Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 403 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 30 minutes to my friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings), 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 also ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I think back to a time when I was a teenager and I came into the gallery, and I am convinced that I came in during a rule because the reading clerk was standing there, reading line after line after line of material I didn't understand at all, and I thought, Why in the world is line by line by line the legislation being read? Haven't the Members already looked at that legislation? Haven't they already had time to study it? What I know now, Mr. Speaker, 3 years with the voting card of the people of the Seventh District of Georgia, is that the rule is the only piece of legislation in this entire body that has to be read word for word here on the floor of the House. My colleague from Florida and I spend a lot of hours up there in the Rules Committee sorting those things out, but the rules matter. The process matters. I will be able to confess to you, Mr. Speaker--and I think sometimes we get that process done a little better, sometimes we get that process not done quite so well, but today we have a rule that brings two very important pieces of legislation to the floor. This structured rule provides for H.R. 982, which is the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act, the FACT Act; and it brings a closed rule for H.R. 2655, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act of 2013. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, I was just talking with a group about what the Rules Committee does, and I have talked about the importance of an open process and how closed rules don't give folks as much opportunity to express their views on the floor. It is going to be a closed rule on the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act, H.R. 2655, because for 11 days, Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee solicited amendments from the entire body. It asked anyone who had any ideas about how to improve this legislation to submit those amendments so that we could consider them in the Rules Committee, and over that period of 11 days, Mr. Speaker, not one Member of this body offered any ideas about how to improve this bill. We would have liked to have made amendments in order for this bill, but none were submitted. So while we say this is a closed rule on H.R. 2655, it is only because no amendments were submitted to improve upon it. Now on H.R. 982, the FACT Act, Mr. Speaker, we had five amendments submitted, all Democrat amendments. One was withdrawn. So there were only four that were in order for our meeting last night. One was confessed to actually just try to eliminate the effectiveness of the bill altogether. So we excluded that one because if folks don't like the bill, they can just vote ``no.'' They don't have to destroy the bill from within; they can just vote ``no'' on final passage. But all of the other amendments that were submitted we made in order. Now these are not amendments that I intend to support on the floor, Mr. Speaker, but I do think it is important that people's voices be heard. So, again, three amendments are made in order. That is 75 percent of all the amendments that were submitted, and they are all amendments offered by my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. The Rules Committee thought it was important to make those amendments in order. Now we will talk a lot, Mr. Speaker, in the debate that comes after the rule about the content of these bills. One deals with frivolous litigation and whether or not judges will be required to allow folks who had to defend against frivolous lawsuits to recover the costs of those suits. Today, Mr. Speaker, if someone files a frivolous lawsuit against you, you can have that lawsuit tossed out, but you have to go back to the court a second time to recover all of the costs that it took you to have the frivolous lawsuit tossed out. It is a tremendous burden on small businesses in our Nation. This bill seeks to solve that. The FACT Act, our asbestos litigation act, aims to provide some transparency to the asbestos trust funds. I don't know if you are familiar, Mr. Speaker, but when it was discovered all of the health damage done by asbestos, the lawsuits began immediately and would have driven every one of those companies that either used asbestos or produced asbestos into bankruptcy, leaving no money at all for victims who had health problems that they then sought compensation for. So federally we created, within Federal bankruptcy courts, these asbestos trust funds that allowed these companies, these manufacturers of asbestos, these folks who utilized processes that included asbestos, to deposit money into a trust fund and not go out of business but to provide certainty that victims would be able to recover from those funds in the future. There is some concern, Mr. Speaker, that the process, as it exists today, does not allow for folks to see who is getting those dollars and whether or not the victims who have the most urgent needs are receiving those dollars first. Our great concern, Mr. Speaker, is that when those trust funds are depleted, they are gone forever. As you know, asbestos- related illnesses often don't present themselves for years down the road, so we have a stewardship obligation to these trust funds to keep them protected for future claimants. This bill requires a degree of transparency, a quarterly report from the trustees of these trust funds to see who is making claims on these funds, who is receiving claims out of these funds, again, just so we can be good stewards of those trust funds and ensure they are available for future years. I don't sit on the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Speaker, but I heard from the ranking member of the Constitution Subcommittee last night. I heard from the chairman of the full committee last night in the Rules Committee as we held a hearing on both of these bills. I am glad that we are able to bring them to the floor today, Mr. Speaker. Two bills, a structured rule. One rule is closed because no amendments were provided. The other bill is receiving 75 percent of all of the amendments that were submitted. Just one amendment was excluded by that rule. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I say to my friend that I absolutely share his passion for privacy protection. In fact, I had to leave a hearing we were having in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Mr. Speaker, where we were looking at the ObamaCare Web site and talking to the chief information officers and the chief technology officers about how this Web site had gone live without having been fully vetted for security protections; talking about how, even as we sit here today, we have not fully run through those security processes. I share the gentleman's concern. The gentleman is an attorney as well. I remember when I was in law school and they gave you access to the LexisNexis database when you showed up to law school. You could dial up anybody in the country. It is giving you a credit report and showing you Social Security numbers. We really do have to have a national conversation, Mr. Speaker, about where we are headed. Those last four digits that were once my private knowledge are out there all over the Internet today. My birthday is broadcast everywhere on the Internet. My mother's maiden name is out there. All of those things that folks used to ask me to protect me have now become part of the public domain. And what the gentleman says about a need to focus on that and protect folks is absolutely right, and we absolutely need to do that. There was only one amendment last night that was offered to deal with privacy. It was going to give a unique identifier to folks, instead of listing names, so that we could have the transparency to see if folks were trying to game the system and take opportunities away from future victims. That amendment was withdrawn. We didn't have an opportunity to talk about that. But my great hope is that this bill will pass the House today and that we will be able to have a similar bill come out of the Senate. If regular order has a chance to prevail on Capitol Hill, conference committees will give us another chance to take a bite at that apple. I think the gentleman brings up very real concerns; and, again, we will have an opportunity to talk about those today. The gentleman says, Mr. Speaker, there are some bills that are just so bad, nobody wants to fix them. I want to say to the gentleman that I am sympathetic to that sentiment. There are a few that I could rattle off right now that are so bad, I wonder if it is even possible to fix them. But the bill the gentleman was talking about was the bill to eliminate frivolous lawsuits, Mr. Speaker. When we had these penalties in place back for 10 years between 1983 and 1993, more than 70 percent of judges said that they utilized this procedure and that they awarded damages in frivolous lawsuits. Seventy percent of judges, Mr. Speaker, utilize this provision that we are trying to bring back into being to punish filers of frivolous lawsuits. This is not a bill for Big Business, Mr. Speaker. This is a bill that has been key voted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. If you know NFIB--and I know most of my colleagues do--this is the trade association that represents the mom-and-pop shops, Mr. Speaker. These aren't the big, working-out-of-a-glass-building-downtown folks that you think are out to get the consumer. These are our friends and neighbors. These are folks who are employing our sons and daughters. These are folks who create most of the jobs in this country. And they don't key vote a lot of bills, Mr. Speaker. You can go to their Web site--NFIB--and see the number of bills that they key vote. But they have picked this one out. My colleague from Florida says that some people believe it is so bad that it can't be fixed. They have heard from lawyer association, after lawyer association, after lawyer association which says it doesn't like it, but we are hearing from the mom-and-pop shops which can't defend against it. Understand, Mr. Speaker, that today, if a frivolous lawsuit is filed against you--and I don't mean ``frivolous'' because I think it is silly. There are lots of those out there. That is going to be a much higher number. I mean ``frivolous'' because the judge in the case says it has absolutely no merit on either the facts or the law. When the judge says it has no merit whatsoever, but you have had to pay to defend yourself against it, this bill says the fellow who filed it ought to make you whole. Punitive damages are something we often hear about from the trial lawyer bar. This bill doesn't have punitive damages. This bill doesn't say, if you try to bankrupt the mom-and-pop company that is down the street from me, we are going to punish you. I think probably it should, but they didn't want to go that far. They said, if you are trying to destroy, with a frivolous lawsuit, the mom-and-pop company down the street, you have to make it whole. If a judge decides that your case has no merit--not a possibly of merit, but no merit--on either the facts or the law, the poor small business owner who is being harassed by that lawsuit should at least have the chance to be made whole at the end of that process. The National Federation of Independent Business-- small mom-and-pop shops--is who cares about this legislation. Again, folks are going to vote ``yes,'' and folks are going to vote ``no,'' but I think it is important that we say, Mr. Speaker, that this is the purview, those things that are important. The gentleman from Florida says, hey, there are more important things we could be working on. I happen to agree with him. There really are important things that we need to have on the floor of this House, but if you are the small business owner who is about to lose your entire lifetime of work because someone has filed a frivolous lawsuit against you, I promise you there is no more important bill in your life than the one that is before us today. I also have to say, Mr. Speaker, to my friend who talks about sequester that I think that is an important thing. I happen to be the Rules Committee designee to the Budget Committee, and I happen to be the chairman of the Republican Study Committee Budget and Spending Task Force. In fact, we are having a meeting with Maya MacGuineas on the Fix the Debt campaign next Monday afternoon to talk about what those options are for dealing with long-term problems. The Budget Committee right now is in conference with the Senate, trying to find a way to restore funding to discretionary spending programs that we all believe have been ham-handedly reduced. Instead, they are trying to find savings on which we can agree on those long-term mandatory spending programs that rarely, Mr. Speaker, have an opportunity to see aggressive oversight, to see the things that can improve them, to see the things that can preserve their long-term fiscal viability. I would say, finally, Mr. Speaker, to my friend from Florida that, as the designee to the Budget Committee and as the chairman of the Budget and Spending Task Force, I don't believe it is the failure to raise the debt ceiling that threatens America's credit rating. I think it is out- of-control spending that threatens America's credit rating. It only takes a stroke of a pen here for us to raise the credit limit to infinity, but I promise you that that is not in the best interests of the American economy. We all know we have spending challenges in this country. We all know that we have made promises to veterans, to seniors, to the infirm, to the poor that we don't have the money to keep. I think that is immoral. If you don't want to help somebody, then say you don't want to help somebody, but do not promise someone that you will be there for him in his time of need and pull the rug out from under him when he needs the promise to be fulfilled the most. We can do better. This body has done better. In 1983, Republicans and Democrats came together and extended the fiscal lifetime of Social Security by not doing things that hurt seniors in that day but by doing things that raised the retirement age for me--I was 13 at the time--from 65 to 67. That is a pretty modest step that made a big impact in the life of the Social Security trust fund. There are big issues that we need to discuss here on the floor. I hope we will bring those issues to the floor. Our committees in the House moved things in a responsible way, step by step, throughout the summer. We could use a little partnership from the other side of the Hill, but I hope we will focus on what we have before us here today, Mr. Speaker--an opportunity to make a difference for future victims who are applying to the trust fund and an opportunity to make a difference today for small businesses which are being victimized by frivolous litigation. With that, I reserve the balance of my time. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to my colleague that I very much appreciate her concern about the family members of veterans. So often, we craft a one-size-fits-all solution in this body, and if you want to care for your loved one at home, there is very little help for you. Now, if you want to institutionalize your loved one--if you want to dump your loved one off on the State--then we have a program for you, but if you want to nurture your loved one but you just need a little help, if you want to keep your loved one by your side but you just can't do it alone, there are very few opportunities that you have within our Federal system today. One exception to that is the PACE program, which was championed by Bob Dole back in the day, that allows you to bridge some of the different Federal programs that are available to you and to utilize those within your home, within your family, rather than having to institutionalize your loved one. I don't think there is a man or a woman in this body, Mr. Speaker, who does not both have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for our veterans but who also feels a debt of service to our veterans. I will point out that we always talk about the hyperpartisan U.S. House of Representatives. We moved our Veterans Affairs' spending bill in this House back on June 4. On June 4, we passed it in this House with only four Members voting ``no.'' Talk about things that bring you together, Mr. Speaker, as opposed to divide you. That is the kind of commitment that this institution has to our veterans. I can't tell you why we haven't been able to get that signed into law. I know the Senate has not yet acted on that bill. I think it would be something that would bring them together, too, and I would recommend that to them, but of the 435 Members of this body, only four Members voted ``no'' on our bill to try to fulfill that commitment in order to make sure our veterans--our returning men and women--have the kinds of resources that not just they deserve but that we have committed to them. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I am prepared to close.

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

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I send to the desk a privileged concurrent resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend on the Rules Committee for yielding. This is a big bill for Georgia. It is a big bill for all of America. Mr. Speaker, it is so often that we hear about conflict in this body. We all know that jobs are important to absolutely everyone's constituency; and when we all know that 99 percent of our imports and exports travel through our ports, it is easy to come together and get excited about doing things that matter. We have got the Panama Canal opening for newer and wider and bigger ships, but my own home port in Savannah is not ready, through no fault of our own. We began that process back in the 1990s to begin to expand the Port of Savannah, and it has taken 15 years to get through that permitting process. This bill says: Who benefits from that? Whose constituency is it that benefits from jobs being slowed or delayed for 15 years? No one's does. So we are able to come together and say let's do it; let's do it right, but let's do it in an efficient manner. Three years is what we have given, 36 months, to study each and every aspect in the permitting process, and to do those things concurrently. Today, Mr. Speaker, as you know, you have to do one study first and then a second one and then a third one and then a fourth one, and you can't start the next one until the first one is finished. Today we say, if we know we have six studies to do, let's do them simultaneously. Let's go ahead and get all the work done. We all benefit from that, Mr. Speaker. The reforms in this bill go into those projects that are authorized, Mr. Speaker, that represent spending on our books that we know we are not going to do. We say that if we have any new projects we are interested in doing, let's take those old projects off that are no longer a priority for America. Let's set our priorities. We know we have to spend money in this government, but we ought to spend it on the best projects, not the least of these; and this bill recognizes, in a budget-neutral way, a way to authorize those projects that are most important to us while we are moving those that are the least. Mr. Speaker, I live in a county that relies on a Corps of Engineers' lake. Working with the Corps of Engineers in partnership is critical to my community for our drinking water, for our recreation, for our economy. The Corps has been a good partner, but the Corps is often hamstrung by the laws that this Congress has put in place and by the implementation of those laws by administrations, both Republican and Democrat. Mr. Speaker, this bill reclaims to this House, for both sides of the aisle, the authority to direct the projects of the Corps of Engineers. We direct these not through earmarks, Mr. Speaker, but by recognizing that constitutional responsibility that we have to our constituents back home to decide where those dollars are spent, how those projects are prioritized. Rather than punting on that issue, this bill reserves those powers rightfully to this House and to this Congress. Mr. Speaker, this bill is not everything that I would like for it to be. Candidly, in 3 years of serving in this Congress, I have yet to see a bill that is everything that I would like for it to be. What I know is that this bill is a step in the right direction, a step that we can take and a step that we must take. I thank my friend from Florida for his leadership on the issue, for his leadership on the Rules Committee, and for yielding me the time today.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my chairman. Mr. Speaker, the chairman is actually the one who appointed me as the rules designee to the Budget Committee, and I'm grateful to him for that because it really gives me an opportunity to express what, for my constituents, is commonsense budget reform, Mr. Speaker. They know you just can't keep spending and spending and spending and never have to pay the bills. The bills have to get paid. But I would say that the funding level that the United States Senate has agreed on is absolutely in no way a compromise. It's the law of the land. The law of the land, if this Congress were to dissolve itself tomorrow, is that for fiscal year 2014 we're only going to be able to spend $967 billion. The Senate wants to spend $986 billion. The law of the land is not going to let them spend that much. That's just the law of the land. Now, we don't have to like it. We can try to change that, but to characterize that as somehow moving to the middle is to misrepresent, Mr. Speaker, what the facts of our budget are. As my colleague from North Carolina said so well, the House has adopted a position, and the Senate rejected it. So we moved to the middle and adopted a position, and the Senate rejected it. So we moved further to the middle, adopted a position, and the Senate rejected it. Then we said, Let's just sit down and talk about it to find that pathway forward. My friends on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, are talking a lot about a budget conference. I suspect we'll continue to hear that. I even read about it in the National Journal--apparently, that message is being sold well--but as my friends on both sides of the aisle know, a budget conference has absolutely no force of law whatsoever. Zero. We can conference a budget until we're blue in the face, Mr. Speaker, and we will never change one penny of Federal spending. Now that's different from the conference that this House moved to go to with the Senate. The conference that this House moved to have with the Senate--where we could actually change the law, where we could fund the government, where we could deal with the debt ceiling, where we could focus on priorities that each one of us has for our families back home--the conference this House moved to create, Mr. Speaker, can change the law. Let's do something that matters. Let's do it today.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my chairman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I have to say I saw my chairman get on his feet when the gentleman from Michigan began to speak. It's not often that the dean of the House comes down to speak. It's a treat for me, too. I've been here 2\1/2\ years, but I've been watching the process a lot longer than that. I do think there's a lot that we can learn from history and a lot that we can learn, as Chris Matthews put it on his show the other day, from when politics worked. There is no shortage of shrill voices in Washington, D.C., and when I get back home to the folks in the suburbs of metro Atlanta, rarely do I hear somebody say, Rob, I wish there were more angry people in Washington. I wish there were more folks pounding their fists and yelling and screaming, because I really think that's how solutions can be brought about. That's not how solutions are brought about anywhere. It's not how they're brought about in business. It's not how they're brought about in politics. It's not how they're brought about in kindergartens around the country. I have a chart here, Mr. Speaker, that says that the Democrat Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, who presided over some of the most trying times in our Nation and some of the biggest deals in our Nation, was often in conflict with the President of a different party. While Tip O'Neill was Speaker of the House, the government shut down 12 times. I say that, Mr. Speaker, not to say that a government shutdown is okay. It's not. I didn't want it to happen. It doesn't need to happen. I'm glad we're bringing more bills to the floor to reopen the government--we are already more than 50 percent of the way there with the bills that have come to the floor. But it is happening, and it's not happening because Republican this and Republican that. I commented earlier to some of my Democratic friends about what great party discipline they have displayed in never talking about a government shutdown but in always making sure it's a ``Republican government shutdown.'' I suppose you get points for that in terms of party unity, but it's just not true; nor has it ever been true in the history of our Republic that when legitimate policy differences come about, driven by our constituents back home, that the best way forward to solve those is to make sure you demonize the other guy and make sure folks know who to blame for it. In these 12 times that the Democratic Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, was leading this institution--the people's House--and the government shut down, it wasn't because Tip O'Neill was a bad man. It wasn't because he lost control of some liberal faction within his party. It was because the House of Representatives, the closest voice to the American people in our Republic, had legitimate policy differences with the President of the United States, and that's where we sit today. What's surprising is not that we have legitimate policy differences with the President of the United States. What's surprising is that we bring a bill to the floor to fund Head Start, and that becomes complicated. What's surprising is that we bring a bill to the floor to make sure that our men and women are getting paid, and that creates the controversy. What's surprising is we bring a bill to the floor to fund nuclear security across the country, and that's what brings controversy. There is so much that we agree on, and I am certain we're going to find the pathway forward; but I am equally certain that that pathway forward is not going to be found more quickly in depending on how much we can embarrass and marginalize our political opponents. It's going to be found when we agree that there is more that unites us than divides us, and it's okay that we have some serious policy differences.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, could the Chair tell me how much time the gentlewoman from New York has remaining?

Mr. WOODALL. Will the gentlelady yield?

Mr. WOODALL. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman that, no, we do not agree because the gentleman wants to continue to support those programs that are putting workers in my district out of work. They want to continue to support those programs that are taking health insurance away from families in my district. They want to continue to support those programs that we know are broken. Folks, my constituency wants to do away with preexisting conditions. My constituency wants to ensure that every child has access to health coverage. But my constituency does not understand why we had to re- regulate the entire health care industry, destroying the 40-hour workweek, as my union friends have said, destroying quality health care plans that folks in my district have had but have now lost, breaking the promise the President made that if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. There's not a man or woman in this room that believes that promise has been kept. We were duped, Mr. Speaker, by that promise. Today, however, we have straightforward, narrow bills. Not 2,400 pages of legislation, Mr. Speaker, but one idea at a time. Stand up, Mr. Speaker. Who doesn't believe that the Department of Homeland Security, focused on our Nation's security, should be funded? Stand up, and vote ``no.'' But you believe that it should be, and you're going to vote ``no'' anyway. Who doesn't believe that the Impact Aid Program from the Department of Education which helps children not just in my district but in every district, Mr. Speaker, who doesn't believe that ought to be funded? The truth is, everyone believes that ought to be funded. And yet they are going to stand up today and vote ``no'' anyway. They are encouraged to vote ``no'' by leadership. It's disappointing to me, Mr. Speaker. I'm disappointed we can't agree on everything, but I recognize that we can't. I know that we agree on most things. Let's do those things on which we agree. Don't take my word for it. Take President Obama's word for it. Let's begin the work we have by doing what we all agree on. Take Nancy Pelosi's word for it--let's do what we all agree on. We can continue the rest of that conversation later. Let's do what my good friend, the minority whip, who just left the floor, said: We don't have an agreement on everything, but we do have an agreement. Let's move forward on that with which we agree. I could not agree more, Mr. Speaker. I urge a strong ``yes'' vote for this rule and a strong ``yes'' vote for every single underlying provision.

Mr. WOODALL. Reclaiming my time, I will say to my friend, I spent the entire month of August at every town hall meeting I could find, telling folks that government shutdowns were not the right plan for this Nation.

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend for yielding. I now yield to my friend from Maryland, the minority whip.

Mr. WOODALL. I agree with my friend, the minority whip. I agree with the minority leader. As I have said to my friend very respectfully, if I have time remaining at the end, I would be happy to yield. But at the moment, I do not. Very respectfully to my friend. And it's not just my friend, the minority whip. It's not just the minority leader. It's President Barack Obama: ``I want the American people to urge Congress soon to begin the work we have by doing what we all agree on. We already all agree on making sure middle class taxes don't go up. So let's get that done.'' We did. Now some Republicans voted ``no,'' and some Democrats voted ``no.'' But the Chamber came together, and we got that done. We're in the same place today, Mr. Speaker. If one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle disagrees with any one of these provisions, believes any one of these provisions is not worthy of their vote, if they do not affirmatively want to see these programs reopen, I would like to hear that from my friends. But Mr. Speaker, they do.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from the Rules Committee for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to what my friend, the minority whip, just said. He said, There are things that we agree on, why can't we get those things done? I would say that every single Member that the majority whip pointed out that said, I know they're going to vote for that, I know they're going to vote for that, I know they're going to vote for that--we have an opportunity today to vote to reopen parts of the Department of Homeland Security. I know we agree on that. Let's do that. We have the opportunity under this rule to go ahead and fund the WIC program. I know we agree on that. Let's do that. I didn't come to that conclusion on my own, Mr. Speaker. I sit in the Rules Committee, and I listen to my colleagues. This happens to be a statement from the minority whip in a Rules Committee hearing. He said this: ``The American people are obviously deeply distressed. They are distressed that when they see agreement, that that agreement is not made into law. We don't have an agreement on everything, but we do have an agreement. Let's move forward on that which we agree.'' I agree. Every single provision that we are bringing to the floor today, I say, Mr. Speaker, is something on which we agree.

Mr. WOODALL. I would be happy to yield if I have time remaining. The gentleman knows I would be happy to yield, and I absolutely will. Let us move forward on that with which we agree. There is not one provision in this rule on which we disagree. And Mr. Speaker, you will not hear anyone on this floor say otherwise. But it's not just the minority whip, who I would very much like to yield to if I have time remaining; it's the minority leader. The same Rules Committee hearing: ``Here is a place where we are all in agreement. Whatever else we have, we can continue that conversation later.'' ``We can continue that conversation later.'' Let's do what we all agree on.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My colleague in the Rules Committee earlier said if we could just get a few of us together around the table we could sort this out. I believe that. I absolutely believe that. If we could just sit down around the table and talk to each other, get together on the facts, we could sort this out. But we're not even together on the facts, Mr. Speaker. My colleague just talked about how we're taking away 250 years of American governance with this government shutdown. I don't celebrate this shutdown. I wish the Senate would have come to the table so we wouldn't have had a shutdown. But the truth is, Mr. Speaker, in the 16 years that Republicans have controlled this body, this is the third shutdown that has the great misfortune of occurring. I came along in the Carter administration. I'm from the State of Georgia; President Carter is from the State of Georgia. You go back to the Carter administration, come 16 years forward, Democrats controlled this institution, shut the government down 15 times. In the Carter administration, Mr. Speaker, it was all Democrats--Democrats in the White House, Democrats running the U.S. House, Democrats running the U.S. Senate, shut down the government five times for more than 50 days. I don't celebrate that, but I do recognize that when people refuse to sit down and talk to each other that is sometimes the outcome. It didn't have to be the outcome this time, but here we are. So we can either throw up our hands in disgust or we can start pointing the fingers of blame or we can do something about it. Again, Mr. Speaker, not one Member of this body has come to the floor to attest that the passage of this rule and the passage of these underlying bills wouldn't make a difference for American families--and the reason they haven't is because they would. I understand we're going to continue to disagree, but let's do those things on which we agree. These five bills contain the first of those ideas. And I commit to my colleagues, if we can begin this process today, we can be right back here tomorrow doing more of it. Wonder of wonders, Mr. Speaker, if we start working together and doing those things that we know our constituents want us to do, we might just find a way out. We might just make constituents back home proud. We can and we should. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, we're here today because we don't have a ``my way or the highway'' system of government. We have a system of government that requires that the people's representatives come together and build consensus, find a common path forward. And that path has been illusive, Mr. Speaker. Oftentimes, as the reading clerk is reading a bill, you'll see someone ask to waive the reading of the bill, ask unanimous consent that the bill not be read. I'm so pleased that today we had every single word of this resolution read, Mr. Speaker, because the words matter. I open up a newspaper, it talks about all the division in Washington, D.C. It talks about all the things on which we cannot agree. And what we have before us today, Mr. Speaker, is a bill about things on which we agree. I hear it from my constituents all the time. They say, Rob, why in the world can't you all get something done? I understand there are things that you legitimately disagree about, ideas about which different parts of the country have different paths forward. But what about those things on which you agree? That's what we have here today, Mr. Speaker. There's not a Member in this body that is celebrating a government shutdown. What we can celebrate, though, is a path out of the government shutdown. This rule allows for that today. I want to read those titles again, Mr. Speaker. H.J. Res. 70, to reopen our national parks and museums, common ground on which this body agrees. H.J. Res. 71, to provide local funding for the District of Columbia. A lot of folks don't realize, but because the District of Columbia is a Federal district, the Federal Government provides a little money, but most of the money comes from the District of Columbia itself. But the District of Columbia is not allowed to spend its local funds without a Federal authorization. This does that. And then, so important, Mr. Speaker, honoring our promise to America's veterans. I don't believe there's a man or woman in this Chamber that doesn't believe our veterans deserve the very best service that we can provide. I don't think there's a man or a woman in this Chamber who wants to see our VA services halted or curtailed. We solve that today, Mr. Speaker. Research for Lifesaving Cures Act, Mr. Speaker, H.J. Res. 73, to continue funding at the NIH. NIH makes us all so proud. We do so many first-in-human trials at the Winship Cancer Institute down just outside of my district in Georgia. Mr. Speaker, lifesaving research, lifesaving opportunities caught up in this government shutdown, not one of those things on which we disagree; one of those things on which we agree. We have an opportunity to get that done today. And, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3230, Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act. Again, there's a lot to be frustrated about here today. And I know folks back home, Mr. Speaker, in your district and in mine, they have a lot to be frustrated about too. But one bright moment in this debate came late on Saturday night when we came together unanimously and said, whatever our disagreements here, our men and women in uniform should not get caught up in it. Pay our troops first. It brought us together. Not just in this House, Mr. Speaker, we have the ability to come together, but also in the Senate, where, by unanimous consent, they passed that bill. It went to the President's desk. But what that bill did not include, and what I believe we all believe it should have included, was funding for our National Guard and our Reserve. This bill gives us the opportunity to solve that today. Mr. Speaker, we tried to bring up three of these five bills yesterday under a process they call suspension of the rules. It requires two- thirds of the House to support it. But because we unanimously supported our troops last week, we assumed that we would be able to unanimously support our veterans, unanimously support our folks here in the District of Columbia, using their local forums, unanimously support our parks and our monuments, and we were wrong. I'll say to my friends, I don't know if they looked at the numbers-- 80 percent of my friends on the other side of the aisle said no. They said yes, this is something on which we agree, but no, we are not going to participate in solving that problem. We want that problem to persist until you solve all the problems. Mr. Speaker, I'll close with this. One of our great patriots during the American Revolution, Edmund Burke, said, No man does worse than he who does nothing because he can only do a little. Mr. Speaker, I concede that some of the things we're working on today might seem like a little. But we have the opportunity to help people. We have an opportunity to make a difference, and shame on us if we do nothing because we can only do a little. Mr. Speaker, 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.