[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 78 (Friday, May 10, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H3715-H3717]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the 
majority leader the schedule for next week.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who 
is the majority leader.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Louisiana, the 
Republican whip, for yielding.
  On Monday, there will be no votes expected in the House.
  On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning-hour debate 
and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 
p.m.
  On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for 
morning-hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business.
  On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A 
complete list of suspension bills will be made available by the close 
of business today.
  The House will also consider H.R. 312, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe 
Reservation Reaffirmation Act. That will be considered under a rule.
  In addition, the House will consider H.R. 987, the Strengthening 
Health Care and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Act. This legislation 
is composed of seven bills that would protect and expand affordable 
healthcare and lower prescription drug costs. The legislation consists 
of separate bills from the Energy and Commerce Committee to ban junk 
health plans, bring generic prescription drugs to market more quickly, 
provide funding for States to establish State-based marketplaces under 
the Affordable Care Act, require and provide funding for outreach and 
enrollment, and fund the navigator program that assists Americans 
during the open enrollment period.
  All of these bills will be directed at trying to reverse some of the 
steps that have been taken to undermine Americans' access to 
affordable, quality healthcare.
  Lastly, Madam Speaker, the House will consider H.R. 5, the Equality 
Act. LGBT Americans and their families deserve to be protected against 
all forms of discrimination no matter where they live. This legislation 
would ban discrimination against LGBT people in housing, employment, 
education, jury service, credit and financing, and public 
accommodations.

  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the majority 
leader for going through the schedule and walking through some of the 
bills we are going to be taking up next week.
  As we just dealt with disaster funding, I know the gentleman is well 
aware of the disagreements that have been expressed by many on our 
side, as well as the President and some Senators over there, about some 
of the things that weren't in the disaster bill, some of the problems 
regarding the crisis at the border, to help make sure that we can do 
better at addressing that crisis that is real and that is growing, as 
well as some of the problems that were identified in the agriculture 
funding that was included in the bill where it was identified that 
there are some problems in the language to help some of our farmers get 
the actual money that they needed.
  A lot of those fixes have been negotiated, and those talks have gone 
on for a few weeks now.
  I would hope that as the bill goes over to the Senate, the gentleman 
and his side would continue to work with our side--House, Senate, 
Republican, and Democrat--to achieve a bipartisan disaster relief bill 
that can ultimately get all these problems addressed and signed by the 
President.

[[Page H3716]]

  Those conversations are ongoing. Hopefully, they will continue 
through the weekend, and when the bill gets over to the Senate, then we 
can try to get all of that resolved so we can quickly move that bill 
through the process to the President's desk.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The good news is, we just passed a bipartisan bill with 34 Members 
from my friend's side voting in favor of that bill to give very, very 
substantial relief and an additional $3 billion to take care of the 
storms and natural disasters that have occurred since we passed a bill 
to the Senate many, many weeks ago that, unfortunately, was not dealt 
with by the Senate, largely because there was a reluctance to help the 
Americans who happened to live in Puerto Rico to the extent that we are 
helping other people around the country as we should.
  I agree with the gentleman. We had a bipartisan bill today. I am 
hopeful that we can have a bipartisan bill moving forward.
  As my friend knows, the amendment that was offered, the MTR that was 
offered, was offered to an object in the bill where there had been 
already a substantial increase, with apparently the argument being made 
on the floor that that money was going to be taken from the place to 
which we appropriated it to another area to which it was not 
appropriated.
  We had that somewhat, I want to say, confrontation with the President 
on doing exactly that, taking money from MILCON and wanting to put it 
in a wall.
  Very frankly, there was the opportunity to do that in the 
subcommittee and in the committee. In fact, as the gentleman knows, 
many of his colleagues who serve on that committee voted against 
funding the level of Head Start that they wanted to make a $2.8 billion 
increase to.
  That aside, I will tell the gentleman that, clearly, we want to make 
sure that we handle people at the border in a humanitarian way that is 
consistent with the American way.
  It is ironic, I will tell my friend, as you heard in the debate, that 
today is the 1-year anniversary when we started a policy of taking 
children from their parents at the border, separating them. Some of 
those children to this day have not been reunited with their parents. 
We are very concerned about that.
  One of the things that I know the gentleman knows is that when we 
opened government--the government was shut down when we took over--we 
included a little over $500 million for humanitarian expenditures for 
people at the border so we could treat them fairly. I think, frankly, 
that money has not all been spent at this point in time.
  We do know there is a challenge for us at the border, with the 
numbers of people who are seeking asylum and seeking refuge. We are 
certainly, as the gentleman suggested, going to work on trying to 
respond to that in a bipartisan, effective way.
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, first, to address the 
comment that was made about reluctance on Puerto Rico, it is kind of 
hard to suggest there is reluctance to help Puerto Rico when we have 
appropriated more than $90 billion already and want to continue to make 
sure that Puerto Rico has the relief that they need. Again, over $90 
billion of money from the United States Government has already been 
appropriated.
  We have other issues that we need to address, including some problems 
with the money in the bill that was supposed to go to farmers. It has 
been identified that a lot of that money can't get to the farmers who 
need it.
  Many American farms that are going under can't get the help they 
need. Those problems were identified, and we would like to get that 
fixed.
  There were other issues, such as the President's supplemental. The 
supplemental was $4.5 billion of additional money that is needed to 
help with this crisis at the border.
  I know some on the other side are in denial about the crisis, but it 
is real. We have had in recent weeks days in which on one day, a single 
day, more than 4,000 illegal crossings occurred multiple times.
  Secretary Jeh Johnson under President Obama said that when he would 
get that report every day--it was the first report he would get as 
Secretary of Homeland Security--of how many people crossed illegally 
the day before, if more than 1,000 crossed illegally, it was a bad day.
  Today, we are seeing experiences through Homeland Security where more 
than 4,000 people cross our border illegally per day. That is a crisis 
that has to be dealt with.
  It is why the President sent a supplemental funding request, and we 
would like to see that included in this bill. We tried to start 
addressing that problem.
  I know maybe there is an inability on the other side to look into 
this properly because there is so much fixation with collusion, Russia, 
and denial about the Mueller report that showed there was no collusion.
  We just saw the Judiciary Committee come out with a contempt finding. 
I don't know if the gentleman is planning any floor time to bring 
contempt to the floor, the bill that just came out of the Judiciary 
Committee, but it would be unprecedented--probably the first time in 
American history--that somebody was found in contempt of Congress for 
not complying with the law, for not breaking the law.

                              {time}  1245

  The Judiciary Committee was, literally, asking the Attorney General 
to break the law; otherwise, they would find him in contempt. 
Unprecedented, probably, in our country's history.
  This is, by the way, the committee that has jurisdiction over the 
border and the laws relating to our Nation's immigration laws.
  So, while we have got a crisis at the border, you would think the 
committee of jurisdiction would be focusing on helping to solve the 
problem and bringing bills to the floor to solve the crisis at the 
border, instead of all of the things that they continue to do to try to 
harass the administration and maybe move towards impeachment, to which 
they have alluded, as opposed to solving the real problems that this 
country is facing.
  So, I would hope that the focus would shift to solving this serious 
problem and to giving it the attention it deserves and looking at the 
President's request on the supplemental to fix this crisis at the 
border, so we can finally get control over it and help all those 
millions of people who are trying to come to America the right way.
  The great part of our immigration law: We let in over a million 
people a year--the most generous nation in the world. Yet, we have got 
a crisis where, on some days, thousands of people per day are trying to 
cross illegally and are crossing illegally.
  I would hope we can come together and agree that we have got to solve 
this problem, and that is what the supplemental request starts to 
address. It surely doesn't address it entirely. And we have had that 
debate over the last few months, and we will continue that. Hopefully, 
we can resolve that, too. But, in the meantime, I would like to see us 
address that problem.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  He had a lot of facts and assertions in his comments. First of all, 
let me correct: He adopted the President's number. The President's 
number was wrong. It bore no relationship to reality. He picked it out 
of the air. Numerous fact-checkers have indicated that.
  The facts are that $42 billion has, in fact, been allocated, $20.3 
obligated, and $12.7 outlaid. So, clearly, there are funds that have 
been allocated, but not the $90 billion to which the gentleman 
referred.
  Having said that, obviously, what held it up in the Senate was the 
argument over Puerto Rico. I mean, that is why we have been put to the 
process of passing another bill.
  The good news in that delay is, we did take care of the Midwest. We 
put $3 billion in there for disasters that occurred subsequent to the 
first emergency disaster relief bill that we passed. And, as I said, we 
included $500 million when we opened up the government for humanitarian 
relief.
  We included another half a billion dollars for judges because there 
are, as the gentleman knows, legitimate seekers of asylum who are 
fearful of their own lives, the lives of their families

[[Page H3717]]

are in danger, and they are coming here.
  The gentleman well knows there are some people in the White House who 
want to see the numbers of immigrants to America almost eliminated, so 
that there is some discussion and disagreement in the White House. I 
don't know exactly where the President stands on that, but he certainly 
has been hostile to immigration.
  So, I take the gentleman at his belief, but we have not necessarily 
seen that from the White House.
  Having said that, we will work--because we believe, as he does, that 
people who come to the United States need to be treated, for whatever 
reason they come to the United States, in a way consistent with our 
American values, in a humanitarian way.
  And it is--I will repeat--ironic that we are debating this issue on 
the year's anniversary of children being taken from the arms of their 
mothers and fathers and sent hundreds of miles and, in some cases, 
thousands of miles away, and still have some of them who have not been 
reunited with their parents.
  I am glad that there is concern about humanitarian treatment now. 
That is appropriate. I share the gentleman's view on that. Hopefully, 
we can reach bipartisan agreement in the very near term.
  As the gentleman knows, the President's request was just sent down 
last week. As the gentleman further knows, we have appropriated money 
to certain objects. And we had a confrontation on that, and both the 
House and the Senate thought the President was taking money and 
applying it to an object which we had not authorized.
  Then the Congress stood up for itself, in a bipartisan way, in the 
Senate and in the House.
  Unfortunately, the President vetoed that bill, and he is spending 
money that was not authorized by the Congress of the United States.
  We are having a number of challenges to the underpinning of our 
democratic system and the authority of the Congress of the United 
States versus the exercise of authoritarian power by the President of 
the United States, and I would hope the gentleman would share that 
view.
  But, having said all that, we clearly want to get to the same 
objective, and I am sure the Senate--and I know, as I have just talked 
to Mrs. Lowey--they are going to review the request, as Ms. DeLauro 
said on the floor, see what the money is going to be spent for, make 
sure that it is, in fact, going to be spent for humanitarian relief at 
the border.
  We are very concerned about that and, I think, rightfully so. That is 
what it is projected to be, and we want to make sure that that is what 
it is.
  So, we will proceed, hopefully, in a bipartisan way and, hopefully, 
with relative speed.
  But I hope the Senate, Madam Speaker, will take up this relief bill 
and pass it forthwith so that the folks who have been so damaged by 
natural disasters will get some relief and will understand that their 
Federal Government cares about them and is going to give them 
the relief they need.

  I hope that we can move that as quickly as possible.
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, let's be clear. On the problems with our 
immigration laws, the gentleman mentioned asylum. We all know right 
now, somebody comes across the border on a daily basis--in the 
thousands on some days. And they come across and claim asylum, coming 
through illegal parts of our border, not the ports of entry.
  The President has made it clear: If you are seeking asylum, there is 
a legal way to do it. Come through a port of entry and properly seek 
asylum.
  Many people know there are coyotes, people who make money human 
trafficking people across the border, and they read from a script. They 
all know the script. Whether they are seeking asylum or not, they just 
read the script, and they are let in.
  We see it all the time, and they know the game. It is a game, because 
it is a loophole in the law that we have tried to fix and haven't 
gotten any help from the other side.
  But they know that if they read the script and they know--ironically, 
they have come through multiple countries that have offered them 
asylum, and they have turned down that asylum.
  So that is not the right way to do it. The President said: Come the 
right way. Nobody said--you have never seen the President say get rid 
of immigration laws. He said fix the immigration laws, secure the 
border, have a legal way to come here, and get rid of things like the 
visa lottery system and turn it into a merit-based system to make this 
law work better for the people who want to come here and seek the 
American Dream.
  And I know we have beaten this to death, and we will continue to 
debate it. Hopefully, we get some real conversations over the weekend 
to solve these other problems in the disaster bill that aren't included 
and clear up the number.
  We have seen a number of $90 billion plus that has been appropriated 
to Puerto Rico. Regardless, clearly, it is well over 50, probably 
closer to 90. We will continue to talk about that as well and address 
this problem.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________