[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 10 (Wednesday, January 14, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H728-H732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 7006, FINANCIAL SERVICES AND 
  GENERAL GOVERNMENT AND NATIONAL SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, AND 
               RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026

  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call 
up House Resolution 992 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 992

       Resolved, That at any time after adoption of this 
     resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule 
     XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the 
     Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of 
     the bill (H.R. 7006) making further consolidated 
     appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, 
     and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall 
     be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration 
     of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to 
     the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and 
     controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the 
     Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. 
     After general debate the bill shall be considered for 
     amendment under the five-minute rule. The bill shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against provisions in 
     the bill are waived. Clause 2(e) of rule XXI shall not apply 
     during consideration of the bill. No amendment to the bill 
     shall be in order except those printed in the report of the 
     Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution. Each such 
     amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the 
     report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the 
     report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 
     the time specified in the report equally divided and 
     controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be 
     subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand 
     for division of the question in the House or in the Committee 
     of the Whole. All points of order against such amendments are 
     waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for 
     amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the 
     House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The 
     previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill 
     and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening 
     motion except one motion to recommit.
       Sec. 2.  The chair of the Committee on Appropriations may 
     insert in the Congressional Record not later than January 16, 
     2026, such material as he may deem explanatory of H.R. 7006.


[[Page H729]]


  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from North Carolina is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. 
Scanlon), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of debate only.


                             General Leave

  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina?
  There was no objection.

                              {time}  1220

  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill and the 
underlying legislation.
  Yesterday, the Rules Committee met and produced a rule, House 
Resolution 992, providing for the House's consideration of a single 
measure, H.R. 7006, the Financial Services and General Government and 
National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs 
Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2026.
  The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 7006 under a structured 
rule, with two amendments made in order. Further, the rule provides 1 
hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and 
ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, or their respective 
designees, and one motion to recommit.
  Mr. Speaker, following last week's progress in advancing three 
separate appropriations bills through the committee and on the floor, 
we have returned this week to continue our work. H.R. 7006 was 
negotiated in good faith on a bipartisan, bicameral basis.
  President Trump's priorities, alongside the priorities of the 
American people, are interwoven within this important package.
  Let me make this abundantly clear, Mr. Speaker: Not only does this 
legislative package contain no poison pills, but it also cuts foreign 
aid by 16 percent. That is more than $9 billion.
  Further, this package is part of an agreement that keeps fiscal year 
2026 spending below the level that has been forecasted under the 
current continuing resolution.
  We are enacting targeted funding to accelerate entrepreneurship and 
economic prosperity, guard our Nation's national security posture and 
apparatus, and further cement true, unyielding, American leadership on 
the international stage.
  At the very same time, we are slashing incompatible mandates and 
provisions that were cooked up during the Biden administration that 
would have weakened America's trajectory to greatness.
  With fiscal restraint and an eye toward paving a new and prosperous 
path for our Nation, anything--yes, anything--can be possible.
  As I said in the committee yesterday afternoon, gone are the days of 
inflated omnibuses that have bogged down and constrained this 
legislative body. Indeed, we are moving in a better direction and 
chucking the Biden budget into the grave where it belongs. Good 
riddance.
  The bipartisan and bicameral underpinnings of this legislative 
package make a compelling case as to why the House must pass it 
immediately.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule.
  Let me begin by acknowledging the hard work of our colleagues on the 
Appropriations Committee who, despite deep divisions and really 
difficult political conditions, have assembled a bipartisan compromise 
to fund additional portions of the Federal Government for the current 
fiscal year.
  The bill before us containing the Financial Services and General 
Government Appropriations Act and the National Security, Department of 
State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, includes hard-fought 
Democratic priorities, despite our minority position in the House and 
Senate. These Democratic priorities will help working families and 
small businesses safeguard our elections and protect American values 
and interests abroad.
  Democratic appropriators secured funding for vital government 
programs that the White House sought to cut, including the CDFI fund, 
which promotes economic development in low-income communities; the 
Small Business Administration, which provides invaluable financing that 
allows people to start or grow their businesses; and the Election 
Assistance Commission, which supports State and Federal election 
integrity across the country. The package also provides a long overdue 
increase in funding for the Federal Defender Services, which gives 
access to justice to those who cannot afford it.
  Importantly, the bill restores funding, with meaningful safeguards, 
for humanitarian and democracy building programs at the Department of 
State, programs that were illegally shut down earlier this year by the 
Trump administration.
  This bill ensures that the U.S. will continue to provide economic and 
humanitarian assistance. Specifically, it will support women and 
women's health in developing countries and will combat HIV and AIDS 
worldwide.
  These are victories, and they matter. They matter for small business 
owners struggling to secure a loan. They matter for low-income 
neighborhoods that are essentially red-lined by big banks and that rely 
upon Community Development Financial Institutions. These victories 
matter for women and girls around the globe seeking safety, education, 
and healthcare.
  The restoration of State Department funding matters for all of us who 
still believe in the promise of American leadership in advancing a safe 
and prosperous global community.
  Ultimately, we cannot afford to let funding lapse for those agencies, 
and given that we are 4 months into the current fiscal year, I commend 
our appropriators for crafting these bipartisan bills to address fiscal 
year 2026 so that we can immediately start working on appropriations 
for next year, fiscal year 2027.
  However, Mr. Speaker, commendable as this package is and as much as I 
respect the work of our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, I 
also believe this package reveals the limits of what we can achieve to 
meet the needs of the American people under Republican control.
  Let's be clear: This bill isn't some compromise where both sides get 
a little of what they want. It is the most Democrats could get from a 
Republican Party that continues to knuckle under to the whims of the 
Trump administration and turn a blind eye to its worst abuses. That is 
why our Republican colleagues have rejected multiple provisions to rein 
in the unconstitutional power grabs by this President and his 
administration.
  Republicans control the Senate, the House, and the White House. Under 
unified Republican control, we have seen the Federal Government used 
not to help the American people but to punish the President's enemies 
and to enrich and protect the rich and well-connected at the expense of 
the American people.
  We have seen it when the Republican trifecta passed a partisan bill 
that gave huge tax cuts to big business and billionaires but refused to 
extend the ACA tax credits that helped millions of Americans afford 
their health coverage.
  In their main legislative accomplishment so far, Trump and 
congressional Republicans blew a massive hole in the deficit with their 
tax cuts for the rich and then tried to pay for it with cuts to 
Medicaid, SNAP, and public health programs that Americans rely upon.
  We are seeing it play out after a masked Federal agent shot and 
killed Renee Good, an American citizen in Minnesota. In the wake of 
that killing, we learned that Department of Justice leadership blocked 
the decades-long practice of initiating an investigation of an officer-
involved shooting by the Office of Civil Rights. Having blocked that 
investigation, they instead opened a politically motivated criminal 
investigation of Ms. Good's widow as it tries to brand protected speech 
by Americans as domestic terrorism.
  The failure to investigate the lawfulness of the officer's use of 
force and the weaponization of the investigation to attack the widow 
are so beyond the pale that it has sparked a mass resignation by career 
prosecutors at the Department of Justice.

[[Page H730]]

  It goes on. Last weekend, the Trump White House launched a criminal 
investigation against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, not because 
he broke the law, but apparently because he refused to surrender the 
independence of the Fed and submit to the President's demand that he 
lower interest rates. This is an unprecedented attack on the 
independence of the Federal Reserve, an institution that is critical to 
the stability of our economy because it is above partisan politics. 
Yet, under Republican rule, the independence of the Fed and other 
nonpartisan agencies is being destroyed before our eyes because this 
President cannot tolerate dissent, and his party will not restrain him.
  Just last week, the administration blocked $10 billion in social 
services funding to States with Democratic leadership. Yesterday, 
President Trump went even further, announcing his intent to withhold 
Federal funds from any State that does not embrace his toxic 
immigration priorities. This is extortion, plain and simple, directed 
against the American people he was elected to serve, and the House 
Republican majority is letting him get away with it.
  Of course, we cannot forget the continued coverup of the Epstein 
files. The Department of Justice was mandated by law to release the 
Epstein files last month, last year now, but the vast majority of the 
files are still being kept secret, leading us to ask again: Whom is 
Trump trying to protect, and why is it the Republicans refuse to hold 
him responsible for this blatant coverup? What possible justification 
could there be for this secrecy, except to protect the wealthy and 
powerful men implicated in those documents.
  A suggestion of the answers have come from an unlikely source. 
According to former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the 
President yelled at her in a phone call that he didn't want to release 
the Epstein files because ``my friends will get hurt.''

                              {time}  1230

  The list goes on and on, and the Republican agenda is clear. They 
abuse the powers of the Federal Government to protect the elite and 
punish the vulnerable.
  While I will support the appropriations minibus this week, I call on 
my Republican colleagues in the House and the Senate to take seriously 
their obligations to this institution under Article I of the 
Constitution. We cannot sit by and watch as the executive branch grabs 
more and more power at the expense of Congress and at the expense of 
the Constitution.
  Congress' power of the purse is not just a budgetary tool. It is one 
of the last real checks we have on a President who believes that he is 
above the law and only constrained by his own morality.
  I know my Democratic colleagues fought for everything they could in 
this bill under deeply constrained circumstances, so the failures in 
this bill are a reflection of the Republican majority, which continues 
to look the other way as the President dismantles our Federal 
institutions and subverts our democracy.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here to debate this appropriations package, not 
every other issue under the Sun. I urge my colleagues not to lose sight 
of the legislative package at hand: We have a bipartisan, bicameral 
appropriations package free of poison pill riders that bring us closer 
to fulfilling our Article I responsibilities.
  My colleague says Republicans are in control, but the very bills we 
have passed and are passing are bipartisan. We are working across the 
aisle, which we should do. Our friends can't have it both ways. They 
can't say we are in control, therefore, everything is our fault, and 
say at the same time that these are good bills built upon bipartisan 
support.
  There will no doubt be time to debate other matters, but today the 
matter at hand is an appropriations package containing the Financial 
Services and General Government bill and the National Security, 
Department of State, and Related Programs bill.
  Might I add that national security is the number one issue in our 
Federal Government. We need to stay focused and complete the task at 
hand.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, just to be clear, I didn't say these were 
good bills. I said they were the best bills we could get under the 
circumstances, and certainly we would craft very different bills.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Khanna).
  Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, no one in America is safe from ICE today. 
Joe Rogan said that ICE agents are acting as ``villains,'' stripping 
away freedoms from Americans. This agency has gone rogue. It is 
lawless, and it needs to be reined in.
  The ICE agents who pepper sprayed an elderly couple in Minnesota need 
to be arrested and prosecuted. The ICE agents who dragged out a 
disabled woman from her car who was going to a doctor's appointment 
need to be arrested and prosecuted. The ICE agent who shot and killed 
Renee Good needs to be arrested and prosecuted.
  When you have people in the MAGA base, when you have people like Joe 
Rogan talking about the lawlessness of a private police force--ICE 
acting as the President's private police force--then we know we have a 
crisis of freedom in this country. It is time to rein in this lawless 
agency.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Again, we should be focused on the issue at hand. Mr. Speaker, we 
never celebrate the loss of life on our side. We don't celebrate the 
loss of life in the recent shooting, but we cannot absolve people of 
the actions they are taking to disrupt ICE's operations.
  We certainly shouldn't be looking at ICE agents, condemning ICE 
agents who are showing up to do their jobs. Democrats have been 
questioning the authority and jurisdiction of ICE's actions in 
Minnesota.
  Let's shed some light on what ICE has been doing. They arrested a 
criminal illegal alien from Somalia with a record of multiple counts of 
credit card fraud, drug possession, controlled substance possession, 
and drug trafficking. This criminal was issued a final order of removal 
in 2022.
  ICE also arrested a criminal illegal alien from Laos with three prior 
convictions for selling drugs as well as convictions for assault and 
contributing to a minor's delinquency. This criminal was issued a final 
order of removal in 2009, Mr. Speaker.
  A criminal illegal alien from Mexico previously arrested for child 
cruelty and battery was also picked up by ICE. This criminal was issued 
a final order of removal in 2009.
  In addition, there was a criminal illegal alien from Mexico 
previously arrested for cruelty toward a child, and a criminal illegal 
alien from Somalia previously arrested for dangerous drugs and 
possession of narcotics.
  We are talking about dangerous people, Mr. Speaker. The list goes on 
and on. Let's be clear, ICE is targeting criminal rings, and the Trump 
Administration isn't ignoring fraud as Governor Walz had done for 
years. They are targeting that criminal ring for immigration 
violations, just as they have done elsewhere.
  Not long ago, ICE agents arrested more than 150 illegal alien sex 
offenders during a major enforcement surge across the State of Florida. 
ICE is focusing on rings of criminality, and they will pursue them 
wherever they might be, political correctness be damned. Americans are 
better off under this approach.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, nobody is questioning that the Federal Government has 
the duty and authority to arrest and detain and deport these so-called 
worst of the worst, rapists, drug dealers, people who have been 
convicted, but that is not what is happening across the country. That 
is not what ICE is doing.

  Eighty percent of the people that they have picked up and that they 
are detaining have no criminal record. What we are seeing in Minnesota, 
this door-to-door, stopping people in parking lots, and asking if they 
are citizens, that is not targeted enforcement. That is putting masked 
and armed agents on the streets and causing chaos, as we have 
repeatedly seen.

[[Page H731]]

  The Rules chairwoman mentioned one of the people who has been picked 
up is absolutely someone who probably deserves to be picked up. 
However, they have had over 2,000 ICE agents in Minneapolis for about 6 
weeks, and they have arrested about 20 people who fit that profile.
  In addition, of course, they have killed Renee Good. They have 
arrested American citizens. They have tackled kids outside their high 
school. They have tackled teenagers working at Target. They have 
terrorized an entire community. That does appear to be part of the 
point here is to create propaganda and videos to scare Americans to 
project this military power in our streets, which, for any student of 
American history, that is why we left the U.K.
  I think that the objection here is to the lawfulness of what has been 
happening in Minnesota, in Chicago, in L.A., across the country, and 
the need to really change how things are being done there.
  If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the 
rule to make in order Mr. Hoyer's amendment to the FSGG appropriations 
bill, which restricts obligating any remaining unobligated balances for 
the new FBI consolidated headquarters facility until GSA, in 
consultation with the FBI, submits the contracted and completed 
architectural and engineering plan for review.

                              {time}  1240

  Mr. Speaker, our colleague, Mr. Hoyer, has served with honor for over 
four decades and has ushered countless pieces of bipartisan legislation 
through this House.
  Now, in this case, all he is asking for is a vote, that the Members 
of this body vote on an amendment to make sure that before an extremely 
consequential and expensive decision is made with respect to the 
location of the FBI headquarters, we receive the architectural and 
engineering plan that the General Services Administration is supposed 
to complete. That seems like the least we could do.
  Regardless of one's position on Mr. Hoyer's amendment, it deserves a 
vote on the House floor.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my 
amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material, 
immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Pennsylvania?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 5 minutes 
to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the sponsor of the 
amendment.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments and 
for her support of my amendment. I regret that my amendment was 
rejected by the Rules Committee, but that is not uncommon. An 
overwhelming majority of Democratic amendments are rejected, 
irrespective of merit.
  Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that this amendment comports with the 
debate that I heard in the Rules Committee yesterday. The substance of 
that debate was that we need oversight. We need to make sure that we 
know what we are doing. We need to make sure that what the 
administration or any administration is asking for comports with the 
policies of the Congress of the United States.
  If we defeat the previous question, we will offer an amendment to the 
rule that allows the House to simply consider my amendment concerning 
the FBI headquarters.
  I will speak more on that matter later, but I am deeply concerned 
that moving the FBI to the Reagan Building, as this administration 
plans to do, would greatly undermine the FBI's security.
  This is a picture of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma. In 1995, a guy 
named McVeigh drove a step van up to the street of the Murrah Building 
and blew it up, killing 168 people and injuring over 800 people. That 
is a major artery in front of the Murrah Building.
  The Reagan Building was designed as an open and public-private 
building with public access, public accommodations, and the public 
coming into the building for eating. It has a big cafeteria. It has a 
big parking lot that the public uses and is used by city hall, which is 
located right in the middle--or not in the middle, but surrounded by 
the Reagan Building.
  The amendment that I have simply says: Let's not spend any money on 
moving the FBI to this building, which the Murrah Building makes very 
clear, and is why the FBI Director came to me in 2009 to have this 
facility, the FBI building, moved to a place where you can have 
security.
  We have some number of security organizations. They are all located 
either in the suburbs or at Boeing Air Force base. Boeing Air Force 
base is a secured piece of much acreage, so they are not subject to 
that risk.
  All of these agencies, including the CIA at Langley and other 
agencies, four of which are in Virginia, are so that those agencies can 
be as secure as we can possibly make them, so that we will not lose 
people, FBI agents, CIA agents, NSA agents, or whoever, and that we 
will have those facilities in a secure place. All this amendment says 
is: Show us the plan to keep our people secure.
  The gentlewoman, my friend from North Carolina, said, and I believe 
she is accurate, that we are all concerned about the lives of people, 
be they government employees or not. This amendment says: Present us 
the information, GSA and FBI, that shows us that, in fact, you can make 
the Reagan Building safe for a security agency.
  If the motion is defeated for the previous question, we will offer 
that simple amendment and give everybody in this Congress the ability 
to stand up and say, yes, we want to know information before we make 
this critical decision.
  It is not partisan. It is not ideological. It is simply doing what 
the Congress is responsible to do, and that is have oversight and make 
judgments based upon the best information they can receive.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. In closing, let me emphasize that this is consistent with 
what all of us say and was said in the committee yesterday. Mrs. 
Houchin said it particularly well, and others on the committee, when 
saying that they want the information necessary to make solid 
decisions. If we adopt my amendment, that will accomplish that 
objective.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against the previous 
question and for the Hoyer amendment.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the Rules Committee, Republicans rejected 
over 70 amendments submitted by Members of both parties. This included 
a handful of amendments that I have submitted, which if adopted, I 
obviously think would have improved the bill.
  I will highlight those amendments in light of the reporting about the 
chaos at the Department of Justice after its leadership quashed a 
transparent investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an 
ICE agent and instead insisted on opening a criminal investigation into 
her widow. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump officials and 
conservative commentators have tried to brand Renee Good as a domestic 
terrorist in gross contradiction to known facts, but that is not the 
key issue here.

  Putting aside the refusal to investigate the lawfulness of the 
agent's use of deadly force under those circumstances, and the heinous 
implication that Renee Good somehow deserved to die because she 
objected to the presence of armed and masked Federal agents in her 
neighborhood and that she was disrespectful, the President's 
characterization, this investigation, and these comments from Secretary 
Noem, are the direct result of an underreported and underappreciated 
effort by the Trump administration to criminalize constitutionally 
protected speech.
  Earlier this year, President Trump issued a sweeping memo, directing 
Federal agencies to target Americans with criminal and civil 
investigations on the explicit basis of constitutionally protected 
speech.
  The memo literally defines specific categories of political opinions 
and beliefs that law enforcement must now

[[Page H732]]

treat as instances of domestic terrorism.
  Following this directive, the Department of Justice then changed its 
policies to direct Federal law enforcement agents to target Americans 
with criminal investigations for expressing these sanctioned political 
views or for participating in protests against the Trump 
administration.
  This is the kind of political oppression you would expect to see from 
authoritarian states like Russia or China, but no, it is here. It is 
happening at home.
  Our Republican colleagues, who are often so quick to complain about 
censorship or the weaponization of the Federal Government, have 
remained silent while President Trump has turned the Department of 
Justice into a tool of political suppression.
  Last night, I proposed an amendment to prohibit the use of any 
Federal taxpayer dollars to investigate or prosecute Americans on the 
basis of their lawful and constitutionally protected speech.

                              {time}  1250

  Mr. Speaker, every single Republican on the Rules Committee voted 
against my amendment, blocking it from coming to the House floor so our 
entire body could vote on it.
  The First Amendment protects everyone's speech. There are no carve-
outs for those we disagree with. Apparently, as we saw in last night's 
vote, House Republicans do not agree with that fundamental American 
value.
  While Rules Republicans voted down my amendment to protect Americans' 
right to free speech, they did make in order a questionable amendment 
from our Rules colleague, Representative Roy, that would defund the 
D.C. Federal courts and specifically withdraw the salaries for the 
staff of two Federal judges.
  These two judges have been targeted by President Trump and 
congressional Republicans because they have done their job. They have 
not bent to the President's will. They have interpreted the law as 
written. Therefore, House Republicans are taking the extreme position 
of zeroing out the salaries of their staff. It is a cruel and un-
American attack on the judiciary that completely subverts our 
constitutional order.
  Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, underneath this debate about the appropriations minibus 
is the difficult reality that House Republicans have abdicated their 
responsibilities to this Chamber, to the Congress, and to the 
Constitution. We are not just debating a budget bill. We are debating 
whether Congress will continue to function not just as a coequal branch 
of government but as the Article I source of the laws that run our 
country.
  Under Republican leadership, we have seen Congress turned into a 
rubber stamp. Republicans have surrendered to the whims of a President 
who sees laws as optional and power as personal.
  These two appropriations bills, while necessary for the continued 
operation of essential government functions, are the limit of how far 
the Republican Party is willing to go in defying the President.
  Unfortunately, Republicans are more interested in protecting power 
than in responsibly governing for the benefit of the American people. 
Our job isn't to protect the President. Our job is to fund the 
government responsibly and to serve as a check on executive overreach.
  As masked agents roam our streets, terrorizing our communities, as 
Trump entertains starting another forever war, and as the Epstein files 
remain covered up, now is the time for Congress to stand up for the 
American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous 
question and rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, this majority continues to roll up its sleeves and 
advance the core priorities of the American people and President Trump. 
We are absolutely exercising our Article I responsibilities by passing 
appropriations bills.
  With our unifying vision and some elbow grease, we are making 
significant headway that benefits the American people and our entire 
Nation. The legislative package contained under this rule is yet 
another commitment that we are seeing through to completion. Its 
provisions and intent confirm this through and through.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous 
question, ``yes'' on the rule, and ``yes'' on the underlying bill.
  The material previously referred to by Ms. Scanlon is as follows:

   An Amendment to H. Res. 992 Offered by Ms. Scanlon of Pennsylvania

       At the end of the resolution, add the following:
       Sec. 3. Notwithstanding any other provision of this 
     resolution, the amendment specified in section 4 shall be in 
     order as though printed as the last amendment of the report 
     of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution if 
     offered by Representative Hoyer of Maryland or a designee. 
     That amendment shall be debatable for 10 minutes equally 
     divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent.
       Sec. 4. The amendment referred to in section 3 is as 
     follows:
       At the end of division A (before the short title), insert 
     the following:
       Sec. __ Any remaining unobligated balances from amounts 
     originally made available under the heading ``General 
     Services Administration'' in the Financial Services and 
     General Government Appropriations Act, 2016 (title V of 
     division E of Public Law 114-113), the Financial Services and 
     General Government Appropriations Act, 2017 (title V of 
     division E of Public Law 115-31), the Financial Services and 
     General Government Appropriations Act, 2023 (title V of 
     division E of Public Law 117-328), or the Financial Services 
     and General Government Appropriations Act, 2024 (title V of 
     division B of Public Law 118-47) for the new Federal Bureau 
     of Investigation consolidated headquarters facility in the 
     National Capital Region that were subsequently transferred 
     pursuant to a notification received by the Committees on 
     Appropriations from the Acting Administrator of the General 
     Services Administrator on September 19, 2025, may not be 
     further obligated until the General Services Administration, 
     in consultation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
     submits to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of 
     Representatives and the Senate the contracted and completed 
     architectural and engineering plan for the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation's new headquarters building for review. Any 
     classified portion of the architectural and engineering plan 
     shall be submitted through a classified annex.

  Ms. FOXX. 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.
  Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question are postponed.

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