[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 178 (Thursday, November 2, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H8429-H8435]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENATE NEEDS TO TAKE UP HOUSE BILLS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
General Leave
Mr. BUCK. 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 the topic of this Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Colorado?
There was no objection.
Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to recognize
several distinguished Members of the House for the next hour.
When our constituents show up on the first Tuesday in November to
exercise their right of self-governance, they carry with them the
dreams of a better Republic.
[[Page H8430]]
In 2016, the American people commissioned us with a task. They asked
us to fight for jobs. They asked us to fight to fix healthcare. They
asked us to roll back regulations. They asked us to secure the free
world. They asked us to secure our own borders.
The House of Representatives heard them. We have been busy developing
and passing legislation that meaningfully improves the lives of
Americans. I commend the Speaker and his leadership in moving these
bills through the House.
Unfortunately, much of the House's important work is stalled in the
U.S. Senate. It is time the Senate pass important legislation and
restore trust in our Republic, because before this week, the House had
sent 308 bills to the Senate that are still stalled in that Chamber.
This is more than any of the previous four Presidential administrations
had stalled at this same time in their first year.
For the record, the House of Representatives in the 115th Congress
has also passed more total bills than Houses in any of the last four
Presidential administrations at this point. We are at 394 total bills
passed.
The dreams of this great Republic cannot be realized by the House
alone. The Senate must hear the people and come together around the
often bipartisan measures we have been sending to them.
As a way of reminding the Senate, I would like to spend the next hour
recognizing Members to discuss some of the important bills passed by
the House of Representatives that now sit motionless in the U.S.
Senate.
I am thankful for my colleagues who are joining me this evening to
talk about the House's successful legislative efforts.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) to talk
about the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, H.R. 3003.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado
for organizing this Special Order and recognizing me to address it.
I would like to say at the start of this that the folks that had the
Special Order ahead of us had not read the bill that they were
expounding upon, and it would be impossible for them to have done so.
So I want to remind the body of that, Mr. Speaker, and then address the
No Sanctuary Cities Act.
It is this: that we saw what happened in San Francisco when the
murderer of Kate Steinle had been deported five times. He was a seven-
time felon, five-time deportee. He still came back, and he came to San
Francisco because he knew that it is a sanctuary city, and if he got
crossways with the law for whatever it might be, sleeping on the street
or shoplifting or any of the additional felonies that were brought
against him, they were not going to notify immigration officials. They
were going to turn him back loose on the streets of San Francisco. If
he was taken care of as an indigent, they would turn him loose on the
streets of San Francisco.
So Kate Steinle now lies in her grave, her family grieves for her
loss, and America felt that pain.
San Francisco is a sanctuary city, and now the entire State of
California has declared themselves a sanctuary State.
I think, Mr. Speaker, about the hole in the wall. Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid, they had a spot in the canyon there where you had to
ride through a notch to get in there, and they posted a guard there.
All the bad guys that wanted to get along with the other bad guys in
the West went in that place, and if law enforcement came, then they
would line up against them and block them from coming in to enforce the
law.
That is essentially what we have got going on in city after city all
over America: sanctuary cities operating under the erroneous idea that
because their cities are so full of illegals, that if they would ever
allow Federal immigration enforcement officials to work and cooperate
with local law enforcement, those folks might not be in America.
Well, I met with some people today at the Remembrance Project. These
are the families who had their family members killed by illegal aliens
who are in America. Many of these illegal aliens who killed Americans
and killed other illegal aliens and killed people who are here and
lawfully present in America, many of them had criminal records. Many of
them had been interdicted by law enforcement, but the local
jurisdictions decided it wasn't politically correct to cooperate with
Federal law.
Well, the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the
land, and it is an enumerated power that Congress establish an
immigration policy. We do that, and we direct that those laws be
enforced. The executive branch's job is to do that.
All throughout law enforcement, it has been seamless throughout all
of my growing up years. I grew up in a law enforcement family. There
was no separation. There was no segregation between city police and
county law enforcement officers, the sheriff's department, and highway
patrol and DCI and FBI. When there was a crime that was committed,
everybody worked together seamlessly.
How is it that these cities and now the State of California have
carved themselves out an exception to what has been a timeless, time-
honored, established cooperation between all levels of law enforcement?
So the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, which was my bill, is now
sitting on Mitch McConnell's desk with the scores of other bills that
the gentleman from Colorado has addressed, and it is one that says
there will be no sanctuary cities any longer and that we will be
cutting off funds going to these cities until they get the message.
{time} 1830
I think it is about time that the Justice Department moved on all of
the jurisdiction that they actually have, but we need to help them here
in Congress. And it is about time that this bill, along with Sarah's
Law and Kate's Law, be moved off of Mitch McConnell's desk to the floor
of the United States Senate.
That is just a small piece of the broad picture we are addressing
here tonight, Mr. Speaker. We need some action over in the Senate. If
they would get rid of that filibuster rule, we would see more action
than we are seeing today.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I
encourage him to continue this effort. I am going to stand with him on
this. I thank him for all he is doing.
Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa for his
thoughts.
Mr. Speaker, when we learned that Planned Parenthood was selling the
tissue of unborn children, America was outraged. Since then, the House
has redoubled its effort to pass legislation to protect the unborn.
H.R. 7 and H.R. 36 are two important pro-life measures that have
passed the House.
H.R. 36, which would prevent the killing of unborn children who are
developed enough to feel pain, passed the House by 237 votes. This
legislation has been sitting in the Senate for 31 days.
H.R. 7, which prohibits taxpayer funding for abortion, passed the
House by 238 votes. This legislation has been sitting in the Senate for
283 days.
I would like to welcome my friend and colleague from Georgia,
Representative Jody Hice, to talk about these two important bills and
protecting unborn children. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. JODY B. HICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely appreciate the
gentleman's great leadership in this, and I am grateful to be able to
speak on this issue of life.
There have been, as mentioned a few moments ago, some 300, plus or
minus, bills sent to the Senate that we have labored here in the House
and worked through, negotiated, duked it out, so to speak, gotten ideas
on the table, worked it out, sent it over to the Senate, only to see
them sit there and do nothing.
Right in the midst of all of that, at the heart of it all, are a
couple of very important bills dealing with the issue of life, which is
important to all of us. I firmly believe, and I know my colleagues do
as well, that all human life at every stage of development is worthy of
protection. I am deeply honored and proud of the fact that this House
has passed a couple of extremely important bills in that regard.
As the gentleman from Colorado just mentioned, H.R. 7, No Taxpayer
Funding for Abortion, by our friend from New Jersey, Chris Smith, and
H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, by Trent Franks
of Arizona,
[[Page H8431]]
are fantastic bills. One basically says that the American taxpayer
should not be footing the bill to end the life of unborn children. It
has been sitting for over 200 days in the Senate without even a debate.
The other says that, after 20 weeks, when an unborn child is capable
of feeling pain, we are not going abort that child in the midst of a
period of time where pain is absolutely scientifically proven to be
felt. Again, that bill is sitting across the way in the Senate Chamber,
and they have not done anything about it whatsoever.
These are important bills. These bills affect lives. Every day that
the Senate does nothing, lives are being lost.
The question is: Where is the Senate?
We all sit here and we wait and we wait and we wait. The time has
come that the Senate has to take ownership of what the American people
elected not only us, but the American people elected them to do, and
that is the job, the task, the platform that we all ran on, and at the
heart of that is the fight, the battle for life.
I am also proud of the fact that the House, in our appropriations
package, defunded Planned Parenthood. This is a promise that we made
the American people after the gruesome discovery of how Planned
Parenthood was selling baby body parts. Again, we just recognize that
life is a gift from God and it is precious and it is to be protected.
It is an inalienable right that we as Members of Congress have the
responsibility to defend those inalienable rights. Obviously, without
the right to life, there, likewise, is no right to liberty, and
certainly no right to the pursuit of happiness.
Again, the question is: Where is the Senate on these issues?
It is time that we join together. Again, I thank my friend for having
this Special Order and calling on the Senate to deal with this 60-vote
threshold that has become an enormous barrier, causing all of us to be
dysfunctional in that which the American people sent us here to do.
Our conservative principles, as well as our whole Nation, rests upon
us advancing these things that the American people sent us here to do,
and at the heart of that is to defend life. I just join in calling on
the Senate to deal with this 60-vote rule and move forward on the
agenda that we are here to do.
Again, I just thank the gentleman for his kindness in allowing me to
speak on this issue, which is important not only to me, but to all of
us; and for his leadership on joining us in having a united voice,
calling our colleagues down the hallway here to do the job that they
were called on to do.
Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Georgia for his
passionate defense of life.
Mr. Speaker, Americans should be able to go about their daily lives
without the fear of nuclear or radiological attack.
Representative Dan Donovan's Securing the Cities Act helps equip our
cities to deal with these dangerous weapons, providing training and
detection resources.
On January 31, the House agreed by voice vote to this commonsense
legislation. For some reason, the Senate has failed in the last 276
days to move this bill.
I am proud to have the bill's sponsor, as well as m friend and
colleague, Dan Donovan, here to share more about this important
legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Donovan.
Mr. DONOVAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague from
Colorado for yielding to me on such an important issue not only to my
district, not only to my city, not only to my State, but to our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to discuss a vital program within
the Department of Homeland Security, the Securing the Cities program.
The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office's Securing the Cities program
enhances the ability of States and localities to detect and prevent
terrorist attacks and other high-consequence events using nuclear and
radiological materials in high-risk urban areas through the provisions
of training, equipment, and other resources.
Securing the Cities began as a pilot program in 2006 in the New York
City region, including surrounding jurisdictions of New Jersey and
Connecticut. Since that time, it has expanded to Los Angeles; Chicago;
Washington, D.C.; and Houston. Once the program is fully implemented,
it is estimated that it will protect nearly 100 million people
nationwide, Americans.
Hailing from New York City and representing Staten Island and
Brooklyn, I have seen firsthand the positive impact of the Securing the
Cities program. Since 2007, our region has purchased more than 13,000
radiation detectors and trained nearly 20,000 personnel.
I had the opportunity to observe an exercise in Brooklyn last year
and witnessed New York City Police Department personnel using Securing
the Cities-procured equipment to locate and identify hidden
radiological sources in a baseball stadium. During the exercise, I
spoke with the participating officers and received a demonstration of
the different types of equipment they deployed.
This program is making a difference in New York City, and I support
its continued expansion. That is why I introduced H.R. 655, the
Securing the Cities Act of 2017. This bill authorizes the Securing the
Cities program, underscoring our commitment to protecting our major
cities from catastrophic terrorist attacks.
As we, unfortunately, saw earlier this week, our major cities,
including my hometown of New York City, in particular, remain targets
for terrorist groups. We have to do everything we can to ensure the
Department of Homeland Security and our State and local partners have
the tools they need to address the threats that we face. The Securing
the Cities program is one of those tools.
I am pleased that the House quickly passed my legislation earlier
this year on January 31. It is now time for the Senate to act. Mr.
Speaker, I urge the Senate to move swiftly to approve H.R. 655 to
authorize the Securing the Cities program and ensure its continued
expansion.
In April 2010, President Obama stated: ``The single biggest threat to
U.S. security, both short term, medium term, and long term, would be
the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear
weapon.''
Since that time, the FBI has disrupted attempts by smugglers in
Eastern Europe to sell nuclear materials to extremist groups and
criminal organizations. The threat has not abated.
I am thankful for the work of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office
to provide support and guidance to New York City and other urban areas
to meet the threats we face.
Mr. Speaker, I urge the Senate to quickly take action to pass the
Securing the Cities Act of 2017. Again, I thank my colleague for
organizing this Special Order.
Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, a fellow prosecutor and
a passionate advocate for these issues, for his remarks.
Mr. Speaker, in the summer of 2015, 32-year-old Kate Steinle was
gunned down by an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times
already.
Kate's Law, introduced by Chairman Bob Goodlatte, would enhance the
penalties on illegal immigrant felons who are deported and then
returned unlawfully to the United States.
This legislation passed the House with 257 votes, a bipartisan
coalition of Members who simply want to keep violent felons out of the
United States. This bill has been stuck in the Senate for 127 days.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend and colleague, Representative Andy
Biggs, to talk about H.R. 3004, Kate's Law, and the importance of
securing our Nation from violent illegal felons.
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Colorado, Mr. Buck,
for yielding to me. I am grateful for his leadership as a conservative.
It has been my honor to serve with him this past year. I appreciate him
sharing some time with me tonight as I share several important stories.
Mr. Speaker, these are stories of real people, not just some people
who are distant to us. These are people that we know, people just like
this.
Mr. Speaker, one early January morning in 2015, a young man named
Grant Ronnebeck began the graveyard shift at a QuikTrip convenience
store in my district. After his parents divorce, Grant took the
initiative to find a job working at this convenience store
[[Page H8432]]
in Mesa, Arizona, to help his family pay the bills. He was only 21
years old. He had his entire life ahead of him.
Just before 4 a.m., an angry customer walked in, demanded a pack of
cigarettes, and dumped a handful of change on the store counter. Grant
started to count the money, but he saw the customer pull a gun out and
point it directly at his head.
Grant tried to immediately hand over the cigarettes in a desperate
attempt to save his life, but it was too late. The customer shot Grant
in the face in cold blood, took the cigarettes, and casually walked out
of the store.
Grant's father describes him as being his buddy from the minute he
was born and a person that brightened everybody. He did not leave the
store alive that night.
The customer's name was Apolinar Altamirano. He was an illegal alien
with a long criminal record, including violent crimes. He was held in
Federal custody, but then released while he awaited deportation
proceedings. Our government let Grant down when they allowed Grant's
killer to walk out of custody and onto our streets.
Altamirano should have remained in custody until he was deported, but
he was set free, and Grant was killed due to the government's failure
to hold this violent criminal in custody until deported.
Sadly, Grant's story is not unique. Many Americans are aware of
another tragic incident, the case of Kate Steinle. Kate was 32 years
old. She was walking along a San Francisco pier when an illegal alien
shot and killed her. This illegal alien had just been released from
prison again. He should have been held until deportation, but he, in
fact, had been deported many times previously.
{time} 1845
Even then, he was set free, only to kill Kate Steinle.
In 2014, Mesa, Arizona, Police Officer Brandon Mendoza was killed in
a wrong-way crash by an illegal alien who was driving under the
influence of drugs and alcohol.
And in January 2016, Sarah Root was murdered by an illegal alien who
was drunk and drag racing in Omaha, Nebraska.
In each of these cases, Grant and Brandon, I am privileged to know
their parents, Steve Ronnebeck and Mary Ann Mendoza. These are fierce
advocates who tirelessly work to make sure these types of tragedies
never happen to another family. I am grateful for their efforts, and I
believe that we are making significant headway to stop these types of
catch and release programs that allow criminals to remain on our
streets.
In June of this year, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3003,
the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, and H.R. 3004, Kate's Law,
tandemly. These bills would end the policies that contributed to the
tragic deaths of Grant, Kate, Brandon, and Sarah.
I was pleased to coauthor the first bill, which included my
legislation, Grant's Law. Grant's Law is named in memory of Grant
Ronnebeck.
All Americans can agree that someone who is criminally violent should
not be released back on to the streets. Yet, for years, the Obama
administration's policies failed to protect Americans by allowing
criminally violent illegal aliens to roam our streets and
neighborhoods.
These types of tragedies are preventable when the Federal Government
enacts and enforces the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act and Kate's Law.
Congress has begun to take meaningful action to bring these tragedies
to an end, starting with the two bills we passed in June.
Chairman Bob Goodlatte showed leadership and commitment to ensure
these important bills received swift consideration. These two bills, if
enacted and enforced, would protect innocent Americans to prevent
future tragedies like those of Grant, Kate, Brandon, and Sarah.
When the bills passed out of the House, I hoped these bills would
receive a swift vote in the Senate. That has not happened. I am still
hoping for this vote to take place. I call upon the leadership of the
Senate to put these bills up for a floor vote.
We owe it to our constituents to put arcane tradition aside and to
pass policies that will protect them. Yet, even in a Republican-
controlled Senate, we cannot receive an up-or-down vote on these
important immigration enforcement bills.
Why is this?
Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe the answer lies in the fatally flawed
60-vote rule. It is more commonly known as the filibuster, but the
Senate's tradition is preventing consideration of nearly all
legislation passed from the House.
For example, look at our current situation. Since January, the House
has passed over 300 bills, including the two immigration and
enforcement bills I have just discussed. These bills will most likely
languish until the end of the term, in large part, due to the
filibuster rule.
So what can be done about this irresponsible inaction? Well, the
Senate can change the rule. Indeed, the Senate must change the rule.
Many people do not realize that the 60-vote requirement is not even
in the United States Constitution. It dates back to 1917, when the
Senate agreed that debate could be cut off with a two-thirds majority
vote. Decades later, when deciding a two-thirds vote was found to be
too difficult to achieve, the Senate reduced the number of required
votes to three-fifths, or 60 of the current 100 Senators.
The filibuster is a tradition, barely a century old, less than half
the age of the U.S. Constitution.
There is a place for rules and traditions, but not when they obstruct
the will of American people. Is it honorable for the United States
Senate to have a gentleman's agreement to keep bills from being voted
on, or to dilute our representation in the United States Senate?
Americans would rather that Congress pass just and reasonable laws
than to preserve extraconstitutional, institutional traditions.
Americans want our borders secure and our immigration laws to be
enforced.
Congress is running out of time to keep its promises to the American
people. We promised to ensure that what happened to Kate, Grant,
Brandon, and Sarah would not happen again. The House has done its duty.
It is time for the Senate to do its duty.
There are no excuses to allow these bills to die in the Senate. I
encourage my friends in the Senate to eliminate the 60-vote rule and to
consider the two immigration enforcement bills that the House passed in
June. We must not allow inaction to be the enemy of our sworn
responsibilities as representatives of the American people.
Again, I thank my friend from Colorado. I appreciate the opportunity
to say what has been on my mind for some time.
Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Arizona for his
insight, and I appreciate his comments here tonight.
Mr. Speaker, in 2010, President Obama and Congress passed the Dodd-
Frank legislation that attempted to reform Wall Street and end the too-
big-to-fail problem. But instead of fixing the financial industry,
Dodd-Frank was mainly served to excessively regulate local community
banks, making it harder for individuals on Main Street to gain access
to credit.
The Financial CHOICE Act, sponsored by Chairman Jeb Hensarling from
the Financial Services Committee, replaced Dodd-Frank with a system
that holds Wall Street accountable, while also making credit more
accessible for Main Street America. The bill passed the House with 233
votes. It has been stuck in the Senate for 148 days.
I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mooney), my friend
and colleague, who sits on the Financial Services Committee, to talk
about H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act.
Mr. MOONEY of West Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from
Colorado, Mr. Buck, for leading this Special Order effort and for
recognizing me to talk about this issue and the general problem in the
Senate today of having legislation considered, debated, and passed in a
way that we can go to conference committee.
As the gentleman mentioned, the Senate has already failed to act, and
is currently failing to act, as we stand here, on over 270 House-passed
bills. One of those bills is a really important one, very important to
the committee on which I serve.
I am proud to be on the Financial Services Committee. The tradition
of
[[Page H8433]]
that position was held by my predecessor, Shelley Moore Capito, who
served on that committee for 14 years. Ably led by Chairman Jeb
Hensarling from Texas, we work in a bipartisan fashion, as much as we
possibly can, to bring relief to the American people, give consumers
choices in banking products, and the ability to get a small loan or get
a mortgage for their house. We are doing very important work there.
So, as was mentioned, on June 8 of 2017, this year, here, the U.S.
House of Representatives, where I now stand, passed H.R. 10, the
Financial CHOICE Act, by a vote of 233-186. I was very proud to vote
for that legislation, as I know were a lot of my colleagues.
The Financial CHOICE Act, if you are not familiar with the bill,
after the financial crisis in 2007, Democrats held all the Chambers in
the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, and they passed sweeping
legislation that fundamentally changed the way our economy works for
the worse; much more interference in your lives in banking, and the
ability to make loans and consider requests for bank loans were done.
Basically, Dodd-Frank is to the financial services industry what
ObamaCare is to the healthcare industry. It is a government-knows-
better, one-size-fits-all, federally mandated set of laws that have
hurt the very people they claim they want to help. It hurts the same
people they want to help. So we are repealing most of that, and we are
going to empower consumers, give you the choices back.
So we have passed this bill. Let me just give you one example of
something in the bill, to be specific. There was something that was
designated in the Dodd-Frank bill called too big to fail. You may
remember that term, ``too big to fail.''
That is a situation where Washington bureaucrats had decided that
certain banks--the theory is that they are so essential to the global
economy that failure would be catastrophic. So it takes the ability to
fail out of the banks' system, which then makes them act more risky.
Big does not necessarily refer to the size of the company, just what
the government decides is essential, too big to fail.
So the first bank that was too big to fail was Bear Stearns. In March
of 2008, the Federal Reserve lent $30 billion to JPMorgan Chase to buy
the failing investment bank. Bear was a small bank, but very well-
known, and there was a worry that it would destroy confidence in other
banks. So your tax dollars were used to, essentially, bail out banks.
So this bill repeals the authority of the Financial Stability
Oversight Council to designate firms as systematically important
institutions. It prohibits the use of Exchange Stabilization Funds to
bail out banks. Most Americans I talk to don't think their taxpayer
dollars should be used to bail out banks, so this bill would stop that.
So we passed that bill. We sent it to the Senate. We didn't think the
Senate would pass the exact same bill, word for word, that the House
passed. We thought they would consider our bill, take the parts they
like, maybe change some parts, maybe add some parts, or move some
parts, pass a bill in the Senate, and then we would go to a conference
committee to reconcile the differences.
One of the biggest travesties I have seen around here of the
political process, Mr. Speaker, is the failure to have conference
committees in the Congress any longer. The House passes all these
bills, over 300 over there; 270 are waiting for the Senate to do
anything on. Anything. And we wait for the Senate to act so we can have
a conference committee and reconcile the differences.
It is important to understand that no one in the House is demanding
they get their way on every bill, every provision, all the time. We
simply want to have a product sent to the Senate, have the Senate do
their job, do their due diligence, pass legislation in whatever form
they can get out of the Senate, and have a chance to go to conference
committee, reconcile the differences.
There is some give-and-take there. They won't get everything they
want. We may not get everything we want. You can reconcile those
differences, and it has to go back and pass again.
Over the past 3 years, my third year in Congress now, I have taken to
reminding folks things they learned in fifth grade, in fifth grade
grade school, about how I am just a bill sitting on Capitol Hill, and
how it is supposed to go to one Chamber; then it is supposed to go to
the other, and they appoint a conference committee to reconcile the
differences.
Instead, as the previous speaker, Congressman Biggs from Arizona,
mentioned, the filibuster is abused. You have 48 Democrats in the
Senate who filibuster everything. Everything. And for some reason, my
colleagues on the majority side of the aisle, the Republicans, don't
put the bills on the floor to make the American people see them
filibuster, and obstruct, and shut down, avoid conference committees,
avoid passing anything in the Senate that would require action, and,
therefore, just stop anything from happening. It is a travesty of the
political process.
Neither Republican nor Democrats should stand for such an abusive
system in the Senate. So I think we should put the bills over there and
make them act. We have actually started passing pieces of the CHOICE
Act, one small bill at a time, in order to get other stuff over to the
Senate, in the hope that they will just do something, act on something.
But we shouldn't have to do that, frankly, Mr. Speaker, because the
Senate can simply pass any bill they want, or any Senate bills they
want, and then we can consider it in the House as well. We have led by
passing the CHOICE Act bill, which is the right thing to do.
You know, as disappointing as it was to see the U.S. Senate fail to
pass anything on healthcare, maybe the one silver lining was the
American people could finally see what happens if three Republicans
join with 48 Democrats to vote against the bill. We did not have the
votes to pass anything on healthcare, and the whole healthcare reform
plan died at that moment.
We are sitting here today with a failing healthcare system that is
going to continue to fail. ObamaCare is going to continue to fail. It
is not getting any better. It is getting worse.
Look, our bill wasn't perfect, Mr. Speaker, but at least we did
something in the House to address the problem. I am not saying this
bill is perfect, the CHOICE Act for financial services, but we are
doing something to address the problem that consumers are demanding,
where they can have more choice and more access to funds to buy a home
or start a small business. We are doing something about it, and the
Senate is doing nothing. They don't pass anything.
In fact, we have passed all 12 appropriations bills in this Chamber.
All 12 are sitting over there in the Senate, waiting for someone to
act.
I think the first thing they should do is bring up the military
funding bill. We are in November already. In December, next month,
funding runs out. We have passed our appropriations bills. The Senate
is doing nothing on appropriations bills.
They should bring that military bill to the floor of the Senate,
right now, and have a vote. It passed this Chamber with a strong,
bipartisan majority. Funding the military is not a partisan issue.
There are votes, I believe, in the Senate and the House to fund the
military.
But if the 48 Democrat Senators want to filibuster, abuse their
power, abuse this filibuster tradition, which was mentioned is not in
the Constitution, it is simply a courtesy extended to the minority
party; if they want to continue to abuse that power, the American
people should see them, ruthlessly, politically, try to shut down the
military, and then try to blame the President or blame the House when
they won't pass anything.
They should pass a military appropriations bill that helps fund our
troops. We will reconcile the differences and send it to the
President's desk. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how the process is
supposed to work. That is what kept our democratic republican form of
government, constitutional form of government, with democratic
elections, the rule of law, a republican constitution; that is what has
kept our country, to this point, functional and working well, having
that bipartisan, bicameral process.
What is currently happening is really a travesty to this process,
where it is being abused by the Senate. They have all these bills over
there. It is high time for them to take action, pass
[[Page H8434]]
something, pass the best product they can on this issue, and let's go
to conference committee and reconcile the differences.
{time} 1900
Mr. Speaker, I urge the Senate to act as quickly as possible on the
CHOICE Act, on whatever provisions they want to. We are trying to
repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Another part of that,
the fiduciary rule, has really hurt consumers. These are other parts of
the CHOICE Act that need action. The American people need and expect
relief.
Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from West Virginia for
his services on the Financial Services Committee, a demanding committee
and a committee that he has certainly shown his brilliance on. So we
appreciate his work very much.
Mr. Speaker, with rising premiums and sky-high deductibles, Americans
are hurting under ObamaCare. Republicans talk a lot about increasing
competition in the healthcare market, and this next bill actually makes
that talk a reality.
H.R. 372, the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act restores
Federal antitrust laws to the health insurance industry, ensuring that
the market for health insurance remains competitive and affordable for
Americans.
On March 22, the House passed this legislation in an overwhelmingly
bipartisan fashion, and 416 Members voted for it. It is 226 days later,
and the Senate can still not move that legislation through its Chamber.
I yield to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr.
Gosar), to say a few words about this bill that he sponsored.
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Colorado (Mr. Buck)
for taking the opportunity to highlight some of the good work the House
has accomplished this year. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to build
on these accomplishments so that Congress as a whole can keep their
promises to the American people.
As Congress continues to face the preeminent task of repairing our
Nation's healthcare system, first and foremost, we must establish the
proper foundation for a competitive and consumer-driven health
insurance marketplace. The Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of
2017 will restore the application of Federal antitrust and competition
laws to the health insurance industry.
Ending the special interest exemption is the first step to broader
healthcare reform. Popular cost-reducing reform priorities, such as
selling insurance across State lines and developing diverse consumer-
driven plans, are predicated on the robust competitive markets this
bill will ensure.
The McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 exempted the insurance industry
from the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act, acts that have the purpose of
ensuring fair competition. This broad exemption was intended to assist
the newly developing business of insurance so that those companies
could set sustainable premiums by permitting data sharing between
insurance companies.
However, after 70 years, it is apparent that the broad-stroked
exemption created by Congress in the 1940s was not wise. Over the
decades, and expeditiously since the passage of ObamaCare in 2009, the
health insurance market has devolved into one of the least transparent
and most anticompetitive industries in the United States.
It is clear that the continued exemption of the health insurance
industry from the full application of the Federal antitrust laws has
had an unfair impact on consumers. It shows up as artificially higher
premiums, unfair insurance restrictions, harmful policy exclusions, and
simply no diversity of choice.
These antiquated exemptions are no longer necessary. There is no
reason in law, policy, or logic for the health insurance industry to
have special exemptions that are different from all other businesses in
the United States.
Repeal of the specific section of the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which
applies only to health insurance, has strong bipartisan support. A form
of this legislation passed the Democratic-controlled House during the
111th Congress by a vote of 406-19 and passed the Republican-led House
in the 112th Congress by a voice vote.
Similar legislation has been introduced by multiple Democratic
Members of the House, and the text of my bill has been included in the
Republican Study Committee's healthcare reform bill for the last four
Congresses in a row.
In March of this year, this pro-market reform received its biggest
show of support yet, passing by an overwhelming majority of 416-7. Now,
when 416 Members of the House agree, it sends a strong call to action
in the Senate.
As a dentist, I know how important robust competition is to dynamic
and effective health insurance. It should protect the patient as well
as the healthcare provider. It should uniformly apply associated checks
and balances that incentivize competition and prevent monopolies.
Today, in the healthcare market, those equally applied antitrust
protections just simply don't exist.
I don't have a crystal ball that will tell you what the future holds
for healthcare or what it will look like. I don't think anybody knows.
But I can tell you that history is an important guide. The 70-year
antitrust exemption for health insurance has strangled competition and
resulted in a consolidated, anticompetitive, and nontransparent scheme
controlled by seven megacorporations. That is not what we want for our
future.
Instead, let's liberate the market by removing this antitrust
exemption. Imagine what could exist when we put the patient first and
demand that health insurance companies compete for their business. This
market should be patient-centric, patient-focused, and provide a
variety of affordable, quality options that empower patient involvement
and accountability.
The passage of the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act into law
is an important first step toward increasing competition in the health
insurance market and will assist in setting the foundation for real
competitive and patient-centered healthcare reform.
I thank my friends in the House for their strong support, and at the
same time, promises were made in the Senate to get a vote on the Senate
floor. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to build upon the good work
of this Chamber and do their part to restore competition in the health
insurance industry.
There is an old saying: Trust is a series of promises kept.
Keep the promise. We are watching.
Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Arizona, especially
with his healthcare background. I know he has said on many occasions
that he is a dentist impersonating a Congressman. Right now I feel the
same way as a prosecutor impersonating a Congressman, and I appreciate
his friendship and great insight.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to now invite my friend and colleague,
Representative Ted Poe, to speak about the Email Privacy Act. This
legislation clears up a loophole in the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act, or ECPA, that allows the government, after a certain
amount of time, to search someone's email if it is held on a third-
party server.
The ECPA was passed in 1986. For the past 30 years, our technology
has drastically advanced, but our electronic communications policy has
been stuck in the 1980s. The Email Privacy Act allows the law to catch
up with the tech. This bill simply requires the government to have a
warrant if they are going to search your email.
This legislation passed on voice vote. After 269 days, the bill still
sits in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I yield to my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Poe), to speak about this important legislation.
Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona
(Mr. Buck) for yielding and for doing this Special Order.
Most Members of Congress agree, I believe, that the Constitution
should be followed. There are certain rights in the Constitution that
are very, very important to all of us. One of those is the right of
privacy, enumerated specifically in the Fourth Amendment.
The Fourth Amendment is unique to America. Other countries don't have
the Fourth Amendment. We have it in the United States to protect the
privacy of Americans.
[[Page H8435]]
Let me give you a little history.
As Congressman Buck pointed out, back in 1986, which was an eternity
ago when you start talking about the digital age, Congress passed
legislation to protect the emails that people had on their server for 6
months. The idea was that people wouldn't keep their emails. They would
delete them, and 6 months was a good enough time to protect those
emails from the spies in our government--I will use that phrase, that
is my phrase--and that is the current law. But here is what has
happened over that 30 years.
Many Americans stored their emails after that 6-month period. They
store them in the cloud, for example. Americans store their schedules
in the cloud. They store photographs in the cloud.
When Americans store those items that are over 6 months old in the
cloud, they are not protected against the search by our government of
that email, of those photographs, of that schedule. In fact, searches
can take place without the knowledge of the person whose email is being
searched, without the approval of that individual, and the government
never notifies that individual that that email stored in the cloud was
searched because, under current law, the American citizen is only
protected for emails stored on their server up to 6 months.
So after about 4 years of working on this legislation with my friend
Zoe Lofgren from California, bipartisan, we presented to Congress H.R.
387, the Email Privacy Act. As Congressman Buck said, on February 7, to
be exact, of this year, that passed by voice vote on this floor, and we
sent it down the hallway to the siesta Senate to take a vote over
there, and they have yet to vote on it.
So what does that legislation do? It protects the right of privacy of
Americans. It requires government to follow the Constitution.
I was a former criminal court judge in Texas for 22 years. Like Mr.
Buck, I was also a prosecutor in the DA's office in Houston.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution--remembering that this is
unique to America--protects Americans, their persons, their houses,
their papers, and their personal effects from the intrusion of
government unless government has probable cause and government gets a
search warrant. That is the law. That is the Fourth Amendment.
If government has a probable cause, go get a warrant from a judge. I
signed hundreds of warrants from law enforcement as a judge.
A simple example: the government can't search our mail, snail mail as
it is now called. When you put a letter in the mailbox and the
postmaster picks it up and sends it across the fruited plain and it
lands in somebody else's mailbox, government cannot generally go into
that letter and seize it for any purpose unless they have a warrant to
do so.
There are some exceptions, but government can seize your emails after
6 months if they are stored in the cloud, as I already mentioned,
without a warrant. So this legislation basically requires government to
follow the Constitution.
We have heard about the widespread abuse--that is my opinion--of the
NSA over the last several years, the government agencies that felt like
they had a blank check to search and seize Americans' information
without their knowledge, without their approval, and without a warrant.
This legislation goes to prevent that and simply requires that
information stored in the cloud--emails, photographs, schedules, or
whatever--the government can go get it, but the government has got to
get a search warrant to seize that information.
That is what this legislation does. It protects the Fourth Amendment.
It protects Americans. It is simple legislation. It passed the House on
voice vote, yet the Senate refuses to protect Americans from unlawful
searches without the knowledge of Americans. We need to pass the
legislation that Zoe Lofgren and I have sponsored that has passed the
House to protect that basic right.
Mr. Speaker, I think our Senators would all vote ``yes'' for the
legislation. They believe in the Constitution like the rest of us. They
believe in the Fourth Amendment like the rest of us.
So let's get a vote. Another piece of legislation the House has
passed. We have done our job. We want the Senate to follow up and pass
this good legislation to make it the law of the land so Americans are
more secure in their papers and their effects and their homes.
And that is just the way it is.
{time} 1915
Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his hard work and
persistence on this very important issue.
Mr. Speaker, this year, the House completed all 12 appropriations
bills. It is the first time in decades that that has happened. I am
proud that our Chamber worked hard to return to a regular
appropriations process, and I can tell you that there were many late
nights spent looking through amendment after amendment both in the
Rules Committee hearing room and on the House floor. We thoughtfully
considered these bills and offered them for votes on the House floor.
But the Senate hasn't approved any of these 12 bills. Not one.
Republicans, month by month, crisis to crisis, were appropriating of
the Obama administration era. But now Republicans are in charge, and
without Senate action, we are staring down the barrel of another
omnibus or continuing resolution. This isn't fair to the American
public.
The Founders gave to Congress the power of the purse so that 435 men
and women in this Chamber and 100 men and women in the Senate Chamber
can spend weeks at a time thoughtfully discerning how to spend taxpayer
dollars. That is our job. The House has finished its work for this
year, and now we beg the Senate to finish theirs.
The House has done good work. We have listened to our constituents,
worked with our stakeholders, and met each other in the middle on many
bills. Now we are left just talking about these great bills because
they are all stuck in the Senate.
I want to take a minute in closing to remind the Senate why we are
here and why the voters offered the Republican Party control of both
Chambers and the House.
We are here because Americans want fewer regulations. We are here
because Americans want lower healthcare premiums and costs. We are here
because Americans want a stronger stance against the world's bullies.
We are here because Americans want a respect for the rule of law. We
are here because Americans want our veterans to have the best care. We
are here because Americans want better access to credit. They want to
protect unborn life. We are here because Americans expect us to improve
their lives, to work on meaningful legislation that limits government,
that stewards taxpayer dollars effectively, and that guards family
values.
Americans should know that the House of Representatives has heard
them. We have passed bills to address these concerns. Now we turn to
the Senate and ask them to do the same.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Lewis of Minnesota). All Members are
reminded to avoid engaging in personalities toward Members of the
Senate.
____________________