Rob Woodall

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say that that competing vision of trillions more in stimulus and more in government jobs and more in government spending is one idea of how to revive this economy. It's just not one that I share. I yield at this time 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Brooks), who also I do not believe shares that opinion.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to my friend from Indiana (Mr. Pence). (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. WOODALL. At this time I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to another cosponsor of the Fair Tax, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson). (Mr. CULBERSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say to the gentlelady that there is only one bill in this Congress that abolishes every single corporate loophole in the entire United States Tax Code. That's H.R. 25, the Fair Tax. I would welcome the gentlelady on that bill because I too share a desire to see those loopholes eliminated. I now yield 2 minutes to a cosponsor of the Fair Tax, the gentleman who has cosponsored bipartisan tort reform legislation here in the House, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to a gentleman who held a very persuasive Special Order on this topic last night, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks).

Mr. WOODALL. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I came to the House floor today to talk about the big deal. Every time I open up a newspaper, Mr. Speaker, this week it's been talking about the big deal, the big deal that's going on at the White House. I want to set the record straight here today. The big deal happened right here on the floor of this House, when the only budget that's passed in all of Washington, D.C., all year long, cutting $6 trillion in spending, was passed by this body, Mr. Speaker. That's the big deal--$6 trillion agreed upon by this United States House of Representatives. Now, I know down at the White House they are talking about the big deal is 3 trillion in spending cuts, 6 trillion, Mr. Speaker. The big deal started right here now. You know, Mr. Speaker, I am a big fan of the open process that we have had in this House where every single Member of the United States House of Representatives come here and have their voices heard, offer their ideas, offer their opinions, and that happened in our voting process, Mr. Speaker. I have a vote tally here from that week of voting on the budget. The Congressional Black Caucus budget came to the floor of this House, was debated, considered. It received 103 affirmative votes, 103. The Republican Study Committee budget came, debated in this House, 119 affirmative budgets. The Progressive Caucus budget came, 77 affirmative votes. Congressman Van Hollen brought a Democratic alternative, 166 affirmative votes. The only budget to get 218 votes, Mr. Speaker, was the House Budget Committee budget with 235 ``yes'' votes, 235. Now, that's a budget that was laid out line item by line item by line item, so absolutely everyone in America could see what it was that we were doing to achieve these savings to change the direction of our borrowing and our spending. Now, no one even introduced the President's budget in this body, Mr. Speaker. No one offered it. Now the Senate brought the President's budget to a vote, and it was defeated 0-97. The United States Senate, Mr. Speaker, defeated the President's budget 0-97. Now, they brought the House-passed budget up over there. They couldn't pass that either. It received 40 affirmative votes, but they still couldn't pass the budget. As my colleague said earlier, it's been over 800 days since the Senate has passed a budget. Now, I know the President has come back out and he has talked about some alternatives, some things he would do differently from the budget that he offered in February, differently from that budget that got zero votes in the Senate. And in a Budget Committee hearing the other day, we asked the Congressional Budget Office Director what's the score on the President's new plan. And the office told us, Mr. Speaker, that they can't score a speech. I think that's true. There is a lot of talk in this town, but there is a not a lot of line item by line item by line item putting your name, your money, and your vote by where your priorities are. But this House did it, Mr. Speaker. We are the only body in town to do it. It's the only budget in town to pass and it's the big deal, $6 trillion over 10 years to help try to get this country back on track. I want to say, Mr. Speaker, it did it by not cutting one penny from the benefits that seniors are receiving today, not one, so that seniors, even those over 55, Mr. Speaker, would continue to receive the same Medicare program that seniors are receiving today; so those over 55 would receive the same Social Security benefits as those folks who are receiving those benefits today. I cannot believe, when I open up the front page of the newspaper, I hear folks talking about Social Security benefits might not go out the door, veterans benefits might not go out the door. Mr. Speaker, we have a plan that this body passed that gets those checks out the door. It is responsible in that it cut $6 trillion in spending. It is responsible in that it bends the budget curve going forward over the next 10 years and it gets those checks out the door. Mr. Speaker, I don't know what's going to happen over the next 3 weeks. I don't know where this town is going to go. This town is a tough town to predict. But I know that this House has put its mark in the sand. This House has brought every single Budget Committee alternative that was offered to this floor. We voted on each and every one, and the only one to pass this House was the big deal, $6 trillion, and it gets our seniors and our troops paid on August 3. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to rally around that and let's give the American people what they deserve, and that's some certainty in the budget process.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank the gentleman. I rise today as a member of the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, for folks who don't follow exactly what the Rules Committee does, the Rules Committee is that committee that is the very last committee to touch any piece of legislation that comes to the floor; and it is the responsibility of the Rules Committee to decide what kind of choices we will be able to make about the bill once it gets to the floor. Now, there was a time in this House, Mr. Speaker, where what that meant was that the Rules Committee closed that process down, didn't allow any other options, any other opinions, no amendments at all, sent a bill to the floor and said take it or leave it. But, Mr. Speaker, under the leadership of Chairman Dreier on the Rules Committee and under the leadership of the Speaker of the House, that process has begun to change. Now, it is not perfect, but it has begun to change. I rise in support of a rule today where the Rules Committee asked all 435 Members of this House, when it comes to the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act, asked all 435 members of this House: What would you like to see changed about this bill? How would you like to see this bill improved? What would you like done differently in this piece of legislation? As you know, Mr. Speaker, yesterday we had that exact same process on the flood insurance program. Not only did we allow lots of amendments to the flood insurance program; we allowed an amendment to eliminate the program altogether. That is the kind of openness that has been incorporated in this 112th Congress. Well, this rule today is no exception. That is why I rise in strong support of it. We asked all 435 Members of the House, How would you improve the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act? Send in your amendment now, have it preprinted, and let us come and consider your ideas. And, Mr. Speaker, we did that, Republicans and Democrats alike. I have here, we only had one Republican amendment submitted, and we made that in order. We had 11 Democrat amendments submitted. One of those was non-germane. One was duplicative. The other nine were made in order. Here we are, a Republican-controlled Congress, Mr. Speaker; and through the leadership of the Speaker and the chairman of the Rules Committee, we have said all amendments should be preprinted. All amendments should be considered. Here we are on the floor of the House today, a Republican House, considering one Republican amendment and nine Democratic amendments. Now, a lot of folks ask why that is, Mr. Speaker. I get that every time I go back home. I live in a very conservative Republican district, as you know, Mr. Speaker. And so folks say: Rob, why don't you just shut down the process and do it your way because your way is the right way? And I tell them: You're absolutely right. In our part of the world, our opinion is the right opinion. But there are a lot of other opinions. You get to Washington, D.C., 435 Members of Congress, that's 435 opinions. Sometimes it's 436 or 437 opinions among the 435 of us. And we can only have this body, the people's House, work its will when all of the people are heard. I just say, and I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding, it has been such a pleasure to be a part of the Rules Committee and serving with folks like the gentleman from Colorado--whose editorial I read in the paper this morning with great interest--serving on a committee with folks like the gentleman from Colorado and the gentleman from Utah, who are committed to openness in this process. I'm a believer, Mr. Speaker. I'm one of the new guys. I have only been here 6 months. I believe that we can do better for America when we do things in an open process. Now, because I come from a conservative district, I know for a fact that when we open up the process to all comers, I'm going to lose, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to lose because this House kind of sits in the middle. We are a center-right nation. So I come from a far-right district; that means I'm going to lose. But I tell you, as an American, I want this House to work its will. I want this body to work the way the Founders intended it to work. I want us to take these baby steps, Mr. Speaker, towards restoring the faith of the American people in the work that we do here. So, again, it is with great pride that I rise today as a member of the Rules Committee, as someone who supported this rule and as someone who is so appreciative of the leadership of Chairman Dreier and of Speaker Boehner and of our friends on the other side of the aisle who enable us to make this process the open process that it is. I encourage all my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule and then to vote their conscience on the underlying provision.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Chairman, I realize $200,000 doesn't seem like a lot of money as we talk about millions and billions and then on to trillions. But, Mr. Chairman, when I got this press release from the Department of Energy dated May 24, 2011, it read this: The U.S. Department of Energy, together with the U.S. Department of Education, today announces the launch of a new energy education initiative, America's Home Energy Education Challenge, to educate America's youth about the benefits of energy efficiency. Now, Mr. Chairman, you know as I do, this committee has been asked to make tough, tough decisions about how to allocate money in this appropriations bill and has done an amazing job in doing that. And yet what we continue to see out of agencies from downtown is the creation of new programs. Now you know as I know that we could go through and eliminate, we could zero out this entire appropriations bill and we wouldn't be anywhere close to balance. We could zero out all the discretionary spending and wouldn't be close to balance. And I wonder if folks downtown are getting that same message. Now more than ever is not the right time to start a new program for which there is no demand and bring that to the American people. Now, Mr. Chairman, I grew up before there was a Department of Energy. And believe it or not--and this program is targeted at folks in grades 3 to 8--when I was in elementary school, we had an energy efficiency program. There was a sign on the wall that said, Please turn out the lights when you leave. There was another room in my younger days that had a bird, and the light switch came right out through the beak that said, Tweet the beak when you leave. Lots of those things were going on in America's classrooms, Mr. Chairman. They don't need to originate from Washington, D.C. They don't need the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Energy to get involved training children to turn out the lights. We've heard from speaker after speaker after speaker who is trying to move dollars around to make sure that we are targeting our few dollars that we have at those critical, cutting-edge technology programs, those critical research programs, those critical infrastructure programs, and yet here we have a brand new program, Mr. Chairman, going to teach children to turn out the lights when they leave. I think that is a wonderful goal, and I hope parents across America who are watching this tonight, Mr. Chairman, will take this as their push to go and begin that program at home if they haven't already. Knowing how tight dollars are in my community, I'm sure families are already doing that. But this is a serious issue that requires folks across this board to come together to make the kinds of spending decisions that we have to make to dig ourselves out of this hole. Creating new programs to do something that are State responsibilities, local responsibilities, family responsibilities, this is not the time nor the bill for it, Mr. Chairman. And I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, to cut this $200,000 and eliminate this new program and put these dollars in the spending reduction account before the new school year begins. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I appreciate the work you've done on this bill. This appropriation, this $4.9 million isn't about doing the science. You won't see me down here attacking dollars for the science. But as the gentleman knows, this is about the maintenance and operation of Corps projects dedicated solely to global warming. If we were talking about the science, then let's talk about the engineers and the folks who are going to do that Corps research. This isn't that. This is just like the bricks-and-mortar operations and maintenance that goes on in every Corps project in my district, and every other Corps project across the country, but just put in the global warming silo. And I'm concerned that the visceral reaction that even a discussion of operations and maintenance brings up demonstrates where silos of this kind do more harm than good. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. WOODALL. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WOODALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My amendment moves to strike from the operation and maintenance account all dollars for global warming project planning. I know the committee put a lot of effort into this particular section of the bill, plussing it up almost a million dollars over 2011 levels, up $52 million from the FY 2012 request. I come from a county--my primary county, Mr. Chairman, depends entirely on a Corps water project for all of our drinking water, not to mention recreation and economic development, and on and on and on. So I'm very interesting in seeing the Corps succeed. What I'm concerned about are those silos that are being created in government today, Mr. Chairman. This body in the early 1970s would have been talking about the calamity we are faced with, global cooling, and here we today with a special budget line item for global warming for the Corps of Engineers. We have a great deal of global warming money going into our Department of the Interior, going into the Environmental Protection Agency. The Corps at its core is a construction agency, and certainly this account provides for operations and maintenance for anything that might come up along those lines. But rather than creating this silo to focus specifically on global warming issues, in these tough economic times when we have so many Corps projects that are so lacking in funding, my amendment would strike this account in its entirety, $4.9 million, and transfer that money to a deficit reduction account. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOODALL. I turned in a copy at the desk, and I regret that the ranking member didn't get one earlier.

Mr. WOODALL. I've got a copy right here. I would be happy to----

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I thank my friend from Texas for yielding. We do have the great pleasure of serving on the Rules Committee together, though serving on the Rules Committee can be a benefit and a burden because historically there's been kind of a gentleman's agreement, I would tell you from what I've read about the institution; that if the committee of jurisdiction brings out a clever idea, they only bring out those clever ideas that they really like. And then the leadership of the House, whichever party is in control of the House, then only allows those reported bills that they really like to show up here on the floor of the House for us to debate. So then when the Rules Committee gets around to considering amendments, well, maybe the only amendments that are allowed are things that nibble around the edges but don't really make any substantive changes to the underlying bill. Five months, six now, I've been here in the U.S. House of Representatives as part of this freshman class, and what we're doing today excites me. And to folks who have been here a little bit longer, maybe it's not as exciting to you as it is to me. But what is happening here today, not only did we get a bill that went through the regular order process--coming out of committee, no special games played, went through the amendment process in committee, everybody got a vote, and in fact was reported unanimously out of committee, as I understand-- then it came to the Rules Committee. We had about 30 amendments offered up at the Rules Committee. A couple weren't germane, a couple were duplicative, but everything else we allowed. And one of those amendments was an amendment that said this is just a dumb program, let's scrap it, send it to the States and start over again. Wow. And now there are a lot of amendments that we allowed that said let's change a ``six'' to a ``five'' or let's change this number of members to this number of members, things that would improve a bill, nibble around the edges. But this rule today, for the first time that I can recall, allows an amendment that says the entire underlying legislation is headed in the wrong direction. Let's take a new direction. Now, Mr. Speaker, there are folks who would be scared about that kind of amendment, folks who would be intimidated to let something come to the floor. We have absolutely no idea what's going to happen. But this House has made a new commitment, a renewed commitment to expressing the voice of the American people. And guess what? The only amendments that are going to pass on the floor today are ones the American people are behind. The only amendments that are going to pass the floor today are ones that get 218 votes and represent the majority will of this U.S. House of Representatives. It just makes me so proud. And I hope, Mr. Speaker, for folks who don't follow the process as closely as you and I do, that they will see what a difference that is. And it is a difference from administrations going back 2 years, 4 years, 8 years, 10 years, 12 years. Folks say if it's an idea that has the support of the House, then it deserves to be heard, and we're going to hear all of those amendments here on the floor today. Mr. Speaker, it's not easy to maintain that level of openness in the House. It takes a lot of cooperation between both sides of the aisle to make openness work. We have had that cooperation. And I don't mean cooperation in the sense that folks agree on absolutely all of the ideas. I mean cooperation in the sense that folks know that when the House works its will, the people's work gets done. When the House works its will, the American people's voice is best heard. And I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their commitment to making that work. And I again thank my friend from Texas for yielding me the time this morning.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. I came down to the floor today to talk about the fiscal crisis that we're having in America. There are those when I open the front page of the paper, Mr. Speaker, and I read the headline, it talks about having a debt limit vote crisis in this country. I went back, I looked, and apparently we've raised the debt limit over 70 times with a vote right here in this body. Apparently having a vote isn't particularly a complicated thing to do. What we're having is a debt crisis. I think that's an important distinction. I was talking to a freshman colleague of mine yesterday about that. Understand that we can have the vote, Mr. Speaker. It's within the House's authority to bring a vote to raise the debt limit tomorrow. In fact, we brought that vote to the House already: Should we raise the debt ceiling or should we not? Mr. Speaker, we defeated it. We defeated it by a wide margin here in this body. What we have is a debt crisis. Now, Mr. Speaker, if it were just existing debt, perhaps we could work out a way to finance that, but it's not. It's continued borrowing each and every day to the tune of 42 cents of every dollar that we spend. In other words, if we paid for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the national debt, those other mandatory spending programs, just those, Mr. Speaker, we've already spent every nickel in Federal revenue. That means every nickel that we spend for education, every nickel that we spend for transportation, every nickel that we spend on national defense, on homeland security, on the environment, on the courts, every other nickel we borrow, with absolutely no plan, Mr. Speaker, for changing that going forward. If the President were here today, Mr. Speaker, I would say we do not have a debt limit vote crisis. We have a debt crisis, and there is only one body in this town that has put together a budget that will address it. I am proud to say as a freshman in this Congress, as a freshman in this House, it was the U.S. House of Representatives that took on that responsibility, Mr. Speaker. It's been 799 days since the United States Senate last passed a budget. Hear that. Three years ago since the Senate last passed a budget. Not a balanced budget, mind you, Mr. Speaker, but a budget at all. These are serious challenges that require serious people to offer serious solutions, and the only one that has been offered in this town, Mr. Speaker, came from this body. I encourage the President to go back and take one more look at that, because when we come down to game day, come down to the crisis--understand what we're talking about when we talk about a crisis, we passed the debt limit back in May, Mr. Speaker, as you know. We've just been shuffling the books in this town because that's what Washington does so well: raiding this fund to pay that, raiding this fund to pay this, over and over and over again. Apparently the games just run out on August 2. Mr. Speaker, the games cannot continue. The games must stop, and they must stop here, and we must lead as we have always led in this body. We do not have a debt limit vote crisis. We have a debt crisis that is driven by our addiction to borrowing and spending. The borrowing and spending stops here, Mr. Speaker, and I thank you for your leadership on that.

Mr. WOODALL

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlelady 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, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 328 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I want to associate myself with my colleagues who say it's much too late. It is much too late. I wish we'd had that opportunity to have this conversation before hostilities began. I am new to this body, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps my colleagues knew hostilities were getting ready to begin. I did not. I heard about it on CNN. There was no consultation with Congress before those hostilities began. That was the right time to have this debate. That time has passed. And for those who say delay, delay, delay, I'll tell you, it's already too late. We cannot delay any further. And I'm very pleased, Mr. Speaker, that the Rules Committee has made these two resolutions available because you have two very clear choices today, Mr. Speaker. As you know, on the Senate side there's the Kerry-McCain resolution. And this resolution that we have from Mr. Hastings today largely mirrors that resolution. If you believe that what's going on in Libya is in the best interest of the United States, if you believe we have a national security interest in Libya, if you believe that the Congress should make clear that we are behind the President and what's going on in Libya, you have that choice today in the resolution offered by Mr. Hastings. If you believe that this is just another example of a war that's going to escalate, and you're concerned about that escalation, and you want to put yourself on the record as saying no, no more, no more, you have your chance to do that today with the Rooney resolution. No more. I hold here in my hand, Mr. Speaker, a copy of Constitution of the United States of America, again, ratified this week in 1788. Article I, section 8: the Congress shall have the power to declare war. Article I, section 9: no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. Mr. Speaker, it's easy to say that foreign policy is the dominion of the President of the United States, and it is. But the purse is the dominion of the U.S. House of Representatives. I want to hearken back again to what the chairman of the Rules Committee said on the floor earlier: this should be a time of celebration. And, Mr. Speaker, when we have troops in harm's way, it should be something that we are unified behind and believe in as a Nation, that we are ready to prosecute a war effort to the fullest extent and bring our men and women home victorious. But, Mr. Speaker, this is not a topic of unanimity. This is not a topic that we have found any sort of agreement on whatsoever in this body. In fact, this is a topic that we have been focused on and focused on and focused on, trying to bring to conclusion in this House. And this rule today, Mr. Speaker, gives us that opportunity. Now, I want to make clear there's a further step that we could go. We could go one step further that says no funds shall be used, period. And when we return to this body, Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleagues, Mr. Kucinich and Mr. Amash, are going to make that amendment available to us, and I will be voting ``yes'' when that amendment comes down the pike. But for today, we have an opportunity to take a step in that direction. We have an opportunity to make our voices heard. Are you with it, or are you against it? Do you support what's going on in Libya, or do you believe we're headed in the wrong direction as a Nation? You have that opportunity today; but only, Mr. Speaker, if you vote ``yes'' for this rule to make these two measures in order. I urge a strong ``yes'' vote.

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