[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 211 (Tuesday, December 7, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H6925-H6927]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1800

  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I would just remind our colleagues we are 
here today to talk about a rule to bring the Protecting Our Democracy 
Act to the floor. That is a bill that would prevent criminal behavior 
by Presidents, not by illegal aliens, so I would just kind of redirect 
the conversation there.
  We are also here to engage in the extremely important business of 
passing the National Defense Authorization Act and to help the Senate, 
since they are having difficulty on their own, to raise the debt limit. 
That is what we are here to discuss.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler), my good friend and one of 
the recognized experts on defense in the Congress.
  Mrs. HARTZLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the National 
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022.
  I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their 
work in developing this comprehensive bill that will ensure our men and 
women in uniform have the resources they need to keep our country safe.
  The bill before us today does not include a provision requiring women 
to register for the Selective Service. This bill does not include any 
red-flag gun provisions that would infringe on the Second Amendment 
rights of our servicemembers. And this bill does not establish an 
office of extremism.
  I want to thank Ranking Member Rogers for his advocacy in removing 
these provisions from the final bill.
  This bill does protect servicemembers who choose not to receive the 
COVID-19 vaccine by prohibiting the DOD from issuing dishonorable 
discharges. It also requires the DOD to establish uniform standards for 
COVID-19 vaccine exemptions and requires the Pentagon to consider the 
effects of natural immunity.
  As ranking member of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, I 
am pleased with the continued investments this bill makes for our air 
and land capabilities.
  Under the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee's jurisdiction, 
this bill continues critical oversight of the Air Force, Navy, and 
Marine Corps'

[[Page H6926]]

strike fighter force structure and inventory management, setting better 
conditions for ensuring the right mix of fourth- and fifth-generation 
fighters and managing operational risk.
  Specifically, this legislation authorizes funding for 12 F/A-18 Super 
Hornets, 85 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, and 17 F-15EX aircraft.
  The legislation also provides much-needed funding increases within 
the Army's small and medium caliber ammunition accounts as well as to 
support operational and safety improvements to the Nation's ammunition 
industrial base. I am proud of this legislation, and I urge all of my 
colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the final passage of the NDAA.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I would inquire how many speakers Mr. Cole 
has remaining.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, we have at least one, I think perhaps two, if 
the gentleman can make it back in time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
Mr. Speaker, As long as I have a few minutes left, I did just want to 
raise an amendment I have to the Protecting Our Democracy Act, which 
has been made in order. This amendment would effectuate the findings of 
the Senate Judiciary Committee report titled ``Subverting Justice: How 
the Former President and His Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 
Election.''
  That report made numerous recommendations, but one of them is 
directly related to the Protecting Our Democracy Act. It would increase 
the frequency with which reports are made of contact between the White 
House and the Department of Justice in order to make sure that 
protections occur against politicization of our law enforcement arm at 
the behest of bad actors in the White House.
  I am very, very pleased that that amendment was made in order and, as 
always, very grateful to the Committee on Rules for its continuing 
efforts to make amendments in order, which it has been doing at a much 
higher rate this term than last.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Burgess), my good friend, a fellow member of the Rules Committee 
and distinguished member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, you just have to ask yourself what in the 
heck is going on here. Doctors across this country, our heroes in the 
healthcare fight that we have been in the last 2 years, are facing 
significant cuts in their Medicare reimbursements.
  Instead of getting a commitment from Congress that we are going to 
work on solving this problem, what do they get? A gimmicky bill tying a 
reprieve on the Medicare cuts to the debt limit. That is a dead duck 
over in the other body. It is not going to pass, and the majority knows 
it is not going to pass.
  Why don't we face the facts and get things done correctly from the 
start?
  Unfortunately, our authorizing committees, the Committee on Energy 
and Commerce and the Committee on Ways and Means, have not seen fit to 
hold the hearings that would be necessary to provide a solution to this 
problem. Our providers need and deserve that certainty.
  Mr. Speaker, I don't know what it is like in your part of the State, 
but in my part of the State, we are experiencing a shortage of 
healthcare workers. We are also seeing hospital consolidation becoming 
more and more prevalent. The coming Medicare cuts will only worsen 
these issues.
  Furthermore, we have not even considered the cuts due to the Centers 
for Medicare and Medicaid Services clinical labor pricing updates. Some 
studies are now indicating that these cuts could be as significant as 
20 percent for some providers.
  Many of these same providers serve our seniors. They serve patients 
in critical care populations, including cancer patients and patients 
receiving critical surgeries or procedures. Overall, the clinical labor 
pricing updates will have an extreme impact on health quality, as they 
will affect our most vulnerable populations.
  I appreciate the fact that the rebate rule is not included as an 
offset in this bill. That truly was budgetary smoke and mirrors that 
had no place in a rational discussion of this. But I do have to ask why 
we are reluctant to reuse the dollars in the Provider Relief Fund as an 
offset instead of creating a new Medicare sequester that, oh, yeah, 
won't start until 10 years from now.
  Mr. Speaker, we are all familiar here with kicking the can down the 
road and robbing Peter to pay Paul. We are basically now robbing 
Peter's grandchildren to pay Paul. The Provider Relief Fund is sitting 
there waiting to be used. It would provide targeted relief to providers 
consistent with the original intent of the fund that we all voted for 
on March 27, 2020.
  Unfortunately, this bill includes a one-time procedural change to 
allow the Senate to originate and pass a debt limit increase with only 
51 votes. The Medicare issue and the debt limit do not belong in the 
same room, let alone in the same bill.
  Protecting patients' access to care and helping healthcare providers 
during a public health emergency is a bipartisan issue. It deserves 
sincere congressional action, and it is time we work on meaningful 
payment reform.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I completely agree that protecting Medicare 
from cuts is a bipartisan issue, and we are happy to engage on that. 
Unfortunately, if there is a complaint about how this bill is coming up 
at this time, that is something that was pushed by Republican 
leadership here in the House. That is not how our leadership proposed 
to do it.
  If my colleagues want to have a serious conversation about the 
Nation's fiscal policies, we encourage them to do the work with us to 
pass a funding bill for the current fiscal year. We are now 2 months 
into this fiscal year, and we still don't have a funding bill because 
Senate Republicans are refusing to work with the rest of Congress to 
negotiate a bipartisan appropriations bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, we are still waiting for a speaker, but I 
would inquire of the gentlewoman if she is prepared to close, we will 
go ahead and close.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, before I get into my prepared remarks and close, just in 
response to my good friend's last remark, I want her to be aware, we 
don't have an appropriations bill or budget because my friends, 
frankly, have riddled what happened in the Appropriations Committee 
with poison pills, taking out the Hyde protections. We have been 
waiting to negotiate that. Our friends have refused to do that.
  It has been extended now to February 18. I hope that we meet that 
deadline and that we actually do get an agreed-upon appropriations 
bill. If we do, I would be happy to support it, as I have so many years 
in the past.
  Mr. Speaker, in passing a final, bipartisan, bicameral version of the 
NDAA, we are fulfilling our responsibility to provide for the common 
defense. This would mark the 61st year in a row that Congress has 
passed a final NDAA, and I celebrate that fact.
  This year's bill increases defense spending to a level commensurate 
with our needs, unlike the President's budget. It ensures a needed pay 
raise for our troops and ensures that the warfighters of tomorrow will 
have the weapons and capabilities they need. It will also provide 
needed oversight over the President's debacle in Afghanistan and will 
ensure that the American people receive the answers they deserve.
  I want to publicly commend Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Rogers 
for working so well together in a bipartisan fashion and also commend 
their negotiating counterparts in the United States Senate, Chairman 
Reed and Ranking Member Inhofe, for cooperating and bringing this 
important measure before us. I certainly hope we can pass it and move 
forward from there.
  Today's rule, unfortunately, also advances a measure to address 
Medicaid sequestration. This is a bill that could and should have been 
bipartisan but instead must be used to address the Democratic 
leadership's failure to resolve the debt ceiling vote. That is sad. 
Democratic leaders have chosen to divide us when they could have chosen 
a different course that would have united us in a bipartisan agreement. 
Hopefully, they will learn from that lesson.
  Finally, this rule also advances a highly partisan and unnecessary 
collection of purported government reforms,

[[Page H6927]]

many of which are duplicative of measures that have previously passed 
the House. I urge the majority to rethink these measures.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous 
question and ``no'' on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my 
time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. The 
Protecting Our Democracy Act is a necessary package of policies to 
address abuses of our constitutional processes that have developed over 
time but accelerated under the most recent administration. It has 
become clear that our government will not survive solely on the good 
behavior of good people. We need statutory guardrails to ensure 
compliance with norms of good behavior.
  The Protecting Our Democracy Act will impose reasonable and 
constitutionally sound limits on Presidential power and then create 
enforceable penalties for Presidents who abuse the powers of their 
office.
  I am proud of my colleagues who contributed legislation to the final 
bill, especially Representative Adam Schiff, who spearheaded this 
important effort.
  The Protecting Our Democracy Act is an important continuation of the 
House's work for the people to protect our democratic institutions at 
this critical moment in time. It builds off bills like H.R. 1, H.R. 4, 
and the Inspector General Independence and Empowerment Act to protect 
our elections and make good government reforms to ensure that our 
government works for everyone and that the rule of law applies to 
everyone.
  As with many of these bills and others passed by the House, I 
strongly urge my Senate colleagues to join us and do some legislating. 
Our country is facing multiple problems, and we frankly cannot afford 
continued inaction from the Senate on voting rights, the NDAA, the debt 
limit, or any of the hundreds of bills passed by the House over the 
past year.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote for the rule today 
and to support the underlying legislation.
  The material previously referred to by Mr. Cole is as follows:

                   Amendment to House Resolution 838

       At the end of the resolution, add the following:
       Sec. 9. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the 
     House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the 
     bill (H.R. 1995) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act 
     with respect to aliens associated with criminal gangs, and 
     for other purposes. All points of order against consideration 
     of the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. 
     All points of order against provisions in the bill are 
     waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered 
     on the bill and on any amendment thereto to final passage 
     without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate 
     equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking 
     minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary; and (2) 
     one motion to recommit.
       Sec. 10. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the 
     consideration of H.R. 1995.

  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3(s) of House Resolution 
8, the yeas and nays are ordered.
  Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings are postponed.

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