[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 176 (Thursday, November 17, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H7733-H7737]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2112,
CONSOLIDATED AND FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2012
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call
up House Resolution 467 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 467
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be
in order to consider the conference report to accompany the
bill (H.R. 2112) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural
Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related
Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2012, and for other purposes. All points of order against the
conference report and against its consideration are waived.
The conference report shall be considered as read. The
previous question shall be considered as ordered on the
conference report to its adoption without intervening motion
except: (1) one hour of debate; and (2) one motion to
recommit if applicable.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from North Carolina is
recognized for 1 hour.
Ms. FOXX. 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
[[Page H7734]]
may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded
is for the purpose of debate only.
General Leave
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have
5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from North Carolina?
There was no objection.
Ms. FOXX. House Resolution 467 is a closed rule providing for
consideration of H.R. 2112, the Consolidated and Further Continuing
Appropriations Act, also known as the mini-bus.
Mr. Speaker, this conference report was approved by the conference
committee on a wide bipartisan basis with all but one of 38 House and
Senate conferees signing off on the report. The bill contains a
continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown and continue
Federal operations until December 16, 2011, or until Congress completes
the remaining nine FY 2012 appropriations bills. It is important to
highlight that this CR is a clean extension and includes no new funding
provisions.
In accordance with the Budget Control Act, this conference report
upholds the overall discretionary spending level of $1.043 trillion and
includes $2.3 billion in disaster relief funding, which falls under the
disaster designation cap set by the act.
The Agriculture agencies and programs in this bill will receive a
total of $136.6 billion in both discretionary and mandatory funding, a
reduction of $4.6 billion from the President's request based on the
administration's midsession review. Discretionary funding in the
legislation totals $19.8 billion, a reduction of $350 billion below
last year's level and a cut of $2.5 billion from the President's
request.
It is important to note that mandatory food and nutrition programs
within the Department of Agriculture--including SNAP, also known as
food stamps, as well as child nutrition--are funded at $98.6 billion.
This funding will allow all individuals and families who meet the
programs' criteria for aid to receive all the benefits available to
them, and includes $3 billion in reserve funds in case of unanticipated
increases in participation or food price increases.
Additionally, school lunch and school breakfast programs will receive
$18.2 billion in mandatory funding in the agreement. This funding will
help low-income students with free or reduced-price meals at schools in
every community in the Nation.
The conference agreement includes provisions to prevent overly
burdensome and costly regulations and provide greater flexibility for
local school districts to improve the nutritional quality of meals in
the national school lunch and school breakfast programs. Without these
provisions, the cost of these important programs would balloon by an
additional $7 billion over the next 5 years, leaving States and local
school districts in the lurch.
The WIC program is funded at $6.6 billion. This funding will provide
supplemental foods, as well as nutritional and other preventative
health services, to low-income participants.
I am pleased to report that the bill places restrictions on the
implementation of a Grain Inspection and Packers and Stockyards
Administration, GIPSA, proposed rule that would have allowed harmful
government interference in the private market for livestock and
poultry.
The Commerce, Justice, and Science section of the conference report
includes a base total of $52.7 billion, a decrease of $583 million
below last year's level, and a decrease of almost $5 billion below the
President's request.
The conference agreement includes numerous provisions that protect
the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Three of these
protections are made permanent law beginning in fiscal year 2012. These
three provisions prohibit the Department of Justice from consolidating
firearms sales records, electronically retrieving the records of former
firearms dealers, and maintaining information on persons who have
passed firearms background checks. The conference agreement also
contains numerous 1-year firearms protections and new language
prohibiting DOJ from requiring imported shotguns to meet a sporting
purposes test.
The bill extends important provisions related to Guantanamo Bay,
including a prohibition on the transfer or release of any detainee into
the U.S. and a prohibition on the acquisition or construction of any
new prison to house detainees. Under no circumstances should we
endanger our communities by allowing some of the most dangerous people
in the world to set foot on American soil.
The conference agreement includes important provisions to protect
unborn human life, including a ban on abortion funding for Federal
prisoners and a conscience protection for prison employees, and a
prohibition on the Legal Services Corporation funds for organizations
that engage in abortion-related litigation.
The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development section of the
conference report includes a base total of $55.6 billion, representing
a decrease of $19.4 billion below the President's request.
{time} 1240
The conference agreement provides $500 million for National
Infrastructure Investments, commonly referred to as the TIGER program,
and includes language prioritizing rail, highway, and transit projects
that improve or expand existing systems.
The conference agreement provides $39.9 billion for the Federal
highway program, which is the annual spending level set by the latest
Surface Transportation Extension Act.
The agreement provides $1.66 billion for the Federal Highway
Administration's Emergency Relief program, which assists States in
rebuilding Federal highways that were damaged by major natural
disasters such as Hurricane Irene and the flooding of the Missouri
River.
Included in the conference agreement is $12.5 billion for the FAA.
The agreement provides $3.35 billion for airports and $2.7 billion for
facilities and equipment. Language is included to restore the Block
Aircraft Registry Request program, or BARR, and to prohibit future
changes to the program. Also included is $878 million for FAA Next
Generation funding to ease congestion and reduce air traffic delays.
The legislation includes a total of $37.3 billion for the Department
of Housing and Urban Development, a decrease of $3.8 billion below last
year's level and $4.7 billion below the President's request.
The bill does not extend the increased maximum loan limits for Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac. These entities have been under public scrutiny for
their questionable business practices and use of billions in Federal
bailout funds, some of which have been used for extravagant management
bonuses. The bill does allow an increase in the conforming loan limits
to the Federal Housing Authority, FHA, which is subject to greater
congressional scrutiny and oversight.
Mr. Speaker, I am appreciative of the members of the conference
committee and cognizant of the tough jobs they had to get to this
bipartisan agreement coming to the floor for consideration. It is for
this reason that I urge my colleagues to support the rule, and I
reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank my colleague for yielding me the customary 30
minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this is a sad day for the House of Representatives--
another demonstration that the House has failed to meet its basic
responsibility to the American people. The new budget year began over 6
weeks ago, but not a single routine appropriations bill, not a single
one, has been enacted. Instead, we are considering a massive $100
billion hodgepodge of unrelated programs and agencies all crammed into
a single bill that no Member of the House saw before this week.
In fact, most of the provisions in this bill have never been
considered by the House at any time in any form. Let me repeat that. A
massive $100 billion bill, most of which has never been considered by
the House, brought up for a single, all-or-nothing vote under a
completely closed process. And what's worse, we will be back here in a
few weeks with another massive omnibus bill to keep the rest of the
government open. As I said, Mr. Speaker, this is a sad day for the
House.
Fortunately, there is one hint of good news in this mess. The bill
does
[[Page H7735]]
reject some of the absurd cuts proposed on the other side of the aisle.
For example, the bill does not contain proposed cuts that would have
denied 700,000 women, infants and children valuable nutritional
supplements or defunded the COPS program.
But those welcome steps are not enough to make this a good bill. I am
especially disturbed by the unwise and shortsighted cuts to programs
important to America's role as a competitive global power. High-speed
and intercity passenger rail, for example, gets no funding under this
agreement. The bill allows the country to maintain Amtrak at its
current state, but does nothing to help us keep pace with countries
like China and Germany, who have already built a rail infrastructure
that will expand their economies well into the 21st century. If our
country hopes to remain a global superpower in the 21st century, we
have to do more to invest in our country than the meager steps that we
are taking today.
Especially in tough economic times like these, we need to rebuild our
infrastructure, to be educating our children, and creating jobs for the
millions of unemployed. Instead of the Band-Aid measure we are
considering today, we have to truly begin to invest in our future and
ensure that we not only survive, but that we thrive, in the century to
come.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to my colleague from New
York that I think the American people are beginning to realize that
government spends money; it doesn't invest money.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Massachusetts, a member of the Committee on Rules, Mr.
McGovern.
Mr. McGOVERN. I thank my ranking member for yielding to me.
Mr. Speaker, there are some good things in this minibus. I'm
especially pleased with the funding levels for the SNAP and the WIC
programs, which will ensure that hungry people have access to
nutritious food during these tough economic times. And I regret very
much that those programs were under attack by the Republican majority
in this House, but in this minibus, those levels are adequate. And I'll
likely support the final passage of this bill.
But, Mr. Speaker, for the life of me, I can't understand why policy
riders were allowed to be included in the final bill. Some were even
airdropped in the dark of night without being considered by either the
House or the Senate. Most troubling, the underlying bill includes a
special carve-out for Maine and Vermont to allow 100,000-pound trucks
on their interstate highways for the next 20 years.
Mr. Speaker, current law allows only trucks up to 80,000 pounds to
travel on interstates--and for good reason. Bigger, heavier trucks are
an enormous safety threat. Oversized rigs are more likely to be
involved in crashes, not to mention that it's unnerving to see one in
your rearview mirror bearing down on you on the highway. And if the
safety risks are not convincing enough as to why heavier trucks are a
bad idea, consider the economic arguments. We're here talking about
deficit reduction, and already bigger trucks don't pay their fair share
for the damage they incur on our roads and our bridges. An 80,000-pound
truck only pays 80 percent of its damage costs, and a 97,000-pound
truck would pay only half of the damage it causes.
Our Nation's infrastructure is crumbling, and the highway trust fund
is woefully underfunded. Where are we going to get this money to repair
our infrastructure? And the Maine and the Vermont exemptions will only
make this problem worse.
And it also starts us down a slippery slope of allowing other States
to ask for special weight-limit exemptions. We'll end up with a
patchwork of truck-size and truck-weight laws that will make the
business of transporting goods by truck across State lines a confusing
mess.
Mr. Speaker, there were no hearings--none, zero--no hearings held in
the House on the Maine and Vermont exemption. The House didn't even
consider a Transportation Appropriations bill. So to be making such a
major policy change without thoughtful consideration and vigorous
debate is absurd.
I would remind my colleagues that there's bipartisan opposition to
increasing truck size and truck weight. I have a bill to freeze truck
size and truck weight at 80,000 pounds across the entire national
highway system, and it has 60 bipartisan cosponsors. The issue of
increasing truck size and weight needs to be fully understood and
debated before making any long-term policy changes. I strongly oppose
the Maine and Vermont policy rider in this appropriations bill; and I
regret very, very much that this was included without the appropriate
hearings, without the appropriate oversight, and without doing it out
in the open so people could understand what the policy implications are
by making this exemption.
Ms. FOXX. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Colorado, a member of the Committee on Rules, Mr. Polis.
Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentlelady from New York.
Mr. Speaker, I have to voice my opposition to an insidious provision
that has been added to this bill at the last minute by agribusiness and
the frozen food industry, and that is a change that allows pizza to be
counted as a vegetable. They started with French fries; now they've
moved on to pizza. This language equates pizza with vegetables and
weakens otherwise good school nutrition standards.
This false equivalency harkens back to the ludicrous labeling of
ketchup as a vegetable made infamous 30 years ago by President Ronald
Reagan. Again, this bill's actual language requires crediting of tomato
paste--again, crediting of tomato paste from page 90 of this bill--as a
vegetable under the school lunch program to be subsidized by taxpayers
as a vegetable.
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I had a family from my district, from Eagle County, Colorado, in my
office earlier this morning and I asked the mom, I said, When your kid
is eating, do you count pizza as his vegetable? And she said, No. And
parents across the Nation agree.
Pizza can be incorporated into a healthy diet. I eat pizza. Most of
my constituents eat pizza. But when we're talking about taxpayer
subsidies for healthy vegetables, to make sure that they're available
for kids on the side of pizza, making sure there's some broccoli,
making sure there's some spinach, making sure there's something healthy
for them to eat at the school lunch counter, pizza alone--particularly
pizza with no vegetables on it, just tomato paste--it's common sense
that it's not a vegetable. What's next? Are Twinkies going to be
considered a vegetable?
Rather than having a deliberative effort, we have special interests
inserting these provisions into these bills, contrary to the public
health. And we wonder why Congress is so unpopular nationally. No one
can help but to look at us and scratch their heads when we say that
french fries count as a healthy, nutritious vegetable, that pizza
counts as a healthy, nutritional element.
You know, poor children's health is something we all have a stake in.
Not only are the kids and the families affected, but we're all
affected. The costs of Medicaid and Medicare, government spending,
rising obesity rates. The empty calories in french fries are not equal
to truly nutritious vegetables like carrots, spinach, lettuce,
broccoli, cucumbers.
I know it's hard to get kids to eat vegetables. I have a 9-week-old.
He hasn't been weaned yet, so we haven't had to deal with that yet. But
you know what? You don't define vegetables down. You don't call a
Twinkie a vegetable. You don't call pizza a vegetable. What you do is
you have to make sure that kids know how to incorporate healthy food
into their diet so they can grow up strong and keep all of our costs
down and make sure to keep America healthy.
Mr. Speaker, this bill has many important provisions, but I feel it's
critical to highlight the ludicrous definition that Congress is giving
by redefining nutrition down and providing taxpayer subsidies for
unhealthy food in our schools.
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Our colleagues across the aisle often try to distract from what are
the real
[[Page H7736]]
issues facing our country and get into the weeds, and bills like this
give them a perfect opportunity to do that. But when I'm home every
weekend and talk to my constituents, what they're concerned about is
they have incredible outrage with the inaction of the liberal Democrat-
controlled Senate.
My constituents are aware of the many bills that the House has passed
but which are stalled in the Senate, and many of these bills deal
directly with promoting jobs, which remains the prevailing issue of so
many Americans.
Our colleagues are upset about the quality of the free lunches that
we provide. Well, we have more people in poverty and getting free
lunches because the Democrat-controlled Senate refuses to work with the
Republicans in the House to set an environment where more jobs can be
created and fewer people would be dependent on food stamps and be
dependent on getting free breakfast and free lunches in the schools.
My constituents understand the colossal failure of the Obama stimulus
bill and the general policies that existed when the Democrats were in
control of the House for 4 years. My constituents understand that
government can create jobs only for more government bureaucrats. And
those bureaucrats must justify their existence by creating more
regulations that wind up killing more private sector jobs.
The liberal Democrat elites in Washington keep asking for one
Republican jobs bill. Well, Mr. Speaker, we've passed at least 20 jobs
bills that help the private sector--the only sector of our economy that
can actually create real jobs through growth in their businesses.
The liberals keep buying into the false theory that government will
create millions of jobs. The reality is that, unless we provide the
private sector with an environment that is conducive to job creation,
jobs will be very hard to come by.
Mr. Speaker, Republicans have been listening to our constituents, and
we're acting to provide private business owners and entrepreneurs with
the tools that they need to create jobs. However, the bills we pass and
send over to the Senate just sit there and nothing is done with them.
Mr. Speaker, we could reduce the number of children, again, on free
and reduced lunches by creating jobs and getting people out of poverty
in this country. That's what we should be focused on right now. We
could solve a lot of the problems in this country by doing that.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentlewoman from Ohio, a member of the Committee on Appropriations, Ms.
Kaptur.
Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the ranking member, Congresswoman Slaughter, for
her incredible work and rise today, Mr. Speaker, to support the rule
for fiscal year 2012 appropriations for agriculture, transportation,
training and justice. Technically--or maybe untechnically--this bill is
called the ``mini-bus.'' I completely commend the conferees for
including language based on legislation we introduced directing
additional resources for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's White-
Collar Crime Division for Wall Street financial crime prosecution.
Moreover, with the Federal deficit requiring our rigor, this mini
bill makes difficult cuts, but also provides support for those most
hurt by the current recession. Let me state for the record that the
trillions of dollars of deficit being racked up in this country come
from some pretty clear sources: first of all, two wars--the longest
wars in American history, lasting over a decade now; also, the cost of
unemployment to this economy caused by Wall Street malfeasance; and,
finally, looking back, the tax cuts for the rich enacted during the
last Bush administration that continue to rack up mounting deficits
every year. It's very clear what's happening to cause the deficits. And
then with the rising deficit, the cost of added interest is included in
the debt total.
This bill meets the spending caps set in the Budget Control Act
compromise and includes a clean continuing resolution to prevent a
government shutdown, which would only further hurt our economy.
With over 15 percent of Americans living in poverty now, our moral
responsibility as a Congress must be to help our fellow citizens
weather this storm--which they didn't create. Thus this bill maintains
funding for key programs, such as for food for needy children and poor
women who are pregnant, for food commodities for food banks across this
country that are strapped with rising need, and for food sustainment
for the unemployed.
In particular, this bill includes language, based on legislation I
authored, to allow the FBI to hire hundreds of new agents to fully
investigate white-collar crime in the financial services sector. People
across Ohio, from Toledo to Cleveland, are hurting because of the
recklessness of Wall Street. Those who broke the law in order to get
rich at the expense of everybody else should be prosecuted to the
fullest extent of the law. I commend the conferees for including my
language to help provide the FBI with the necessary resources to
investigate those who are responsible.
I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill,
which is quite balanced despite the very difficult choices that they
had to make.
Ms. FOXX. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I thank the gentlelady from New York for
her kindness in yielding. I thank the hard work of the Appropriations
Committee. I thank the gentlelady from Virginia for managing. And I
thank Mr. Dicks as well for accepting the challenge in these very
difficult times.
It's not a happy time to come to the floor and indicate that this is
what we have to do, but it's important to acknowledge some challenges
that we still have. And those challenges are: the many food programs
that have to be capped in spite of the numbers of people who are hungry
in this country; the dumbing down of food resources, in particular, as
my colleague from Colorado mentioned, listing tomato paste and french
fries as vegetables; and then an issue that I hope that I will be able
to continue to work on with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and
that is food deserts, where there are pockets in rural and urban
centers where we have no food access, good healthy food, vegetables.
But I am glad that the New Starts, under the transportation bill,
includes the north and southeast lines for the city of Houston,
creating jobs, putting people to work, and improving mobility, some
$94,616,000.
{time} 1300
I am also delighted that TIGER grants are in at $500 million, but
disappointed in the community planning, that we have lost some $830
million for community block grants, $1.6 billion below the President.
That's where we help rebuild communities and jobs.
The Legal Services Corporation that I've been a supporter of and
actively was on our local board, board of directors, now has been
reduced by $348 million; but it has been reduced, which creates what we
call the justice gap.
I also am concerned about providing more developmental training for
our law enforcement that covers our Federal sectors. In particular, I
am concerned about the police in the Supreme Court and the Chief of
Police there, and the concern for the lack of professionalism and the
need for training.
I believe that in the Capitol Police scenario, there is an orderly
process of the Chief, the Sergeant-at-Arms, and we work wonderfully
together with these outstanding men and women. It's a shame for those
who have to protect the other body of government, the Supreme Court, to
have individuals who do not recognize IDs, are not professional in
their handling of their business. And I will be raising this issue with
the Department of Justice and relating it to the funding which I think
is necessary to either provide them with more funding or to put more
stringent guidelines in their hiring policies and the way they train
people.
So I rise today to say that I am glad that we will have the
government open, and that we have funded agriculture programs, not at
the best; we've funded infrastructure. But we can do more. And I
believe we should not adhere to any cuts going forward, and I hope the
[[Page H7737]]
supercommittee will not do that. I ask for support of the underlying
bill.
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I would advise my colleague from New York that
I have no requests for time. I do have some more comments that I will
make that I am reserving until a little bit later in the time.
I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I am prepared to close.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from
New York.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, although I'm encouraged that we were able
to reverse some of the most severe cuts proposed, I am disappointed
that our budget process has come to this, $100 billion packed with
provisions that the House has never considered. Therefore, on process,
I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, the rule before us today allows us to proceed
to the general debate of a bill that encompasses three major
appropriation measures. I want to thank the conferees for their work on
this agreement.
As we move forward with the debate, we must keep in mind the dire
fiscal situation that our country is in, and we must continue to work
in a fiscally responsible manner.
With that, I urge my colleagues to vote for this rule. I yield back
the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the
resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
____________________