a tough time providing mortgages to our members because the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has created rules designed to protect consumers that are protecting them right out of access to a mortgage at all. Mr. Speaker, it is a legitimate disagreement that we have here from time to time about how to protect people best, about how to love people best, but it is the right kind of conversation to be having. If we pass this rule today, we will be able to get into debate on that underlying bill. The debate will not be about should we protect people, because we all agree that we should. The debate will be about how should we protect those people, an issue on which legitimate, well-intentioned, thoughtful men and women can disagree. I look forward to this body working its will. The second bill, Mr. Speaker, from the Financial Services Committee, H.R. 477, was introduced by a classmate of mine in that big class of 2011, Mr. Huizenga from Michigan. He has worked this bill through the process one step at a time, trying to build consensus so that, Mr. Speaker, as we were in the Rules Committee last night, the conversation between the chairman and the ranking member was: Hey, if we can make one more amendment in order, one more amendment that Mr. Huizenga and Mr. Sherman had worked out together, if we can make one more round of changes, we believe we can get this through on a big bipartisan majority coming out of the Financial Services Committee. Mr. Speaker, we don't celebrate those things, we don't talk about those things. The newspaper will be filled with discord coming out of this city tomorrow morning, but I can tell you that it gives me great pride to come on behalf of the Rules Committee today bringing forward these bills, not that are going to change the world overnight, but are going to make a big difference for real people facing real challenges across this country. It turns out, Mr. Speaker, my experience is if we do a little bit together every day, a little bit today, a little bit tomorrow, a little bit the next day, we wake up a year from now finding out we have done a whole lot together on behalf of the American people. Mr. Speaker, finally, the continuing resolution. I am not a fan of continuing resolutions, I just want to tell you. I got to talk to you about my enthusiastic, optimistic part of this rule earlier. I am going to lay some tough love on you now, Mr. Speaker. We are not supposed to be in the continuing resolution business. You know with your leadership, the leadership of the gentlewoman from New York, the leadership of the two gentlemen from Michigan here on the floor, this House passed on time, ahead of schedule, the funding bills to fund the priorities of the American people for fiscal year 2018. Folks said we couldn't get it done, folks said we couldn't do it all. We did, and we did. We sent that to the Senate, Mr. Speaker, before the end of the fiscal year, which was back on September 30. The Senate hasn't been able to take it up yet, Mr. Speaker. The Senate hasn't been able to debate it yet, Mr. Speaker. I don't know if the Senate is going to get it done in the next 2 weeks, but there are folks in this institution, Mr. Speaker, who say: You know what? We couldn't get it done in the Senate over these last 2 months, so let's just go ahead and pass a continuing resolution for all of fiscal year 2018. A continuing resolution, for folks who don't follow the appropriations process, means, hey, if it worked well last year, let's just do the same thing next year. Mr. Speaker, that is awful public policy. We came together debating almost 500 amendments. Having moved every single appropriations bill through the Appropriations Committee, we came together not just in a bipartisan way in the committee, we came together here on the House floor, debated these issues, grappled with these issues, and produced a work product with which the American people can take great pride. I don't want to give up on that work product, Mr. Speaker. I don't want to settle for the way things have been. I believe that we can do better. By passing a 2-week continuing resolution today, we ensure that all the features of government continue to operate as the American people expect them to, and we provide another window for the Senate to come together and pass those appropriations bills as we have done here in the House. I am optimistic about that coming to fruition, Mr. Speaker. I believe that we can get that done together. Mr. Speaker, we can take up these bipartisan efforts from the Financial Services Committee, we can take up this important effort to continue the funding of the government if we pass this rule today. With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 647 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I just had a chance to visit with my colleague from New York. We were talking about, well, the same thing all Members talk about when they get together: those things they have in common, those things that make their day a little bit better, those things they are struggling with that make their day a little bit worse. I regret that so often we come to the House floor and the debate that we are having seems like we just have absolutely nothing in common whatsoever. I am sure it has been your experience. I think you can ask any freshman Member of this institution, Mr. Speaker, ``What is the biggest surprise you have had in your first year in Congress?'' and they will say, ``I am surprised at how hardworking and conscientious and diligent and committed absolutely every single one of my colleagues is, because I was reading in the local paper back home, and it sounded like it was a big cesspool there in Washington, D.C. I am pleasantly surprised at how sincere my colleagues are at working for their 700,000 to 800,000 constituents back home.'' Mr. Speaker, we have two bills that this rule makes in order for debate today, and they are two bills that I will tell you are incredibly well intentioned. I plan to support them. I plan to enthusiastically support them, but they are on issues that are hard in their minutia. The first bill that is made in order today under a closed rule, Mr. Speaker, is H.R. 1699. It is the Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act. We had testimony in the committee yesterday, and the discussion was how do we protect buyers of manufactured housing from being exploited while still enabling those Americans who don't have other avenues for purchasing housing to get into that most affordable of housing, manufactured housing. We have common goals to protect people and to empower people, but how do we get that done? This bill was worked through committee. I believe it is a good compromise. We didn't allow any amendments to this. There were no germane amendments presented in committee, so that is coming under a closed rule today. This rule also would make in order a structured rule for H.R. 4182, the Ensuring a Qualified Civil Service Act of 2017. Again, Mr. Speaker, when you go and read the headlines, it makes it sound like every discussion on Capitol Hill is among a bunch of partisan hacks. It is just not true. The civil service, an incredibly important part of American Government, has dedicated men and women who show up every day to institute the laws that you and I pass, to be the interpreters of the bridge between the laws that we pass and the way they hit folks on the ground. We all want those employees to be protected from the swinging pendulum of partisanship. I don't want a Republican President to get elected and fire all the Democrats serving in government. There are some bright-minded scientists, some great folks in law enforcement, some really talented people in education. I don't want them to lose their jobs because of the partisanship of a President. Similarly, I don't want to see a Democratic President get elected and fire all the folks who are Republicans. There are some fantastic Republican minds in our Department of Agriculture helping our farmers to succeed, our Department of Labor helping our workers to succeed. You go right on down the list, there are strong men and women helping folks to succeed. But we are also facing a reality that that same civil service system that seeks to protect those hardworking, those exceptional workers trying to serve America, that same system that works to protect them also protects folks who are completely derelict in their responsibilities. We had that discussion as a conference, as a House. In fact, in a bicameral discussion, it went to the President's desk for his signature, as it came to the VA, to say: Can't we do more to reform a civil service system, to reform Federal labor union provisions so that folks who need the protection, because they are exceptional, continue to be protected; but those folks who are failing our veterans, that those folks cease to be protected from a system that seeks to require accountability? We passed that together. We did that together here, Mr. Speaker. We sent it to the Senate. They did it together. The President signed it into law. This Ensuring a Qualified Civil Service Act does one thing and one thing only: it extends the probationary period of a new civil service worker from the current 1 year to 2 years. The Department of Defense has done this already, and it has been working exceedingly well for them. The concern is: Have I been able to adequately assess an employee's ability to perform in a 12-month period? We are committed to trying to train people up, Mr. Speaker. Nobody is trying to run folks out before they have had a chance to learn their job. The question is: Is a year long enough to uncover the flaws in an employee or is 2 years a wider window? You will hear folks on the other side say: Rob, why in the world can't you all figure out if an employee is talented in year one? That is fair. They will say: Rob, if you are going to train somebody up, why couldn't you get it done in year one? That is fair. But as the GAO has looked at this issue, what they found is managers aren't getting that done in year one. Whether it is because they are ineffective as managers or whether it is because they keep trying to give people a second chance and get them trained up is an open question. This bill mandates nothing, but it allows this 2-year window so that managers can give their new employees a good first, second, and third look. The data suggests that once folks get fully protected by the civil service system, it is very difficult to move underperforming employees out. That work should be done during this probationary period. This bill aims to lengthen that probationary period to 2 years. Mr. Speaker, reasonable men and women can disagree on these measures. I believe they are important steps in the right direction. But what gives me so much pleasure to come to the floor to bring this rule to you today is the earnestness with which these two bills were presented. These are common challenges: How do we ensure the very best staff for the American people? How do we ensure access to homes and protection for home buyers for the American people? These are sincere concerns, legitimate disagreements. If we pass this rule today, we will enable a debating period. We will bring these bills to the floor so that we can air our concerns and challenge our assumptions. I hope, at the end of the day, my colleagues will decide to support this rule and to support the two underlying pieces of legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds just to let my colleagues know that this bill passed out of committee by more than a 2-1 margin, a big bipartisan vote out of committee to reform manufactured housing to provide more access. Mr. Speaker, I don't profess to be an expert on that, so I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr), one of my colleagues from the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 635 and ask for its immediate consideration.