[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 141 (Thursday, October 10, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H6466-H6471]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BORDER SECURITY AND ENFORCEMENT CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS RESOLUTION,
2014
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 371, I call up
the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 79) making continuing appropriations
for certain components of the Department of Homeland Security for
fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Pursuant to House
Resolution 371, the joint resolution is considered read.
The text of the joint resolution is as follows:
H.J. Res. 79
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the
following sums are hereby appropriated, out of any money in
the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and out of
applicable corporate or other revenues, receipts, and funds,
for certain components of the Department of Homeland Security
for fiscal year 2014, and for other purposes, namely:
Sec. 101. (a) Such amounts as may be necessary, at a rate
for operations as provided in the Department of Homeland
Security Appropriations Act, 2013 (division D of Public Law
113-6) and under the authority and conditions provided in
such Act, for continuing projects or activities that are not
otherwise specifically provided for in this joint resolution
or in the Pay Our Military Act of September 30, 2013, that
were conducted in fiscal year 2013, and for which
appropriations, funds, or other authority were made available
by the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act,
2013 (division D of Public Law 113-6) under the headings
``Security, Enforcement, and Investigations--U.S. Customs and
Border Protection'', ``Security, Enforcement, and
Investigations--U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement'',
``Security, Enforcement, and Investigations--Coast Guard'',
``Protection, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery--National
Protection and Programs Directorate--Office of Biometric
Identity Management'', and ``Research and Development,
Training, and Services--United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services''.
(b) The rate for operations provided by subsection (a) for
each account shall be calculated to reflect the full amount
of any reduction required in fiscal year 2013 pursuant to--
(1) any provision of division G of the Consolidated and
Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013 (Public Law 113-
6), including section 3004; and
(2) the Presidential sequestration order dated March 1,
2013, except as attributable to budget authority made
available by the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013
(Public Law 113-2).
Sec. 102. Appropriations made by section 101 shall be
available to the extent and in the manner that would be
provided by the pertinent appropriations Act.
Sec. 103. Unless otherwise provided for in this joint
resolution or in the applicable appropriations Act for fiscal
year 2014, appropriations and funds made available and
authority granted pursuant to this joint resolution shall be
available until whichever of the following first occurs: (1)
the enactment into law of an appropriation for any project or
activity provided for in this joint resolution; (2) the
enactment into law of the applicable appropriations Act for
fiscal year 2014 without any provision for such project or
activity; or (3) December 15, 2013.
Sec. 104. Expenditures made pursuant to this joint
resolution shall be charged to the applicable appropriation,
fund, or authorization whenever a bill in which such
applicable appropriation, fund, or authorization is contained
is enacted into law.
Sec. 105. This joint resolution shall be implemented so
that only the most limited funding action of that permitted
in the joint resolution shall be taken in order to provide
for continuation of projects and activities.
Sec. 106. Amounts made available under section 101 for
civilian personnel compensation and benefits in each
department and agency may be apportioned up to the rate for
operations necessary to avoid furloughs within such
department or agency, consistent with the applicable
appropriations Act for fiscal year 2013, except that such
authority provided under this section shall not be used until
after the department or agency has taken all necessary
actions to reduce or defer non-personnel-related
administrative expenses.
Sec. 107. It is the sense of Congress that this joint
resolution may also be referred to as the ``Border Safety &
Security Act''.
This joint resolution may be cited as the ``Border
Security and Enforcement Continuing Appropriations
Resolution, 2014''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The joint resolution shall be debatable for
40 minutes, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking
minority member of the Committee on Appropriations.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) and the gentleman from North
Carolina (Mr. Price) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.
{time} 1245
General Leave
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 79, and that I may include
tabular material on the same.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may
consume.
I rise to present the House with a bill that sustains our critical
border security and enforcement operations within the Department of
Homeland Security.
Right now, at this very moment, there are brave men and women
patrolling our borders, manning our ports of entry, and conducting
border enforcement, drug interdiction and investigative missions, but
they are not being paid.
[[Page H6467]]
Right now, at this very moment, border security and enforcement
operations are being conducted but with minimal essential personnel.
Right now, at this very moment, the National Targeting Center, at
which Customs and Border Protection officers check traveler watch lists
and ensure that dangerous criminals and cargo never reach American
soil, is operating, but its personnel are not being paid.
Right now, at this very moment, the E-Verify system is not operating,
making it impossible for employers to check the lawful immigration
status of potential employees.
So this bill before us provides for continuing appropriations to
ensure that frontline agents along our borders receive their pay and
that certain components of DHS can carry out their border security and
enforcement missions at full strength.
Let me remind my colleagues that our border is not secure. In fact,
our border is constantly under siege from smugglers and traffickers
alike, and it is our duty to ensure that sufficient resources are
provided to carry out the necessary security, enforcement and
interdiction efforts. That is precisely what this bill does.
This bill ensures that Border Patrol can fully conduct its operations
from San Diego to Brownsville and all along our northern border as
well. This bill ensures that ICE can fully conduct its investigations.
This bill ensures that the Coast Guard can fully conduct interdiction
in both the source and transit zones and off the coasts of California,
Texas, Florida, and all maritime approaches to the United States. This
bill ensures that our immigration verification and biometric identity
systems are up and running. This bill also takes steps to turn on our
E-Verify system.
Mr. Speaker, all of us are aware that the government is shut down
despite the numerous attempts to move forward. We have repeatedly
offered versions of continuing resolutions to sustain the government's
operations, but to no avail. Furthermore, we have offered to negotiate,
to convene a conference and work out the differences in a professional
and orderly manner, but such offers have been refused out of hand.
This bill is yet another offer to the other side of the aisle to at
least fund vital components of the government. We have a duty to ensure
our borders and coastlines are safe and secure and that our laws are
being enforced. This bill does this without increasing the rate of
spending and in a manner entirely consistent with the text of the
noncontroversial H.J. Res. 59. In short, the bill before us is about
getting our priorities right.
It is my hope that the passage of this bill will not only support our
border security and frontline agencies but will also lead to the
reopening of the entire Federal Government.
In closing, I urge my friends on the other side of the aisle to lower
their partisan blinders, to come to the table and work out the current
impasse so that we can get on with the business of fixing our Nation's
budgetary mess.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as
I may consume.
Have we had enough yet?
The American people are fed up with partisan games and procedural
gimmicks. They see right through them, and they are demanding that we
come together and get the government back to work today.
If the Speaker of the House is so sure that the votes for a clean
funding bill are not there, he should call the vote to prove it to the
American people. But he won't do that, because everyone in this Chamber
knows that the Senate-passed continuing resolution would clear this
House in a heartbeat and end this Tea Party-fueled dream of government
collapse.
Today, the majority has decided that the government function they
want to give political cover to is border security. Border security,
obviously, was not very high on their list. We have had to wait 10 days
before they have gotten around to it.
Of course, the question remains: Why didn't they think more about
border security or cancer research or the national parks or women's and
children's nutrition when they were shutting the government down in the
first place last Monday? Ten days late and billions of dollars short,
you might say.
As someone who has worked for years in a bipartisan spirit to secure
our Nation's border, I certainly appreciate that border security is one
of the most sensitive and dangerous areas of the budget with which to
play partisan political games. But I have to ask: What about the many
other critical homeland security functions that this bill wouldn't do
anything to fix, including protecting our Nation from cyber attacks,
for example, or keeping our aviation and mass transit systems safe or
funding the Secret Service or developing the next generation of
explosive detection technology?
We cannot continue to pick winners and losers by providing temporary
funding for government services, operations and personnel. This
piecemeal approach to governing is failing our constituents and is
failing our economy. The only solution is to reopen the entire Federal
Government by calling up the clean funding bill passed by the Senate.
Mr. Speaker, last week, we were told by Republican leaders not to
worry. Furloughed employees should stand by, they said, while the House
votes to open the government one news cycle at a time. Americans'
livelihoods can't wait for another news cycle. We are tired of waiting.
We are tired of this charade.
Let's dispense with this political theater. Let's get back to our
basic job description: to keep the government open, to pay the
country's bills, and to negotiate a comprehensive budget plan that
lifts sequestration, revives our economy, and secures our fiscal
future. The first step is a clean continuing resolution. Let's do that
today.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers), the chairman of the
Appropriations Committee.
Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. I thank the chairman for yielding, and I rise
in support of his bill.
Mr. Speaker, this is around the 15th time that we have been trying to
engage the other body in conversation about how we can reopen the
government. They just simply refuse to talk about anything. We have
sent over CRs. We have sent over amendments. We have sent over bills.
This is the 11th of the many appropriations bills--CRs--at the
sequester level that we are going to send to the Senate, and they just
simply refuse to talk. I have never seen such a show of negligence and
attendance to public duties.
Normally, the time-honored tradition in the Congress--since the
founding of this great country--is that, when the House passes a
measure and when the Senate passes a measure and they differ, we
appoint conferees: the Senate picks out some Members, the House picks
out some Members, and we send them off to the back room to work out the
differences and to bring the bills back. That is the way it has
operated for all of these years. Yet the Senate just simply refuses to
talk anything about how to reopen the government.
This bill will help protect our homeland from terrorists, drug
traffickers, smugglers, other criminals, and it facilitates legal
immigration and ongoing investigations. Right now, our frontline
operations are operating at a bare minimum. The men and women who are
at work to protect our borders and our ports of entry are working
without pay, and employers cannot guarantee the lawful immigration
status of their prospective employees.
To reinstate these critical functions, H.J. Res. 79 provides funding
for border security efforts at the current annual rate of $18.8
billion. This includes funding for the Customs and Border Patrol,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard, Citizenship and
Immigration Services, and the Office of Biometric Identity Management.
These are functions of the Federal Government that are critical to
our safety and well-being. They should not have to suffer the effects
of this shutdown, but if we pass this bill today and if the Senate
passes it and if the President signs it into law, it will stop any
further adverse effects from befalling our border security while we
work toward reopening the entire Federal Government.
[[Page H6468]]
Piece by piece, the Republican House has been working toward
reopening the government over the past week. We have done this all with
no help--no input--from the Senate. The only thing we have heard from
the Senate is a resounding ``no''--``no'' to working with us on a task
force or on a committee to reopen the Federal Government and ``no'' to
talking with us about our concerns over the multitude of fiscal crises
we face. Despite this, the House has passed 15 bills over the past week
to fund the government. This is on top of the continuing resolutions we
put forward prior to the end of the fiscal year and the regular
appropriations bills the House passed. Imagine what we could do if the
Senate would come to the table and work with us. We could solve the
problem.
There is no question about it that we are never going to be able to
get out of this mess if we don't come together, have a real, adult
conversation, listen to each other earnestly, and negotiate in good
faith. This crisis can't be solved by one party alone or by one body of
the Congress alone. This bill is an effort to keep the ball moving
toward our goal of ending the entire government shutdown.
The Senate has asked for a clean CR to achieve that end. The funding
in this bill is clean and in line with the spending from the last
fiscal year. It is essentially what I put forward in my initial, clean
CR. So I hope, with that in mind, the House and the Senate will pass
this bill in short order.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the
gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), the ranking member of the
Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee of the Homeland Security
authorizing committee.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the distinguished ranking member, and
let me thank the chairman of this committee. Let me ask again for the
hardworking employees of the Federal Government and for the hardworking
employees of the Department of Homeland Security to stop being locked
out.
Mr. Speaker, as my ranking member indicated, I am the ranking member
on the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee. This piecemeal
approach does not comprehensively address the question of the needs of
homeland security.
Frankly, I am in support of the work of Customs and Border
Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Citizenship and
Immigration Services, and the Coast Guard. You will find, probably, no
greater supporter on these issues, but we need to be able to pass
legislation such as H.R. 1417, comprehensively, to address all of the
border aspects of this Nation. This is a gamble. This is throwing the
dice. This is seeing whether or not we can get this piece and that
piece, but it doesn't comprehensively deal with the entrances and
exits. It doesn't comprehensively deal with comprehensive immigration
reform.
My message is to have a clean CR, to open the government, to protect
our homeland security employees, and to protect the homeland.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 79, the
``Border Safety and Security Act.''
As Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee
on Border and Maritime Security, I strongly support the missions of
Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Coast Guard.
You will find no greater advocate in Congress for the men and women
of the Department of Homeland Security who work on the frontlines every
day.
That is why I am greatly troubled that the Republican Majority
continues to take a piecemeal approach to funding our vital homeland
security agencies, activities, and personnel.
They know this bill has no chance of becoming law, but are putting on
a piece of political theater today to pander to a fringe element within
their party.
We must not gamble with our Nation's security by picking winners and
losers at DHS.
Instead, this House needs to do its job and provide appropriations
for the entire Department of Homeland Security, so that all of our
Federal border, immigration, and homeland resources are operational.
I call on the Republican Leadership to allow reasonable Members on
both sides of the aisle to approve a Clean CR so that we can get DHS,
and our entire government, working as it should be for the American
people.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul), the chairman of the authorizing
Committee on Homeland Security.
Mr. McCAUL. I want to thank my colleague and good friend from Texas,
the chairman, who knows the border, perhaps, better than any other
Member in this body.
We are all here, Mr. Speaker, to try and work through our differences
over government funding. I hope that no one in this Chamber truly
believes that we should play politics with the security of our borders,
our last line of defense.
{time} 1300
Yet right now, as we debate this important funding bill, our agents
at the Department of Homeland Security--the Border Patrol, CBP, and
ICE--are not fully funded, which diminishes their ability to secure our
Nation's borders and puts American security and lives at risk.
What kind of message would it send to our constituents all over this
great country if we threw up our hands and said that providing for the
common defense under the Constitution is no longer a priority? Yet that
is exactly the debate we are having today.
As the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, I will not stand
by and let politics get the best of us. Our brave men and women on the
border in my home State risk their lives daily. Just a few weeks ago, I
visited with Border Patrol agents, border sheriffs, and ranchers in the
Rio Grande sector in south Texas, which has seen a 55 percent increase
in illegal border crossings. This is not just an immigration issue, Mr.
Speaker; it is a national security issue. Our border agents on the
front line must be fully funded.
I urge my colleagues to support the Border Safety and Security Act.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Roybal-Allard), an outstanding member
of our Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.
Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the
latest in a long line of disingenuous bills that won't bring us closer
to ending the dangerous and reckless Republican shutdown.
This bill represents an irresponsible approach to the serious
challenge of defending the homeland in an increasingly dangerous world.
This bill purports to protect the public; yet, it leaves critical
functions of the Department of Homeland Security unfunded.
For example, there is no money for TSA to keep the flying public
safe; there is no money for the Office of Intelligence and Analysis to
identify terror plots that endanger American lives; and there is no
money for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office to guard the homeland
against smuggled weapons of mass destruction.
Clearly, Republican obstructionism is undermining our American
democracy and threatening our American national security.
Mr. Speaker, the Boehner shutdown and Republican gamesmanship are
hurting American families and endangering the American public. Let's
defeat this bill, vote, pass a clean budget, and get all our government
working to serve and defend all the American people and our American
way of life.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentlewoman from Michigan, Candice Miller, vice chairman of the House
Committee on Homeland Security and the chairperson of the Subcommittee
on Border and Maritime Security and a member of the great class of
2002.
Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. I certainly thank the gentleman for
yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in very strong support of the bill that we
are debating here, the Border Safety and Security Act.
As vice chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and chair of
the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, I, along with so many
others, have worked to ensure that Congress gives the agents and the
officers in the field the tools and the direction that they need to
keep drugs and terrorists and others who would do us harm from entering
our country. That is what this legislation is about today.
Much of the controversy surrounding the government shutdown has
actually focused on ObamaCare. But, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing,
absolutely zero, in
[[Page H6469]]
the bill that we are talking about right now that has anything to do
with ObamaCare.
The only thing that is in this bill and that we are discussing today
is whether or not we will help provide the funds to ensure that we can
protect our Nation's borders and pay the men and women of the U.S.
Border Patrol, the Customs and Border Protection, and also the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
I know many of our friends on the other side of the aisle will once
again oppose this legislation because they say they need an entire
government funding bill or they won't accept anything else, yet I would
note that they are calling Republicans ``absolutists.''
I also know that there are many on the other side of the aisle that
will support this bill and will help us pass this, again, with a very
strong bipartisan majority. I simply hope that the leaders of the
Senate will look at the strong bipartisan support of this bill and take
it up. Border security, Mr. Speaker, cannot be a casualty of our
inability to compromise. The agencies that are responsible for
protecting this country must be fully funded.
I urge the House to support this bill today, to pass this bill today,
and I certainly urge the Senate and the White House to join us in
supporting the men and women across the Nation charged with protecting
our border.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to yield 2
minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the ranking
member of the full authorizing Committee on Homeland Security.
Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. I thank Ranking Member Price for
yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express strong opposition to H.J. Res.
79, the Border Safety and Security Act.
This is the second time in 2 weeks that I have come to the House
floor to discuss cherry-picked funding at the Department of Homeland
Security. Neither last week's measure nor the one before us today
stands a snowball's chance of ever being enacted into law. Even if they
did, Congress still would not have done its job to fully fund the
important homeland and non-homeland security activities carried out by
the Department of Homeland Security.
As ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, I am troubled
that the Republican majority is not only picking winners and losers
within the Federal Government, but also within the Department of
Homeland Security.
This country faces real threats every day--from natural disasters, to
accidents with catastrophic results, to terrorism. The people we
represent deserve real action, not petty posturing. For today's
installment of the ``mini-CR'' show, the majority is shining the
spotlight on ICE agents, Border Patrol agents, Customs and Border
Protection officers, and Coast Guard personnel. Americans see through
this hollow attempt at using patriotic Americans serving in the front
lines of Homeland Security as pawns.
If the majority is serious about ensuring that our patchwork of
Federal border, immigration, and homeland resources are operational,
they would reopen the entire Department of Homeland Security. This
majority is not serious about taking real action. They want to score
political points with a fringe element in their party.
I call upon like-minded colleagues on both sides of the aisle to
stand with me and approve a clean CR.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield the gentleman an additional 30
seconds.
Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. With every passing day, more injury is
done to our economy and our standing in the world. The once
unthinkable--a default on U.S. debt--is looking more and more possible.
We must stand together and inject some rationality here and bring an
end to this long national tantrum that has been orchestrated by 50 of
the most radical Members of the majority.
Mr. Speaker, the majority must let this House consider and pass a
clean CR so that we can get this government up and working again.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson), my colleague, the chairman of the
Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee of the
Appropriations Committee and a hardworking member of our subcommittee.
Mr. CULBERSON. Thank you, Chairman Carter.
Mr. Speaker, the question we are about to vote on is very simple: Do
you support--yes or no--fully funding our law enforcement officers on
the border and our Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers?
This is not complicated. It is not anything more complicated than we
are, as the majority in the House, seeking to find areas of agreement.
Common sense and common courtesy and any negotiations require that you
find areas of agreement that are absolutely essential, set those aside,
and move on to the issues where you may have some disagreement.
This is not complicated. Yes or no, do you support fully funding our
Border Patrol agents and our Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
agents? That is the only issue before us.
We have, as a Congress, already fully funded our military. We made
sure that our men and women in uniform were paid. We have already, in
this House, set aside funds to make sure that our veterans are paid. We
passed legislation to ensure that they receive all the benefits that
they have earned by their service to the country.
Any negotiation--anyone, anywhere in the country--if you have a
disagreement, you find areas where you can agree that are very
important and you get those behind you, and then you get to those areas
where there are disagreements.
There are fundamental important differences that are a core principle
to us as constitutional conservatives. We do not want to participate in
bankrupting the United States of America. We do not want to participate
in socializing the greatest health care system the Nation has ever and
the world has ever created. We will not idly stand by and allow our
children and grandchildren to inherit such a crushing level of debt and
taxation that they cannot afford and their quality of life will be
diminished. These are matters of core principle to us.
Our right to be left alone as Americans is, I think, one of our most
important. Certainly, Texans feel that way. But, first and foremost, we
believe in law enforcement. We believe in supporting our military, and
we urge our colleagues to vote with us today to enforce the law.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), ranking member of the full
Appropriations Committee.
Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the reckless
Republican shutdown.
While the men and women who secure our border risk their lives, their
paychecks are in jeopardy. I am very glad, Mr. Speaker, that the
majority is talking about border security, particularly after they have
frozen salaries for the Border Patrol for the past 3 years.
Yes, we should fund border security. I have been a strong advocate
for funding border security. But we cannot adequately protect our
homeland by funding one agency at a time. We also must fund the Secret
Service, the TSA, and cybersecurity, none of which, Mr. Speaker, is
included in this bill.
Mr. Speaker, the claim that Democrats aren't negotiating is
absolutely false. The Senate adopted the most important part of the
House bill--the funding level--and the President supported it even
though Democrats want greater investments to support economic growth.
The only thing Democrats say ``no'' to are irresponsible efforts to put
health care decisions back in the hands of insurance companies, which
has nothing to do with keeping the government open.
That is democracy. That is negotiation. We have done more than meet
in the middle, but the Republicans now say ``no'' to their own bill.
We could end the shutdown today if the majority would only support a
reasonable solution to allow a vote on the Republican-written, Senate-
passed bill.
Vote ``no'' and demand a House vote to immediately end the reckless
Republican shutdown.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, could I inquire as to how
much time remains on each side?
[[Page H6470]]
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from North Carolina has 10
minutes remaining. The gentleman from Texas has 5\1/2\ minutes
remaining.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Farr), another fine colleague from the
Appropriations Committee.
{time} 1315
Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Price for yielding.
I was sitting in my office listening to this, and I realized that
what our sessions are about are telling the American people some of the
truth some of the time. The truth of the matter is that this is all
about the fact that an extreme division of the Republican Party doesn't
like the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law 3\1/2\ years
ago, and so they are using the appropriations process to shut down
Congress.
We keep saying you don't need to do this. It has been a law for 3\1/
2\ years; and guess what, in those 3\1/2\ years we have passed 17 CRs;
17 CRs have been passed since the Affordable Care Act was enacted. And
guess what, Republicans voted for almost every one of them. So what is
the difference now?
This is just craziness. Our whole country is being put at risk
because they won't do what we have done every year because they don't
like the Affordable Care Act. Now if you don't like something, use a
law-making process called an authorization. When you don't like
something, you take a different bill and fix it. You can say, well, we
don't like it; we don't even want to fix it. I use the argument that
the Democrats didn't like Medicare part D because of the way it was
being done. We voted against it, but we never shut down government. We
got around to saying, yes, it is the law; let's fix it. When you pass a
big law, there are always some things you need to fix. We can fix
things, but this is not the process to do it, shutting down government.
And the idea of bringing you whatever you like today, we are just going
to vote on one thing, one part of government. Now we are onto just one
piece. You know we are never going to get around to all of the pieces
because they don't like all of government. So they hold these votes.
This is ridiculous. This is putting the country, the world, and lots
of people at risk. We could just pass a keep-the-government-open bill,
which we have done 17 times since 2010, 17 times without this rancor,
without this division.
Come on. Don't give us part of the truth some of the time.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire if my colleague has any more
speakers.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I am prepared to close.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, our Republican colleagues
today have spoken accurately of the time-honored tradition of passing a
budget in this Congress and then passing appropriations bills, one
hopes on budget and on time, in an orderly fashion, conforming to the
agreed-upon budget resolution.
Now, for a while this year, we thought we were on the same page with
regard to agreeing on a budget going forward. In fact, colleagues will
remember that Republicans badgered the Senate in past years for not
having passed a budget. This year, the Senate passed a budget. The
Senate worked hard and passed a credible budget; we looked forward to a
more normal process being resumed.
But we were soon disabused of that, because the Republican leadership
of this House steadfastly refused to go to conference to work out a
common budget with the Senate which, of course, is the normal process.
We have been urging that the House go to conference for months. Why
did they refuse? We have thought a lot about that. One possible reason
is that no comprehensive budget plan could possibly pass their
conference, given the Tea Party influence in that conference these
days. That is the explanation that is suggested, I have to say, by the
failure of Speaker Boehner's ``Plan B'': remember that, back in
December? They left President Obama's budget overture on the table,
never taking him up on that comprehensive offer.
But then after a while, our Republican friends warmed up to the idea
of stalling on this, and we gradually realized: They are running out
the clock! The Republicans are running out the clock. Why are they
doing that? Maybe they are looking for a crisis atmosphere, letting the
government shut down, running up against the possibility of default. In
a crisis atmosphere, maybe they think they can extract more. Maybe they
can extract more, by demanding a ransom, a political ransom. the
Affordable Care Act, whatever. Because now with the clock run out, you
are talking not just about negotiating a budget; you are talking about
demanding a ransom merely to keep the government open; demanding a
ransom merely to pay the country's bills, basic constitutional
responsibilities which this body should meet without any threat of
extortion.
Meanwhile, of course, they understand the public doesn't like this.
So we have the spectacle today of yet another bill seeking political
cover, to fund piecemeal a function of government which has been in the
news and which people value.
Well, this charade has to end. Yes, we need to get back to the normal
budget process in this country. The first step is to pass a clean
funding bill to reopen the government, and the votes are here in this
body to do that this afternoon. We also must lift the threat of
defaulting on the Nation's debt.
And then, sure enough, let's get on with the negotiating of a
comprehensive budget agreement, a budget agreement along the lines of
the budget plans of 1990 and 1993. These budget plans helped produce a
robust economy, and eventually produced 4 years of budget surpluses. We
paid off $400 billion of the national debt in those years. Those were
comprehensive agreements, to be sure. They were politically tough. They
did include revenues. They included all categories of spending. They
were painful votes for many in this body, but I continue to think they
were among the best votes I ever cast. That is where we need to go. We
all know that.
The question is, can we find the political will to get there? Let's
muster that political will. We have had enough of the ransom demands.
Let's reopen the government, let's lift the debt ceiling, and let's get
on with serious negotiations, the kind of budget negotiations we should
have been having all year.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, if anyone has been watching what has gone on in this
House for the last couple of weeks and this week, it reminds me of the
movie ``Groundhog Day.'' The alarm rings, and we stand up and we do the
same thing and we hear the same arguments consistently. I mean, you
could have just heard this argument, and that is the argument that has
been made throughout the entire almost-2 weeks now. So maybe it is time
to talk about something that is called regular order in this House of
Representatives.
We have something called the appropriations process. We divide up the
funding of the government into 12 sections, and we have classification
of those sections and each subcommittee presents a bill to the
committee for the funding of a certain Department. In our case, Mr.
Price and I deal with Homeland Security. That bill is then brought to
the floor and passed by the floor after it passes out of regular
committee, and then it is sent to our colleagues in the Senate on the
other side of this great building. At that point in time, normal
procedure would be for them to deal with the appropriations process on
their side.
So I can't speak for all of government, but I certainly can speak for
Homeland Security, and Mr. Price, I don't think, would dispute this: we
passed our bill out of the House. So we don't even need to be here
today, and we shouldn't even have needed to be here last week when we
were here because, quite frankly, we have given a bill to deal with the
problems of financing and supporting those people who defend our
borders and all of the other things that we take care of in Homeland,
and it has been sitting on the desk of Mr. Harry Reid in the Senate
since June of this year, a long time before this so-called crisis
arose. We could have it completely passed and signed by the President
if the Senate
[[Page H6471]]
had just done regular order. But they haven't.
So as it relates to the issues we discuss here today, the reason
these issues even come up is that the Democrat-controlled Senate has
not done their job, and they have not dealt with the appropriations
process.
Today, as last week, we are dealing with an important portion of this
process. It is so important that the very security of our Nation
depends upon a secure border. The great debate that has gone on for 3
or 4 years, recent years as we look at the overall immigration crisis,
is: What about the security of our borders?
We have spent billions of dollars making it as secure as we can, and
we will continue to secure those borders. All we think we should do is
pay the people that are doing the job now and get the border secure.
This is important to the future of our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.J. Res
79, a bill which claims to fund border security, but in reality is just
a continuation of the piecemeal approach to funding government
operations being used by the House Republican leadership to create
political cover for their continued refusal to hold a vote to
immediately reopen the entire government.
I support funding border security and appreciate greatly the
dedicated men and women who work to keep our borders secure, but I do
not support this bill because, in the end, it does more harm than good.
I believe the proper way to fund border security is for Congress to
fulfill its responsibility to pass regular appropriations bills. The
House passed a full year funding bill for the Department of Homeland
Security in June that would provide $40.1 billion more for DHS than the
bill before us today.
Using a cherry-picking approach to fund selected programs within an
agency neglects other important programs within that same agency. In
this case, supporting H.J. Res 79 funds border security at the expense
of other Homeland Security-related functions like the Secret Service,
the Army Corps of Engineers, the Transportation Security Administration
and the Office of Disaster Assistance at the Small Business
Administration.
The fact is that by taking up the Senate's clean continuing
resolution and sending it to the President for his signature tonight,
we can fund border security, DHS and all the other important programs
and services of the government. That is why I call on my colleagues to
bring up the Senate CR so we can end this shut down and get all our
federal workers back on the job.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 371, the previous question is ordered.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the joint
resolution.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third
time, and was read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 1(c) of rule XIX, further
consideration of House Joint Resolution 79 is postponed.
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