[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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