[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 100 (Thursday, May 28, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H2346-H2349]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1515
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, as we face the crisis that COVID-19 has 
confronted us with, the House must do its duty in full and do so in a 
way that contributes to the safety and welfare of our people, not in a 
way that harms it.
  Members are advised there will be no votes expected in the House next 
week. Members are further advised that an updated 2020 legislative 
calendar will be released in the coming days.
  I expect conversations to continue on additional legislation 
addressing COVID-19 and the legislation we passed honoring our heroes. 
In the event that an agreement is reached on a bipartisan or partisan 
bill--I don't know how an agreement can be reached on a partisan bill, 
but a bipartisan bill--then we will make sure that the House has 72 
hours before they need to come back to vote on that legislation.
  I am disappointed that Leader McConnell said, when asked about the 
next phase of coronavirus relief, he said, I think that's a decision to 
be made a month from now.
  As we know, we have a lot of people in crisis. We see food lines that 
are very, very long. We see unemployment rising steeply. There are many 
people in this country that think waiting is not appropriate.
  I am pleased the House has adopted a resolution to allow the 
committees to work remotely, Madam Speaker. I expect to use the coming 
weeks to get our committees back up and running so that they can begin 
having hearings and markups on critical legislation.
  As my friend, Mr. Scalise, knows, we have a number of must-pass bills 
that need to be addressed; the National Defense Authorization Act, the 
12 appropriation bills, the surface transportation bill, and the WRDA 
bill as well. As committees begin consideration of these bills, I will 
be in touch with Members about when they will be scheduled this summer.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), 
the minority whip.
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Maryland for 
walking through those items.
  I first want to start by sharing and associating myself with the 
comments made by my friend from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) about the loss 
of our dear friend, Sam Johnson.
  Sam and I got to be close friends, and I can picture him sitting 
right over there by General Lafayette's painting, in his scooter, as he 
was voting and sharing stories with friends in his last few months when 
he served here with us with distinction for so long, and the 
conversations and just the understanding of a giant that we served 
with, someone who served our country, spent 7 years in the Hanoi 
Hilton, as we talked about.
  They never broke him. They probably broke every bone in his body 
trying, but he and those other brave men in that prison never once 
faltered in their love and dedication to our country and to their 
family.
  He missed his wife. We know now he is with her and in a special 
place, and we are all better for having served with Sam Johnson. He 
truly is missed and was a special friend.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I want to echo the gentleman's comments. 
Although the Congressman, the patriot, the hero, did not always vote 
with me, nor I with him, we became good friends. And I shared with the 
gentleman and others in this body a deep respect for who he was as a 
person, a decent man, a patriotic man, a good man and, obviously, as 
the gentleman pointed out, a very courageous man as well.
  He served many missions, was shot down, imprisoned, but they did not 
break Sam Johnson, nor did they break the love he had for his country, 
and we honor the service he gave.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Speaker as well for 
leading that tribute, and I am sure at some time in the future we will 
spend an appropriate amount of time here on the floor where colleagues 
can share

[[Page H2347]]

those stories about someone that everybody ought to know. We know we 
have some giants like   John Lewis and Sam Johnson who we got to serve 
with. Sam left and now is no longer with us. John still is and, 
obviously, he is going through his own battle, and we pray for John as 
well.
  But as we have our battles of the day politically, it is good to 
remember the special people that get to make up this body and become 
part of this great institution in which we have the honor to serve. So 
I appreciate the Speaker and the leader allowing us to have that 
moment.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Pelosi).
  Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is a sad day for 
us, but what a joy for all of us to have served with Sam Johnson, a 
bona fide American hero, to serve with him in the Congress.
  I appreciate that the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise) 
mentioned him and   John Lewis in the same sentence, because I had the 
privilege--  John Larson set up a Heroes Night, a bipartisan Heroes 
Night, and I had the privilege of giving Sam the award that night as a 
true hero.
  He always beamed when he talked about Shirley, and he loved the 
children, his son, Bob. Now he is with them, with Shirley and Bob.
  This was a very special person. I was mentioning to the distinguished 
whip earlier that we were there when the room was named for him. We 
were there when his picture was hung. He always wanted us all around 
him to celebrate the recognition that he received so that he could 
boast of his bipartisanship and his patriotism, which we all admired.
  I was mentioning to the distinguished whip and Mr. Thornberry and 
others that on one of those occasions he had a fellow prisoner of war 
there with him, and that bond is something so beyond anything we can 
imagine. Imagine the strength, the courage, the patriotism, just the 
faith in God that he had.

  So I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to share some personal 
comments about a really great man; always friendly, always smiling, 
always teasing about political differences but, as always, just being a 
model of greatness to all of us.
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, if anybody wants to have a good read, his 
book, ``Captive Warriors,'' tells the story of those years in the Hanoi 
Hilton; not only the unbreakable bond of those heroes that he served in 
that prison with, but also the unbreakable love between he and Shirley. 
She never wavered from her love of him, 7 years removed, while some of 
that time she didn't even know if he was alive.
  He loved her till the day she died and till the day he died because 
he mourned her death every day since, and it was something for all of 
us--again, as we have our daily battles here--just to know the special 
kind of people that we get to serve with, and he was surely one.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, as I said, what we are going to do over the 
next couple of weeks, we have adopted a rule that allows the committees 
to meet even if they can't be here for health reasons, depending upon 
what the status is in D.C. and the Capitol, where it is around the 
country, including transportation.
  The rule that we adopted provides that committees must have, in order 
to conduct virtual or hybrid hearings, a practice session, then two 
hearings before they go to a markup.
  So obviously, if we are going to work on this floor, we need product 
and, obviously, product comes from the committees. And so I am very 
hopeful that the committees will be getting up and running at top speed 
in many respects.
  And, of course, the committees have been working so very hard, and 
the Members have been working so very hard, in my view, on both sides 
of the aisle, as they have been home and talking to their hospitals, 
talking to their governors and their county commissioners and their 
local folks, nursing home administrators, so many people that we have 
kept in touch with through these weeks to see what we could do to 
assist them with whatever they needed.

                              {time}  1530

  The committees will be getting up to speed, and they will be 
qualifying for having hearings. I expect work product to be coming 
later this month, and we will be giving notice in the near term on a 
longer term schedule. But the House will not be in session next week, 
and we will be looking at how the committees are proceeding from that 
point on.
  We will give, as I said, as we have in the past, 72 hours' notice to 
Members when and if we have to come back.
  I want to again say also that we are very hopeful that our Republican 
colleague will engage in the matters that were included in the HEROES 
bill because our States are struggling. I know my State is a relatively 
wealthy State, but its revenues are off 20, 25 percent. I don't know 
what Louisiana's position is, but I am sure they are struggling as 
well. Municipalities are struggling, cities are struggling, and 
counties are struggling from the revenue reduction that is a direct 
result of COVID-19. So, we are trying to help those States.
  In addition, of course, we invested substantial sums in testing, 
isolating, tracing, and treating individuals who have COVID, and we 
need to follow up on whom they have contacted so that we can make sure 
that they isolate themselves because the only way we are going to get a 
handle on this is to make sure we reduce the transition from one to the 
other.
  We are also hopeful that we will develop, and there is money in there 
to develop, a therapeutic to mitigate the adverse effects of COVID-19 
but also a vaccine to protect us from getting COVID-19.
  Until that happens, we also need to give additional help to our small 
businesses and individuals who are really struggling as unemployment is 
at historic levels. Over 38 million Americans--maybe it is now closer 
to 40 million Americans--are without jobs. We have given them 
assistance, and we need to give them some more.
  That is where we stand now, and we will operate with an intent in 
mind of getting the business of the House done, in addition to the 
extraordinary work that we have done on five responses now from the 
House on the effects that the coronavirus has caused in this country 
both to human beings' health and to the health of our economy.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, we have worked together to help try to address the 
problems within our country, both economically and the health side, 
small businesses, medium-sized businesses, large businesses, and State 
and local governments.
  Trillions of dollars have already been spent. When you think just 
about the hundreds of billions of dollars that we sent to States 
through various means, whether it is direct aid, the $150 billion 
package that we have sent to States, we see that each State got a large 
share of that money, billions of dollars in some cases for each State.
  I don't know one State that has spent all of their allotment. Many 
are working to try to figure out if they are going to help local 
governments or not. It was surely our intention here that it wouldn't 
just be for States, that 45 percent of that money should be available 
for local governments as well. I would urge Governors to respect that 
intent of this body.
  Rather than continuing to look to Washington, I think States need to 
start looking within and saying: How can we work to safely reopen our 
States, and how have other States done it successfully if other States 
are behind?
  We have models out there. That is why we always say the States are 
the great incubators of democracy. We all have smart people in this 
country who are figuring this out. States that are reopening 
successfully that aren't seeing spikes in their hospitals have done 
things and used protocols working off of guidance from the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention to successfully get their economies back 
open again.
  No economy is back open at the level it needs to be, and that is why 
we need to encourage everybody to safely reopen so that the real answer 
to States that have budget problems is to start getting their economies 
going again; get people back to work again; get people out having their 
checkups with

[[Page H2348]]

their doctors again, their immunizations for the children who aren't 
getting immunized, the cancer treatments, the mammograms, and the 
colonoscopies that were being skipped for months. We are seeing studies 
that are coming out from very well-respected health experts who are 
talking about the real health danger of having shut-ins and people not 
getting out again.
  We have to weigh all of this, and we have to keep encouraging the 
great progress we are seeing from some of these great drug companies 
here in America that are working on a cure, that are finding therapies 
that are effective for COVID-19 with the help, by the way, of some of 
those trillions of dollars that we have spent here in Washington to 
find, hopefully, a vaccine. Even Dr. Fauci is talking about the 
possibility of a vaccine being available soon. We need to make sure 
that we are working to help ramp up production when that is found so 
that we can make it available to anyone who wants to take it.
  We need to be also focused on holding China accountable. We need to 
be focused on bringing production back to America of PPE, which was in 
short supply in those critical weeks after we found out China, while 
they were lying to the world about this disease, with the WHO joining 
in with them, was stopping and blocking the export of PPE, which they 
make the lion's share of, including American companies in China that 
weren't even allowed to sell PPE back to us when they had orders in 
place to do so.
  So, we should be investigating that. I am sorry that that is not 
happening here.
  We should be addressing how we can bring more of that manufacturing 
back to America to create new jobs for Americans making our own 
protective equipment for our frontline workers like doctors and 
nurses. Unfortunately, that focus hasn't been there.

  But the real issue is: What should Congress' role be in this? 
Shouldn't Congress be leading the way in showing people how to safely 
reopen and do our work?
  While we have had only a limited number of opportunities to come back 
here and vote directly on the House floor, it has been a smooth 
process. It has been a process that has been safe for Members, 
staggered votes where social distancing, which is still the standard 
that everybody should be practicing, is able to be exercised in a safe 
and effective way.
  Clearly, we had a very big difference on the proxy voting, and I 
think we have already seen abuses of that process. But the real issue 
is: When are we going to get back to a functioning, regular schedule 
for the House of Representatives?
  A major company here, Disney, announced yesterday they are going to 
start opening their parks again in a few weeks. You have the National 
Basketball Association talking about playing games again, whether or 
not there are fans in the stands. When you talk about a sport that 
can't exercise social distancing, they are working on protocols right 
now to test players and to allow games to go on. We all know the 
physical nature of a sport like basketball or even football. Hockey is 
talking about coming back. NASCAR is already racing again.
  As all of these things are happening and these ideas and these great 
ways to safely get different parts of our economy open again, we don't 
even know what the schedule of the House is and when the House will 
actually be back voting again.
  The Armed Services Committee could be in a large room in the Capitol 
that is sitting vacant right now, debating the National Defense 
Authorization Act, so we don't get caught bringing up legislation at 
the midnight hour. We can actually start working on that now. That work 
can be done here in Washington. It doesn't have to be done remotely.
  These are the concerns that we would ask: Is there going to be a time 
when the majority leader would put out a new schedule that actually 
shows what our voting pattern will be?
  We know, obviously, when you look at May, April, and even June, 
clearly, that has changed. But at some point, will it be mid-June? Will 
it be July?
  Again, if NBA players can be playing basketball in July, can't we 
have a regular schedule by then that the House will be conducting 
business?
  We have seen the Spanish flu, and people had to get here with horses 
and buggies, yet they figured out how to do it.
  Can we lead the way again in showing people how to safely do our 
business with a consistent schedule that right now doesn't exist?
  Mr. HOYER. The answer is yes. We are going to have out a fuller 
schedule in the near term. But we have to find out how our committees 
can operate.
  I want to say, regarding the national defense authorization bill, 
Members on both sides of the aisle have been working very, very hard at 
a distance, on the phone, and in other ways. So, I expect them to be 
ready to come to the floor this summer, and we are going to pass that 
bill, we think, before the summer break. That is for certain.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to my friend.
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, if I could ask the gentleman on the 
voting and whether it is in committee, clearly, there are rooms here in 
the Capitol--we have seen the Rules Committee utilize the Ways and 
Means Committee where they are able to be spread out at distances well 
beyond the safe standards of social distancing, well beyond 6 feet 
where you can have in-person hearings where the back and forth of a 
debate and the votes that would go with it where a proxy vote doesn't 
really fit that situation can occur. I would hope that we do that.
  This shouldn't have been a partisan exercise. I know early on we 
talked about trying to find a way to conduct our business where both 
parties would agree, and the minority leader and the Speaker were 
talking about doing that, and we thought that would be how it would end 
up. Of course, that wasn't what happened with the proxy voting. But 
even my friend just mentioned that if somebody proxy voted, then it 
would be for health reasons. Yet, yesterday, the first time where this 
new experiment that has never been done in over 230 years was 
conducted, there were Members who voted by proxy signing a document 
saying that they couldn't be here to physically attend proceedings, yet 
it turns out they were in other places. In some cases, it took them 
longer to get to a rocket launch than it would have taken them to get 
here to the United States Capitol, in clear violation of the intent of 
proxy voting. That literally was just on the first day.
  I don't know if the gentleman is going to revisit proxy voting. But, 
clearly, we have seen most people can come here and do the work. Even 
some who chose not to could have been here.
  What message does that send to the country when we should be the ones 
leading the way to safely reopen?
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I think the country is distancing itself as 
well. I don't know whether my friend drove to work today, but there are 
hardly any cars on the street. There are hardly any cars on the street 
in New York. The reason is because people are taking the advice of the 
government and practicing social distancing.
  We think that makes sense. We think that is consistent with medical 
advice, and that is what we have been doing.
  It is very nice to say, well, they could have been here, but there 
are a lot of West Coast Members who have to get on airplanes. Some of 
those airplanes now, because there are so few flights, are very 
crowded, and people are concerned because they are not practicing 
social distancing.
  When I am speaking, I don't wear a mask. But if you see me in the 
Capitol and getting into my car, I have a mask on. I think we are 
setting an example. I think we are setting an example of how you 
distance here on this floor, which we are all practicing right now.

  So, I think the House is setting a good example of understanding that 
it is not business as usual. When you walk down the street and people 
are wearing masks, you know it is not business as usual. You know it is 
not the America of 3 or 4 months ago, Madam Speaker.
  In any event, I think we are going to proceed. We have provided to do 
the business of the American people. We did that just in the last 2 
days. We passed a number of very important bills, important bills to 
small business in particular.
  I was sorry that we didn't resolve the FISA question, but we did go 
to conference. We will see what happens on

[[Page H2349]]

that. We have passed, as the gentleman mentioned earlier, extraordinary 
legislation through this House over the last 2 months to ensure that 
the American people got the help they needed and that the economics of 
our country will undergird it to the extent we could. So, we have done 
a lot of work.
  I want to say this: I think we do a disservice to our Members and to 
this institution if we go home and pretend that Members somehow aren't 
working because they are not physically in this room. I don't know, I 
presume my friend's Members--but I tell you, Madam Speaker, the Members 
on my side of the aisle are working around the clock and communicating 
around the clock.
  That bill that we passed in a bipartisan way, we took a lot of time, 
days and days and days and days of hours- and hours- and hours-long 
conversations to get to a consensus on what ought to be in that bill, 
and we passed it in a bipartisan way.
  So, my presumption is my friend did the same. I don't know; I was not 
on my friend's phone calls. But you do a disservice, I think--I don't 
mean you personally. But we do a disservice to allow the President or 
anybody else--nobody is on vacation. People are working harder now than 
if we didn't have this coronavirus is my observation.
  I am hopeful that we will move on. I am hopeful that we will be back 
to business as usual and as soon as possible--``possible'' is the 
operative word--with the advice of our Capitol physician, with the 
advice of the administration, and my own Governor.
  My friend talked about States. I have a Republican Governor, Governor 
Hogan, whose father was one of my predecessors. I know he is still very 
cautious and urging caution for our citizens.
  Madam Speaker, unless the gentleman has something further, I am 
prepared to yield back the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1545

  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I would just say that, clearly, we have a 
disagreement on how business should be conducted on the House floor, 
specifically as it relates to proxy voting and whether or not we can be 
here physically doing the job. And, clearly, when we are at home in our 
districts, we are finding other ways to get work done, to communicate 
with constituents, to communicate with people all around the Nation. 
Using technology, it has definitely helped the ability for us to do it, 
but it is not the same thing as when we are here.
  The other side of that, because one piece of it is the ability to be 
here--and, clearly, we have the ability to be here. There are flights. 
If somebody is not comfortable flying, they used to take horse and 
buggy. They didn't have planes, and yet they found a way to get here in 
tougher times. But then you look at the message that we are trying to 
send. And, yes, there are some places that you don't have traffic on 
the road because their officials have chosen not to open as 
aggressively as others, using safety protocols.
  No one is talking about compromising safety, but there are many 
States that have shown how to safely reopen on a much wider scale where 
you can get people back out doing the things that they want to do 
again, and that is the real issue. You are watching aspects of the 
private sector, you are even watching other levels of government, large 
cities, large States that are reopening and doing it successfully, not 
overrunning their hospitals.
  Most of our hospitals are telling us they want more patients. They 
want the people who normally would be getting their checkups and 
immunizations and even hip replacements and things that are part of 
their life cycle, their quality of life, and their ability to live with 
cancer treatments and things like that that aren't being done. There 
are people dying right now because they are not being tended to.
  In my home parish, I actually talked to my coroner about this. He 
took a 6-week period--just 2 weeks ago, took a 6-week period and took 
that exact 6-week period a year ago, and there was a 42 percent 
increase in non-COVID-related deaths, just in my home parish. This 
year, more--Madam Speaker, 42 percent increase--because people aren't 
going out, aren't going to the doctor. If they had chest pains, they 
weren't going to a doctor because the doctor's office is closed, where 
they could catch it, and so they were dying in their house.
  These are real numbers from the coroner. I mean, there is a problem 
that is created by not allowing people to go about their lives again in 
a safe way.
  So we ought to be leading the way, leading the way to show people how 
to do it. And, again, we have had votes here on the House floor before 
proxy voting in the midst of this pandemic, and it went very smoothly. 
And if there are better ways we can find to do it, we will do it.
  But we followed all the protocols of the Attending Physician. I 
didn't hear of any Members complaining about that process. Everybody 
went about it their own way, practicing the social distancing that we 
all encourage. Yet we are not doing that on a consistent basis, and 
that doesn't send the right message.
  As the gentleman reworks the schedule, and I hope it is done soon, I 
hope it takes into account the fact that it is important for us to show 
the rest of the country that we can be here doing our job.
  Yes, there are things that we are going to do remotely. There are 
things we always do remotely. If we are on a 3-week schedule in D.C. 
and 1 week back home in our districts, it is important that we go back 
home to stay in touch with the people who actually elect us, the people 
who make this country work so that we can come back here and represent 
them better.
  But we do have to come back here and do the work. You can't phone it 
in sometimes. You can't do that remotely. There are certain parts of 
our job where we actually have to be here.
  In the rough-and-tumble of a legislative process, things change on 
the fly; and if you are back home or going to some other event 
somewhere else because you choose not to come here, it is kind of hard 
to say you gave your proxy to somebody and then things change 2 minutes 
before a vote. It is going to be hard for that person to know how to 
change their vote by proxy when they are not here.
  So there are flaws in there that don't need to be there because we 
have proven we can be here. I just hope that that is taken into account 
when the new schedule is being worked out, and, again, hopefully 
released as soon as possible so that as other people and industries and 
groups are starting to show how they are going to come back safely, we 
can do the same thing--not last. Clearly, we are not going to be first 
now, but hopefully, as other people are making those decisions, we can 
be part of that, not at the tail end of it.
  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.

                          ____________________