[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 118 (Friday, June 26, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H2557-H2559]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM
(Mr. FERGUSON asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute.)
Mr. FERGUSON. Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of
the majority leader the schedule for the week to come. I yield to my
friend from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the majority leader.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding.
Madam Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning-
hour debate. I would repeat that because it is unusual. On Monday, we
are meeting at 9 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 10 a.m. for
legislative business, with votes expected to occur as early as 2:30
p.m.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning-
hour debate and 10 a.m. for legislative business.
On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.
The House will consider H.R. 1425, the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Enhancement Act. This bill will significantly increase
the ACA's affordability and subsidies, lower prescription drug prices,
expand coverage, and crack down on junk plans, while strengthening
protections for people with preexisting conditions and addressing
racial health disparities.
The House will also consider, Madam Speaker, H.R. 7301, which is the
Emergency Housing Protection and Relief Act of 2020. This bill would
authorize nearly $200 billion for the dire housing needs arising due to
the COVID-19 pandemic.
H.R. 7301, which was included in the HEROES Act, would help renters
and homeowners by extending the eviction and foreclosure moratoria and
providing $100 billion for emergency rental assistance; $75 billion for
homeowners assistance to cover mortgages, property taxes, and
utilities; and more than $11 billion for homeless assistance programs.
I would again reiterate that that bill passed as a part of the HEROES
Act, which is now pending in the Senate.
Lastly, the House will consider H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act. This
bill would invest more than $1.5 trillion in modern, sustainable
infrastructure, while creating millions of good-paying jobs; combating
the climate crisis; and addressing disparities in urban, suburban, and
rural communities.
The bill includes a 5-year reauthorization of the surface
transportation program, invests in schools with the Reopen and Rebuild
America's Schools Act, invests over $100 billion in our Nation's
affordable housing infrastructure, delivers affordable high-speed
broadband internet access to all parts of the country, and promotes new
clean renewable energy infrastructure.
We expect, at that point in time, to be out on Thursday for the July
Fourth break. I would tell the House that the 2 weeks that will follow
the July
[[Page H2558]]
Fourth weekend will be reserved, as were the first weeks in June, for
committees to do their work, in particular, the National Defense
Authorization Act being considered by the House Armed Services
Committee.
That bill is, obviously, very lengthy. It composes a little more than
half of the discretionary spending, and we expect the committee to need
substantial time to mark up that bill.
In addition, the Appropriations Committee will be marking up its 12
bills for consideration by the House.
Then, the last 2 weeks, we will be taking the products that will not
be limited to the NDAA and the appropriations bills, but we will be
primarily taking up the time with other legislation that will be
promoted and sent to the floor for consideration by the committees.
Mr. FERGUSON. Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate that update.
Question: Does the gentleman expect to consider amendments to H.R. 2,
the transportation bill, on the floor next week?
I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Yes. I talked to Mr. McCarthy yesterday. Obviously,
because of the timeframe that the COVID-19 health strictures have
imposed upon us, it takes a long time to vote on amendments. So, rather
than consider amendments individually, the leader and I talked about
having amendments either in manager's amendments or in amendments that
have a lot of individual amendments within them. And they will be
considered en gros so that there may well be a lot of amendments, but
we hope to hold the votes down to a manageable level.
As the gentleman knows, votes have been taking about an hour. If we
took every amendment seriatim, frankly, we wouldn't finish until
September. So, we are trying to manage that, and we are working with
the minority leader.
Mr. FERGUSON. Madam Speaker, I am happy to hear that. But it seems
kind of odd that this week, when we were considering the police reform
bill, there were no amendment considerations.
I believe the majority leader, Madam Speaker, said on the floor that
we have constraints on amendments because of the coronavirus. So I ask,
if there were amendment constraints this week, do those same
constraints exist next week?
Mr. HOYER. No, it turns out that we considered the bill in the House
the same way the majority leader in the Senate wanted to consider the
Scott bill, or the Republican policing bill. So, both Houses wanted to
consider them, apparently, in the same way.
Mr. FERGUSON. Well, I certainly appreciate that, but I was a little
disappointed this week, in the fact that I thought we had a chance to
make the police reform bill better. It was a genuine effort on both
sides of the aisle to have this discussion.
But once again, the Republican voice was left out. There were some
really good amendments and ideas from my side that simply did not gain
consideration on the floor, and they should have.
One such example was the Cline amendment that really would have
discouraged collective bargaining agreements with organizations that
really kind of had poor officer disciplinary tactics, something that
could have fundamentally changed how departments operate in big cities.
But anyway, it is a disappointment. I hate that we did not get to do
that.
Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FERGUSON. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HOYER. We are hopeful that the Senate will pass a bill. I know
that my friend will say, Well, yes, but it is the Democrats that
stopped the bill.
Let me tell the gentleman, I genuinely hope that we have a bill
passed by the Senate, that we go to conference, and that we adopt a
bill that can garner the support of the majority of the House and the
Senate and can be signed by the President of the United States.
As I said on the floor when we considered the bill, Karen Bass, the
Congressional Black Caucus, and those of us who strongly supported the
bill, we don't want to send a message. We want to make a difference. To
the extent that making a difference requires us to have agreement
between the two parties, I am hopeful we will get to that objective.
Mr. FERGUSON. Reclaiming my time, those words are fine now. But when
we talk about having agreement and talk about having those discussions,
Madam Speaker, clearly, the committee and this body should be
considering it as an entire body. The opportunity for us to consider
those amendments here on the floor of the House is really important.
But we understand that the minority in the Senate blocked debate and
continuation of Mr. Scott's bill, Senator Scott's bill, which was,
quite candidly, an excellent piece of legislation. If anyone has not
seen his remarks on the Senate floor and his speech, I would highly
encourage you to do it.
That was a disappointment. But then, to hear the majority leader say
that we are going to eliminate debate in this House simply to do it in
conference, I think we deserve a better opportunity than that.
But I understand. You are in the majority, and that is the way that
you all have chosen to do that. But, hopefully, we can get to that
point where we can have those honest debates right here on the House
floor.
Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FERGUSON. For just a minute.
Mr. HOYER. The gentleman will surely note that when his party was in
power and was scheduling bills, you had the most closed rules of any
Congress in the history of the Congress.
Mr. FERGUSON. It seems to me that I voted on a lot more amendments
last year than I have this year. We probably did have more closed
bills, but we seemed to have a lot more legislative activity. It seemed
to be a lot more productive.
But anyway, Madam Speaker, another thing that is concerning to me is
that I am disappointed about what has transpired in the House over the
recent weeks. For the first time in 230 years, Members had to elect to
come to D.C. to represent their constituents, but they no longer need
to do that. Instead, they can now turn their voting cards over to
another Member, including Speaker Pelosi, or any other Member, and have
them vote in their place using this new proxy vote scheme.
One thing that I am thankful for is that the covered period for this
laid out by the Speaker comes to an end July Fourth, and we look
forward to seeing all the Members come back to do their jobs.
Since many States are fully reopened, and even here in D.C., phase 2
reopening is in its place, and you can go to restaurants and gyms. As a
matter of fact, we can even now go to the House gym again. And most
employees are returning to work.
With that said, I would like to confirm with the gentleman that he
does not plan to extend the July Fourth covered period and continue
this absurd proxy voting scheme.
Mr. HOYER. First of all, of course, I reject emphatically the premise
that this is absurd. As the gentleman knows, there were some 70, some
weeks ago, who cast a vote. There were 30 today. They cast their votes
because they were concerned about their health or families' health to
whom they would return.
I think the gentleman probably has been reading, as well, and maybe
listening to the extraordinary spike in cases that have been identified
and the concern that hospital beds will be overrun.
We will end this when the medical community, not somebody who has no
medical knowledge and very little command of the facts, tells us it is
time to get together again. When he told people to do that, they did
get together, 10 of whom apparently work for the White House who have
gotten infected, and, frankly, spikes in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and,
yes, even California and some other States as well, including Arkansas.
Now, I am not sure exactly what the figures are in the gentleman's
State. But, Madam Speaker, I believe that we are going to continue to
be concerned about the health of the Members, the health of the staff,
the health of the people who cover us on behalf of the American people.
So, I can't tell the gentleman whether it is going to end because I
can't tell you when the pandemic is going to end.
[[Page H2559]]
I can't tell you when the spike in the numbers of people who are
getting sick or people who are dying is going to end.
But I can tell you that we will be very sensitive to the risks, and
we will act accordingly.
Mr. FERGUSON. Well, certainly, we want to be safe and thoughtful
about what we do. But I think America--I think we have done an
excellent job of what we set out to do, which was not to stop the
spread of this virus, but it was to slow the spread of the virus.
Not a single one of us, not a single person in America, wanted to see
one of our fellow Americans suffer because there was no room for them
in a healthcare facility where they needed it. And I think that we have
done that. I think America has shown that they have had the discipline
to say at home and to bend the infection rate curve down.
So, sure, there will be more Americans that contract COVID. But thank
goodness that our healthcare system is strong enough and intact that we
have the capacity to take care of the most vulnerable.
Speaking of that, I think, as I have watched a lot of the news, a lot
of the data, I am very, very, very concerned about the most vulnerable
in our Nation. I think one of the most horrific things that has
happened seems to be the blatant disregard for rules from CDC and CMS
by some Governors, where they returned COVID-positive patients to the
nursing homes, where they were able to infect the most vulnerable.
So, I would ask the majority leader, do you think that there will be
legislation considering how to protect our patients in nursing homes
and also to really hold those accountable that violated the rules and
were reckless with our fellow Americans' lives?
Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman from Georgia yield?
Mr. FERGUSON. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HOYER. I hesitate to ask the gentleman a question I don't know
the answer to, so I won't. But I don't know which Governors the
gentleman is talking about. But I will, certainly, want to find that
out from the gentleman at some point in time.
Mr. FERGUSON. Reclaiming my time for just a minute, sir, I would
refer you to the special committee led by the gentleman from South
Carolina, Mr. Clyburn. And I would refer you to the data that is coming
out of that committee that clearly indicates where those particular
States are.
Mr. HOYER. Let me tell the gentleman that we certainly intend to
continue, as I said, to try to protect the American people. A lot of
people have died. Over 122,000 people have died.
Mr. FERGUSON. And every one is a tragic loss.
{time} 1515
Mr. HOYER. The President of the United States said this virus was a
hoax.
Because he said it was a hoax, people thought they didn't have to
worry about it. I tell my friend from Georgia, a hoax. He is a
gentlemen who refuses to set the example of wearing a mask, which the
science and medical people say we ought to do, a gentleman who really
shunted aside much of the science and medical advice that he got.
So I tell the gentleman we hope that the President is as concerned as
my friend has stated he is, and I know that I am and I think all of our
Members are.
Mr. FERGUSON. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I am certainly glad
to hear that my colleague from Maryland is truly committed to making
sure that every single American stays as safe as they possibly can.
When those incidents occurred where rules were violated, regulations
were disregarded, there was, in fact, harm caused to our fellow
Americans.
I tell my friend I am glad to know he is as committed to getting to
the bottom of that as well, because I believe he is a man of honor and
integrity. I believe his commitment to lead it to going to where the
data and facts are, I tell my friend I am awfully glad to hear that.
Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. FERGUSON. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I hope the gentleman has as high an
expectation for the President of the United States as he has of others.
Mr. FERGUSON. Oh, Madam Speaker, not only is there an expectation,
there is gratitude for the work that the President and the
administration have done to get information out, to expand testing, to
go out to make sure that the resources were delivered to our colleagues
in the great State of New York, resources there to build extra hospital
beds that nursing home patients could have gone to but, unfortunately,
were sent back to their nursing homes.
Yes, I am grateful not only for his commitment to America, but I am
grateful for the fact that he has helped lead this country and will
continue to lead this country back. So, yes, we should all expect a lot
of ourselves. We should be committed to the greatness of this country,
as I know that we all are.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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