[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2] [House] [Pages 1677-1686] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3442, DEBT MANAGEMENT AND FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT OF 2015, AND PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3293, SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST ACT Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, by the direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 609 and ask for its immediate consideration. The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 609 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. 3442) to provide further means of accountability of the United States debt and promote fiscal responsibility. 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 Ways and Means. 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. No amendment to the bill shall be in order except those printed in part A of 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 with or without instructions. Sec. 2. 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. 3293) to provide for greater accountability in Federal funding for scientific research, to promote the progress of science in the United States that serves that national interest. 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 Science, Space, and Technology. 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. No amendment to the bill shall be in order except those printed in part B of [[Page 1678]] 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 with or without instructions. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) is recognized for 1 hour. Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), 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 Mr. SESSIONS. 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 gentleman from Texas? There was no objection. Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of a rule and the underlying bills, both of which will enhance accountability and create better processes for our Federal Government. Necessary legislation is what we are talking about today. Legislation that will help the Federal Government not only in its processes, but that will allow the American people to have confidence in what their government does not only on their behalf, but for a better future for the American citizens, including our children and grandchildren. We are here today because these are important issues, and we are addressing them. That is what Speaker Ryan wants this body to be doing. Speaker Ryan wants us to bring our best ideas to the floor, to make sure the American people understand what they are, to fully debate them, and to have all the open processes that are necessary to make sure that we are bringing to the American people the best ideas of their elected representatives. That is why we are here today. I also want to point out that the Rules Committee, of which I am chairman, asked Members to submit their ideas and amendments regarding these bills, and 14 amendments were made in order. That means that the Rules Committee met, we looked, and we had discussions with Members about the ideas that they have. Fourteen were made in order last night by the Rules Committee, and I am proud of that. As a result, our resolution provides that H.R. 3442, the Debt Management and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2015, which was altered and supported by the gentleman from Coppell, Texas, Congressman Kenny Marchant, and H.R. 3293, the Scientific Research in the National Interest Act, which was brought to the committee by the young chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Lamar Smith from San Antonio, Texas, will both be considered today under a structured rule. Mr. Speaker, I would normally run through my opening dialogue that I would have about what is in these bills, why they are important, and what they would do. But because of time considerations today, one of our newest Members of Congress wants to speak. He has got a meeting in a few minutes. I would like to ask him if he would at this time take part in my opening statement. I yield to the gentleman from Windsor, Colorado (Mr. Buck). {time} 1315 Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, for years, our Nation has limped along from debt crisis to debt crisis. Every time, we say to ourselves ``just a little more spending today, and we will fix this mess tomorrow,'' but tomorrow never seems to come, and the ocean of red ink gets deeper and deeper with each passing day. Thanks to this ``spend now'' and ``save never'' mentality, the national debt has soared to $19 trillion, and there is no end in sight. The Federal Government has been overspending for so long that we are financially bankrupt. If we continue to pass this debt on to our children and grandchildren, we are also morally bankrupt. We need a solution to our constant budget busting. H.R. 3442 will help our Nation address this fiscal crisis. By requiring the administration to testify before Congress, we are requiring them to bring realistic, serious solutions to the table. We are calling on them to offer a plan for actually reducing our debt, and--this is key--we are requiring these solutions before we reach the point of no return. What we have wrought in debt and deficit isn't merely a fiscal challenge or an economic problem--it is poisonous to our human potential. It is time for the Federal Government to start making the same tough choices that small businesses and folks in Colorado are making every day, and this bill is a good start. Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The original intent also of a piece of legislation that we have goes back to 1950. The legislation that created the National Science Foundation was there at the time to support science that was in the national interest. Unfortunately, the NSF has funded too many wasteful projects under the ideas that have been presented to us by the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, the purposes of which were probably nebulous at best, which would be the argument that Chairman Lamar Smith made with us, and which were, clearly, not necessarily in the national interest. We heard testimony that every single project that the National Science Foundation handled was in the American people's best interest. We think that our discussion with Members of Congress today will show them that we need to change the wording to where the national interest is obligatory to a proposal before a proposal is given. You have to prove it is in the Nation's best interest to spend money. Examples of such projects include $700,000 to create a climate change-themed musical, $38,000 to study prehistoric rabbit hunting on the Iberian Peninsula, and--perhaps my favorite of all--$605,000 to study why people around the world cheat on their taxes. Mr. Speaker, this is hard-earned money that was spent that I do not believe was in the national interest. ``In the interest of the Nation'' means that it needs to be prioritized and that it needs to be something that would produce an outcome that would, from the National Science Foundation, benefit the American people. H.R. 3293 directly benefits the American people by promoting greater accountability--a mission statement, so to speak--in funding scientific research, not only at the NSF, but that also ensures that the research conducted is always in the national interest. This is, I believe, a commonsense, bipartisan answer. Certainly, Lamar Smith, as the chairman of the committee, brought forth the ideas on a bipartisan basis to ensure that what we would do is not get in the way of any projects that are currently out there. Instead, anything that is in the future would have to subscribe to the conditions of the national interest. Reckless and mandatory spending has placed our national finances and our economy--including our jobs, our infrastructure, and our future--in peril. Today, the total debt is subject to the limit, which includes Treasury securities held by Federal trust funds and other accounts, which stand at over $19 trillion. Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the 2016 deficit will be $544 billion. You can see that we are not just at $19 trillion but that we are adding to that. Mr. Speaker, you know and I know, in just a matter of weeks, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Tom Price), the chairman of the Budget Committee, will be bringing forth to this floor bills that address what our year is [[Page 1679]] going to look like in 2017. The President of the United States has a chance to do this. Every year, the President submits his budget. It is $1 trillion more a year in spending. It is more government. It is more spending. It adds more things to our debt. Republicans, since 2011-- since we have been in the majority--have tried to submit budgets that have held us in place; but by holding us in place, which is the best we can do, it does not mean that we were addressing creating a surplus, which would be required not to add to that debt. So where we are is back to the American people again with an opportunity for them to understand our processes--a budget, an opportunity to get to where we do not add to the debt. Yet what we are here to do today is not the budget but to address what we do under a circumstance when we have a debt limit by which we have met the constitutional constraints, the legal constraints, and what we are going to do in moving forward. We are taking a bill that comes directly from Kenny Marchant, who is a member of our Ways and Means Committee, who has spent a number of years in thinking through how we can put a spotlight--how we can put the light of day--on this issue to the point at which we can talk about it, understand more about it, and do something about it. That is also the second bill: the National Science Foundation, what is in the national interest, and, clearly, looking at the debt. If we are going to have a debt limit increase, how do we as Members of Congress, under our constitutional powers, understand not just the issue but also the obligation that we have when we take votes so that we know what is at risk, what the plan would be, and, perhaps more importantly, how we can work together with the administration-- Republicans and Democrats--to make sure we get a better answer. Now, there is one last point that needs to be made, and I think it was made yesterday in the committee, not just by the gentleman Tom Cole, not just by Virginia Foxx from North Carolina, and not just by me, which is that we don't know who the President is going to be next year. We don't know who the Secretary of the Treasury is going to be next year. The gentleman, the author of the bill, thinks that that is a prime reason his legislation should be a bipartisan, commonsense piece of legislation so that we are saying whoever it is has the authority and the responsibility to come to Congress and give us the insight. Let's work together so that we avoid debt, so that we avoid making a mistake, and, mostly, so that we are on the same page together. That is why we are here today, Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), my good friend and distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. I rise in strong opposition to this rule, which provides for the consideration of H.R. 3293, a bill to hamstring the National Science Foundation and its gold standard review process; and I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3442, a misnamed debt management bill that provides Congress with no new information about the debt limit and that does nothing to actually prevent default. Despite a promise from Speaker Ryan and House Republican leadership for an open and deliberative process, this rule makes in order only 14 of the 47 amendments that were submitted on both pieces of legislation to our committee--only six amendments for the Science, Space, and Technology Committee's bill and eight for the debt limit bill. Democrats on the Rules Committee offered an open rule so that both Democratic and Republican Members could have an opportunity to make their views known on this bill, but as has become the custom, the Democrats voted for an open process, and every single Republican voted against an open process. Members should have the opportunity to offer their ideas on the House floor, and we should be having a robust debate on these issues. Here is a crazy idea, Mr. Speaker: Maybe, if we actually opened up the process and allowed for a full debate, we could actually pass bipartisan legislation that would move through the legislative process and then go on to the President's desk where he would then sign it into law. Yet, for the most part, my friends on the other side of the aisle don't seem interested in working with Democrats to advance common goals that will actually help the American people, and the legislation before us today is no exception. H.R. 3442 requires the Secretary of the Treasury to appear before Congress and submit a report on the administration's debt reduction proposals. I have got some good news for my friends. The Treasury Secretary already regularly meets with Congress to discuss the debt limit, and the President offers proposals to address the debt and the deficit in his annual budgets. I would say to my colleagues on the Republican side that it is okay--you can ask questions. That is what hearings are for. You can ask questions about the debt and deficit reduction. In fact, just yesterday, President Obama sent his fiscal year 2017 budget request to Congress, which included over $2.9 trillion in deficit reduction over the coming decade--this on top of the $4 trillion to $5 trillion in deficit reduction already achieved since 2010. If my friends are interested in hearing about these proposals to reduce our deficit, perhaps they should reconsider their unprecedented and insulting decision to exclude the OMB from testifying on the administration's budget proposal. Such a contemptuous attitude demeans Congress and the American people. In addition to its annual budget, the administration also provides the information requested by H.R. 3442 in the form of the Mid-Session Review, of the Daily Treasury Statement, of the Monthly Treasury Statement, of the Monthly Statement of the Public Debt, of the Schedules of Federal Debt, and of the Financial Report of the United States Government. The Treasury manages our debt, but it is Congress that holds the power of the purse. It is our responsibility to raise the debt limit when it is reached, and I would point out that it is the legislative decisions made by Congress that determine the level of debt. I say to my Republican friends, if you don't want to deal with the issue of raising the debt limit, then don't accumulate all of these bills. The debt limit debate is about making sure we live up to our financial obligations, the obligations that this Chamber agreed to. Last night in the Rules Committee, we had a debate about deficit reduction and how to deal with the debt. Members on both sides of the aisle offered suggestions on ways to reduce our deficit, and that is an important discussion we should be having because it is a big issue. Yet this bill is not about deficit reduction; it is not about trying to get our debt under control; and it is not a serious attempt to help us avoid future default. The Republican majority has threatened default on at least three separate occasions: in 2011, when default was narrowly avoided with the Budget Control Act; in 2013, when Republican extremism led to a government shutdown, costing our fragile economy $24 billion and 120,000 private sector jobs; and this past fall, when Democrats helped to pass the bipartisan budget agreement despite opposition from two-thirds of the Republicans in this Congress. I would like to point out what is missing in this bill that we are going to be talking about later on this week. The report required by this legislation would exclude the most important information Congress needs when the debt limit is reached, which is an analysis of the catastrophic consequences of default. If this were a serious attempt to address our debt, I would think that the majority would want to know which bills the Treasury would need to stop paying if Congress failed to raise the debt limit. Would veterans stop receiving their benefits? Would Medicare providers stop being reimbursed? Would students stop receiving Pell grants? The chairman of the Rules [[Page 1680]] Committee said in his opening statement that the American people want us to do something. I agree. {time} 1330 This is not doing something. This is trying to point the finger somewhere else so that we can avoid responsibility for doing our job. If we were serious about this issue, maybe we ought to think about actually passing legislation that would help reduce our deficit and pay down our debt. Maybe we ought to be talking about comprehensive immigration reform. CBO says that we would save hundreds of billions of dollars for our National Treasury if we actually did that, did something positive to resolve our immigration crisis and, in doing so, we would save all this money that could go to reducing our deficit. Maybe one of the things we ought to be talking about here is actually not passing tax breaks for wealthy people that we don't pay for because that adds to the bills that we accumulate here in Congress. If you want to give Donald Trump another tax cut, pay for it. That is all. Maybe we ought to talk about dealing with the issue of these war costs. I mean, we can't even come together and actually debate and vote on an AUMF as these new wars are popping up all over the world. By the way, if we did, maybe we could talk about the cost, which, by the way, a big chunk of these war costs aren't even paid for. They are put on our credit card. I mean, the only people sacrificing in these wars are the men and women who we put in harm's way and their families. The rest of us do nothing. We don't even ask the American people to pay for it. Well, here is an idea: if people don't want to pay for these wars, maybe we ought not to go. Just putting them on our credit card should not be an answer. Those are the kinds of things we should be talking about here today if we were serious about getting our budget under control. Simply put, Mr. Speaker, this legislation is duplicative, unnecessary, and a waste of time. It does nothing to prevent future Republican threats of default, and I strongly oppose this effort. This week, also, Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are bringing to the floor H.R. 3293, another antiscience piece of legislation. Now, some might call this a thinly veiled attempt by the majority to dictate what the National Science Foundation spends their funding on, but there really isn't even a thin veil trying to cover up what this is. This is a blatant attempt to coerce the NSF into only funding projects that fit into the Republican political messaging agenda. The NSF receives upwards of 50,000 proposals a year. Out of all these proposals, only about 20 percent end up receiving funding. The NSF puts the applications through a rigorous process of peer review in order to determine which proposals they will fund. I would like to emphasize the fact that this is a peer review, not a congressional review. It is a peer review. Congress does not review these applications because the vast majority of us are not scientists. I am not a scientist. I don't think many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are scientists. The NSF review process is also designed to be confidential in order to protect against any internal or external bias. Injecting congressional interference and disruption into a well-functioning process will have a drastically negative effect. Now, it should come as no surprise that a big part of the Republican majority's argument is that the NSF is focusing too much of its funding on projects studying climate change. I tried to figure out what the hook was, and I found that that is it. I have said this here before, and I will keep saying it until we stop debating these ridiculous bills. We know that climate change is real. We see it. We live it. The scientific community overwhelmingly has verified it. Climate change is not a theory. It is not a hoax. It is not some silly fantasy. The NSF should be funding research that is directed toward understanding and mitigating the effects of climate change. The majority on the Science Committee has been on a crusade to inject itself into NSF's independent grant review process. The committee has demanded an explanation on how roughly 40 studies could possibly serve our national interests. Now, we have seen time and time again that basic research leads to positive, life-changing outcomes never imagined by researchers. Congress certainly does not have the experience or the knowledge to predetermine the future value of a research project. Just because the title of a project doesn't sound particularly overwhelmingly impressive doesn't mean it isn't, and we have a gazillion examples of that in the research that has been done in the NSF. It is best to leave the scientific review process in the hands of our world-class scientists who resoundingly oppose efforts to interfere with NSF's rigorous review process. I join them in strong opposition to this bill. Now, once again, Mr. Speaker, we are on the floor debating two bills that are going nowhere. Each bill has received a veto threat from the White House because this is not serious legislation. Mr. Speaker, this is just more political fodder for the right wing of the Republican Party, sound bites for my friends on the other side of the aisle to use while on the campaign trail to attempt to sound like they are dealing with issues in a serious manner when, in fact, they are not. It doesn't matter what year it is. The American people elected us to solve problems, not pad Republicans' political talking points. I ask my colleagues to oppose this restrictive rule and the two partisan pieces of legislation. I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. SESSIONS. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Rules Committee made in order more amendments than Senator Harry Reid did as majority leader over 2 years--in just 1 day. In just 1 day, more amendments were made in order in the United States House of Representatives. So I get it. I do. I think I would be on the defensive, also, if I were my colleagues, my friends that are Democrats, because what they are doing to this country doesn't work, and they are defensive about it. So they view anything that Republicans do, even on a bipartisan basis but doesn't fit their narrative as, ``this is political.'' Well, balancing the budget is in the best interest of the American people. Presenting realistic budgets--not a trillion dollars more in spending and bigger government--is exactly the kind of policies that Republicans do believe. By the way, if they were really serious about trying to fix this global warming, they would look in their own backyard with home heating fuel, which is diesel fuel, which they are putting all through the Northeast to heat their homes. That is a huge contributor to global warming, as opposed to clean, natural gas. They can make their own decisions. But I would say back to them: I think you ought to measure three times and have seen once, not just go accusing other people of things. Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the Rules Committee, we had the gentleman from Coppell, Texas, Kenny Marchant, a great member of our Ways and Means Committee, come and testify about this bill, about how we look at raising the debt limit. He spoke very passionately, and there was a lot of common sense involved about how do we look at this issue and how do we solve it. I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Marchant). Mr. MARCHANT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding to me and his support on this issue. Also, I thank him for allowing the Rules Committee to spend over an hour on this issue yesterday to hear both sides of this issue as far as the debt ceiling goes. Mr. Speaker, I can't go to a townhall meeting or even go to a gathering of just a few people without the subject of the debt ceiling coming up. My constituents on a regular basis, through emails, phone calls, and letters, ask me the questions: What is Congress doing [[Page 1681]] about addressing the debt ceiling? Why do you lurch from year to year to year about the debt ceiling? Why don't you ever look at the debt ceiling in a comprehensive manner? The debt is too high. When I introduced this bill in September, the debt had reached $18.1 trillion. Today, it is over $19 trillion. If the current law remains unchanged, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that the Federal debt held by the public will exceed 100 percent of our GDP in 25 years, and this is unsustainable. The window to get a handle on the Nation's debt is closing very quickly. We need to enact solutions to retire the debt before it is too late. That is what the Debt Management and Fiscal Responsibility Act is all about. This bill creates a new debt limit framework that places greater attention on finding debt reduction solutions. It does so by injecting transparency, accountability, and timeliness into the debt limit process. The bill would allow Congress and the administration to take comprehensive assessments of the debt and its drivers well before the statutory debt limit is reached. Each year since I have been in Congress, I can pick up the newspaper one day and find that the Secretary of the Treasury announces that we have reached our statutory debt limit and usually proclaims a date. In this case, the statutory debt limit will be reached next March of 2017. At that point, everybody seems to go about their business. There is no particular action taken. In fact, last month after that proclamation was made that we had reached our statutory debt ceiling, 7 months went by without us reaching the debt ceiling. How did that happen? Well, it happened because the Secretary of the Treasury has the ability to implement extraordinary measures. Now, if any committees in the Congress should know what those extraordinary measures that he is using are going to be or are, it is the Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. So this bill very simply lays out a framework where, before the debt ceiling is reached--and the Secretary of Treasury knows that--he has a framework of up to 60 days to come and appear before the Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, which could be a joint meeting, and lay out for us when the debt ceiling will be reached--not after we have reached the debt ceiling, but before we have reached the debt ceiling--what extraordinary measures he will take once we have reached that debt ceiling and when, in fact, he thinks we will actually run out of money. In that report, he will actually then lay out the administration's plan on addressing that debt in the short term, in the midterm, and in the future. So it is a very commonsense plan. It involves one very specific meeting with these two jurisdictional committees with the Secretary of the Treasury. The whole focal point of that meeting will be to talk about the debt ceiling. That does not happen now. We have dozens of reports that are online. We have dozens of discussions besides this, but never statutorily is the Secretary of the Treasury and the two jurisdictional committees required to meet and discuss this. This is the great thing about this bill, the implementation of this bill. Like so many Americans, my constituents have watched with great concern as the debt has skyrocketed. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tipton). The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from Texas. Mr. MARCHANT. If we share these concerns at all--and I know that many of us do--we need to pass the Debt Management and Fiscal Responsibility Act. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the rule. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Maybe I can clear all this up so we don't have to debate this bill. The gentleman asked a question about extraordinary measures that the Secretary of the Treasury could potentially use to deal with the debt ceiling. I would just tell him that they are defined in statute, and we will happily provide him a copy of the statute so that he can understand that. I would go back to what I said in my opening statement that, if we are serious about dealing with our deficit and our debt, then maybe we ought to be thinking in these terms, about actually not accumulating all these bills that get us to the point where we have to raise the debt ceiling. I mean, we in Congress--not the administration, but we in Congress-- accumulate all these bills and all these financial obligations. Once you do that, you have to pay for them. Our constituents, when they accumulate credit card debt, they have got to pay it. They just can't not pay it because they don't want to. So we have to start behaving like adults here and understand that we need to pay our bills. I would suggest to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that one way we might want to save some money and not add it to the deficit or to our debt is to stop giving Donald Trump tax cuts that you don't pay for. {time} 1345 If you want to have tax cuts for wealthy individuals, fine. Pay for them. Don't not pay for them. Stop subsidizing big oil companies in this country. Maybe there was a time when we first started exploring for oil that you could make the case that taxpayers ought to be subsidizing oil companies. Not anymore. Not with global warming and certainly not when they are making zillions of dollars a year in profits. Maybe we could take that money and put it toward deficit reduction. Or maybe we could pay for these wars that everybody seems to want to commit our young men and women to. If you want to go to war, you ought to pay for it, not just put it on a credit card. If you are not prepared to do that, then end these wars. But just putting in danger the lives of our brave men and women and just accumulating all these massive bills that there is no accountability of I think is unconscionable. Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch). Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, I respect the motivation that underlies this bill. We have got a debt in this country that is too large, and we have got to address it, but this is a nonresponse. The job of addressing the debt belongs to Congress. It can't be outsourced. The Secretary of the Treasury has no more authority to address the debt than the Secretary of Agriculture or Education or the Democratic National Committee or the Republican Campaign Committee. This is a job that has to be done, but it is our job to do it. Asking the Secretary of the Treasury to come in and talk about when that date certain will be on default when we set that date when we pass budgets means that we are asking somebody else to do our job and asking somebody who actually doesn't even have the authority to do the job. That belongs to Congress. Every time we vote on either a tax cut or an appropriation bill, it has clear implications for how that will impact on the debt ceiling. It is debatable because there are fluctuations as to when we will hit that date. But it is absolutely certain that, when we appropriate money or we pass tax cuts, in one case spending will go up, and in the other case revenues will go down. What we have done is gone along in a kind of la-la land where we think we can cut taxes, we can raise spending, and then we are astonished when a year or so later there is actually a bill that comes due. This is not the debt management bill. It is not the fiscal responsibility bill. It is the debt mismanagement and fiscal irresponsibility bill. Think about the things that we have done. Mr. McGovern has been talking about it. But we had a war in Iraq, a trillion dollars. Nobody paid for that. We voted to spend a trillion dollars on tax cuts. We can have an argument [[Page 1682]] about tax policy. But you know what, revenues went down. Congress voted to spend $800 billion on the prescription drug program, something that had bipartisan support. Not paid for. And then just a few weeks ago we passed tax extenders that are going to reduce revenues by $2 trillion. Actions have consequences. The consequences are ones that are inevitable and foreseeable as a result of the actions of this Congress. This Congress, instead of assuming its responsibility, tries to outsource it. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute. Mr. WELCH. To someone else, it is a dodge. That is all it is. It is us trying to fool the American people with a game of three-card Monte where we are pretending that the problem that we are decrying had somehow mysteriously evolved out of nowhere. I respect the concern of the authors of this bill about our debt. What I don't respect is the failure of Congress to address it. Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, the reason why we are doing this is because one day 2 years ago the President, through the Treasury, wrote off $339 billion in one day. That is not responsible. It didn't happen in one day. They play games at Treasury. The President of the United States plays games with this issue. Now it sounds like my colleagues are, also. This is an honest attempt to have a dialogue. Regardless of who is going to be President or whoever is going to be Treasury Secretary next year, we want to know what kind of games or what kind of straightforward business they are going to operate. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Butler, Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly), one of the most exciting young Members of this Congress. Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman for referring to me as young and exciting. I am going to phone my wife to let her know that is the case. Mr. Speaker, I come before you today because I am in strong support of H.R. 3442. I think that sometimes we make this a Democratic versus Republican issue. Responsibility is not a political issue. It is a moral issue. Irresponsibility is the problem that we have. I wish we could go away from making political talking points into making solid policy positions that say: okay, fine, if we are going to increase our debt ceiling, tell me why you are going to get there. I come from the private sector. There are many times in my life I have had to go to lenders and tell them I need to borrow money. The first thing they would say is: give me your financials; let me look at the way you are running your company; let me see about what you are doing; then we will make a decision. Then they would come back to me and say: you know what, I am looking at what you are asking for, and you definitely need an injection of capital; but my question is what is your turnaround plan so you are not back here in 6 months or 12 months asking for more money on a failed model. The people's House, the Congress, is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. More importantly, it is made up of Americans. We are looking at a year when the tax revenues are the highest they have ever been-- $3.25 trillion--yet, we continue to spend $3.7 trillion to $3.8 trillion. Now people look at that and their eyes kind of roll back in their head. They say: I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. So you reduce it down to this, which I think is the most effective way of explaining it. Hardworking American couples sit down at the kitchen table. It is kitchen table economics. It is not all this other stuff. It is not all these hieroglyphics. The husband and the wife talk and say: you know what, Honey, we had a great year; I was able to bring home $32,500; what I want you to do is to go out and spend $37,500 or $38,000. They would look at each other and say: wait a minute, you told me you had a great year--and you did--but you want me to spend even more money than you brought in. We constantly tell the American people: you are going to have to tighten your belts; you are going to have to live within your means. And then, because we don't have to, we go out and borrow and raise the debt ceiling. Think about that couple that is increasing their debt load year after year after year--deficit spending--and we are crowing about the fact that you know what, we have cut our deficit spending by half a trillion dollars this year. Aren't we doing well? My question is: so where does that deficit spending go? It goes onto your long-term debt. You are digging the hole so deep that you will never be able to climb out of it, but you are feeling good about it because you were able to satisfy whatever your needs were at that moment. That is not only irresponsible, it is unconscionable. More than that, it is immoral for people to sit in this House as representatives of the American people who have been given the authority to tax, but they have also been given the responsibility to spend that hardworking American taxpayer's dollar. More importantly, once you have authority and once you have responsibility, you have got to be accountable not just to that person in the mirror, but, in my case, the 705,687 people that I represent in western Pennsylvania. Now, they are not all Republicans. They are not all Democrats. They are not all Libertarians. They are not all Independents. But they are all hardworking American taxpayers. Why do we have to reduce this down to a political-talking-points issue instead of talking about what is fundamentally sound economically? You cannot spend your way out of debt. You cannot continue to borrow irresponsibly and say: well, we have the power to do it. So when we ask the Secretary of the Treasury who else would you go to, that is who is responsible for it. I don't care who is sitting in there. I don't care who is in the White House. I care about sound, fundamental fiscal policy that protects this country going forward, not only those that are with us right now, but those that came before us and those that are going to come after us. We are putting ourselves in a position that is totally going to be unrecoverable. Why would we knowingly sit here and think if I can pin the blame on somebody else from the political opposite of me, I will somehow win an election? Is it really that important to win an election and lose the country? Is it really that important to have a political talking point that makes you feel good about what you said so you can go back home to somebody and say: you saw what I did on the floor; right? I would hope that the constituents would say: yes, I did. You just put me deeper in debt. You made it impossible for me to plan for my future. You made it impossible for us to remain one of the strongest countries in the world because debt will eliminate you. I don't care if it is a person. I don't care if it is a business. I don't care if it is a State or a country. We are quickly approaching the point of no return. To sit here and try to make it a political battle instead of survival for the United States of America is totally irresponsible. More importantly, it is immoral. This is not a political battle. This is a fight for the future of our country. This is a fight for sustainability in the greatest country the world has ever known. I do not think that any of us should ever turn our back on our responsibility because it just wasn't politically right. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me just say I have the greatest respect for my colleague from Pennsylvania, but the reason why we oppose this is because it does nothing. Actually, it attempts to pin the blame on the Secretary of the Treasury, but the reality is--and I want to repeat this for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--that Congress' decision on revenue and spending policies ultimately determine the level of [[Page 1683]] debt and when the debt limit is reached. It is our responsibility. What we object to is that, instead of debating concrete issues to reduce our deficit and reduce our debt, we are involved in this kind of debating a nonissue, a bill that does nothing, that will do nothing to reduce our deficit, reduce our debt, and is a complete waste of time. At this point, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly). Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Massachusetts for his leadership. I want to say to my friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly), whom I respect and admire, this isn't like a simple, homespun, sit around the kitchen table and work this out and be responsible in paying our bills. I wish it were. That homespun couple in Pennsylvania or my district in Virginia can't start a war that is unpaid for in Iraq, can't decide to give wealthy people a tax cut that is unpaid for, can't run the U.S. economy into the ground that costs trillions of dollars in additional debt because of policy choices made in this Congress, not by the Secretary of the Treasury. It was Republican Vice President Cheney who actually said in the midst of all of that that debts no longer matter. So we are glad to see the new-found religion here on the floor of the House with our friends on the other side of the aisle, who are now once again concerned about debt, debt they helped accumulate to an obscene degree. I rise, Mr. Speaker, in opposition to not only that bill, but to the Scientific Research in the National Interest Act bill. It comes as no surprise to my constituents in Virginia that the most anti-environmental Congress--the House majority is now attempting to tell the National Science Foundation how they ought to do and award Federal research grants based on what Congress deems worthy. The House majority has been open about its climate denialism and candid about its outright political agenda against scientific fact. The very scientific community that we should trust to understand and forecast the effects of manmade global climate change is substituted in this bill by the United States Congress, a bunch of politicians. This bill is a solution in search of a problem. It threatens the National Science Foundation's gold-standard merit-review process that has resulted in groundbreaking research over the years, including medical, technological, agricultural, and public health advancements. Even worse, how are we to explain the majority's decision to exclude climate change, one of the most pressing global challenges we face, as one of the bill's seven national interest criteria? It is not even in there. I offered an amendment that would have ensured climate change is deemed in the national interest. The Republican majority would not even allow that amendment to come to this floor for debate. The NSF is helping to lead research in global climate change. For example, it was an NSF grant that launched a program in my district at George Mason University that will help television weather forecasters better inform and explain to viewers how climate change will affect us and those communities. {time} 1400 In 2013, Mr. Speaker, I visited a place called Ny-Alesund in Svalbard, Norway. This is the northernmost research installation in the planet in the Arctic Circle and a leading research and monitoring station that serves many of our international partners, including Norway, Italy, Japan, China, and the Netherlands. I saw firsthand on that visit the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice and rapidly retreating glaciers. The research NSF funds there will have environmental and geopolitical benefits to the U.S., and we should be expanding not retracting on those commitments. I ask: How is it that research is not in the national interest? This destructive bill will have a chilling effect on our research community, stifling ambitious research necessary to a 21st century future. Sadly, once again, the Republican majority insists on misinformation and belief over empirical evidence and science. I urge rejection of the bill. Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding, and I appreciate the chairman of the Rules Committee bringing this rule to the floor to allow for consideration of H.R. 3293, the Scientific Research in the National Interest Act. H.R. 3293 requires each National Science Foundation public announcement of a grant award to be accompanied by a nontechnical explanation of the project's scientific merits and how it serves the national interest. This written justification affirms the National Science Foundation's determination that a project is worthy of taxpayer support based on scientific merit and national interest. The bill sets forth that NSF grants should meet at least one of seven criteria that demonstrate a grant is in fact in the national interest. These national interest areas are in the original enabling legislation that established the National Science Foundation and its mission or are part of the National Science Foundation mission today. These criteria are: Increased economic competitiveness in the United States; Advancement of the health and welfare of the American public; Development of an American STEM workforce that is globally competitive; Increased public scientific literacy and public engagement with science and technology in the United States; Increased partnerships between academia and industry in the United States; Support for the national defense of the United States; or, Promotion of the progress of science in the United States. These seven national mission areas encompass the overriding needs of America to which the scientific enterprise can contribute and advance. Under this umbrella, many scientific disciplines and research areas can and do receive support and flourish. The amendments that were not made in order by the Rules Committee would have opened up this NSF national mission statement to include every pet project, earmark, or political point that Members on the other side could think of. In fact, the explicit, line item-directed subjects that Members wanted to add to the list of ``what is in the national interest'' are already covered by one of the seven categories in the bill. We welcome a fair and open debate on the merits of the bill, and several amendments were made in order that allow us to have that debate. These include amendments by the ranking member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, as well as five other Democratic amendments. This rule allows us to have that fair debate, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Every criticism I have heard in the last few minutes about this bill could be addressed if those who oppose the bill just took the time to read the bill. It is only three pages long. You can probably read it in 3 minutes. They would see that their opposition has no foundation whatsoever. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining? The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts has 8 minutes remaining. Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question. If we can defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up a bill that would help prevent mass shootings by promoting research on the causes of gun violence, making it easier to identify and treat those prone to committing these acts. [[Page 1684]] Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous materials, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts? There was no objection. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, again, I oppose both H.R. 3442 and H.R. 3293. Again, on H.R. 3442, if we are serious about deficit and debt reduction, then we ought to be talking about substance and something real, not some sound bite where Members of the House can point to the administration to say it is all their fault. The reality is, it really is the fault of all of us, when you come down to it, because this is the place where spending decisions are made, where tax policy is made. If my colleagues do not want to raise the debt ceiling, then don't accumulate all these bills. It is Congress that does this. When you accumulate all these bills and you have to raise the debt ceiling, it is irresponsible to all of a sudden say that we don't want to do it and then to default on our debt. As I mentioned before, back in 2013, when Republican extremism actually shut the government down, it cost our economy $24 billion and 120,000 jobs. Now, $24 billion may not seem like a lot to my Republican friends, but I assure you that it all starts to add up. Those 120,000 jobs that were lost is all lost revenue coming into the government which would go to paying down our deficit and debt. If you really want to deal with this issue, then let's talk about things like paying for these wars that no one seems to want to pay for. Let's talk about not enacting tax breaks and tax cuts for wealthy individuals and not paying for it. Let's talk about reeling in some of these excessive subsidies to Big Oil and to other big corporate interests in this country. Let's talk about passing comprehensive immigration reform, which, again, the CBO has said would save us hundreds of billions of dollars that we could put toward getting our fiscal house in order. Those are real things. This is just talk for the sake of talk. I guess maybe it is a good press release; but, quite frankly, I think our time would be better spent doing something else. Again, on H.R. 3293, the so-called Scientific Research in the National Interest Act, I take great exception to those who question the integrity of the NSF. The National Science Foundation has integrity, in my opinion, beyond question. The work that they do is extraordinary. The work that they do leads to all kinds of benefits not only for the people in this country, but for the environment and people all over the world. I think the scientists who work there are having their reputations questioned by the introduction of this legislation, never mind us even considering it here today. I think you are diminishing the incredible work that they do. I get it. For some reason, my Republican colleagues can't admit that we have a thing called climate change going on around the world. So any time anybody talks about climate change, you go after whatever department or agency it is. You attack them. You try to cut their funding. You try to question their integrity. Well, I hate to tell my Republican friends that climate change is real. The overwhelming science says it is real. If you don't appreciate that, maybe you ought to go back to school and take a science class. When we talk about the lack of accountability and the lack of proper stewardship of what we are supposed to be doing here, that is one area where I think we have let the American people down; indeed, the world community. We are sitting here debating whether it is even an issue--which the American people can't believe--while things continue to get worse. I would say to my Republican friends: admit it; climate change is for real. You are on the wrong side of public opinion. When you try to claim it is a hoax, you are on the wrong side of the scientific community and you are on the wrong side of history. One final thing, because I couldn't help but take note that my colleague from Texas kind of took a jab at Massachusetts over home heating oil. I would say to the gentleman a couple of things. One, Massachusetts is leading the Nation in terms of investments in renewable and green energy. I am really proud of what my State is doing. I would say one other thing to the gentleman from Texas, and that is that his State--Texas--generates 10 times more emissions from heating oil, compared to Massachusetts. So I would urge him to get his State's emissions under control for the sake of our planet. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining? The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 3 minutes remaining. Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. The first thing I would like to say to the gentleman is that Texas is bigger than France and Texas is bigger than Massachusetts. In fact, we have economic output. We have lots of people working. We have economic prowess in Texas. We do have more output of what might be carbon. We do. We also had $290 billion worth of economic activity that we sent overseas. Texas helps the United States of America float its boat because we have jobs, we have lower taxes, we have great schools, we have people that enjoy living where they live, and we have people that take responsibility. Across the board, Texas is a great place to live. Texas does, as you have heard many times, move our country in a direction to more freedom, Mr. Speaker. What we are talking about is freedom. With that freedom comes responsibility. Mr. Speaker, why we are here today--exactly as I started to say in the very beginning--is that our Speaker, Paul Ryan, has challenged I think all of Congress, but in particular this Republican majority, to bring forth good ideas that address the issues, thoughts, and answers about the problems that the United States Congress perhaps is responsible for and perhaps the United States sees that we need to start talking about what our future is going to be. When he was the chairman of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, Speaker Ryan talked about growing our economy. I know our friends want to raise taxes. I know the President of the United States wants to also, now that the energy costs are down, stick them back up and stick the American people with a $10 a barrel tax. I know that what they want is more and more and more spending. They will get their chance with the budget when it comes in a trillion dollars higher in a year than what we are spending right now. That is their vision. What we are talking about today is our vision, Speaker Ryan's vision, and the Republican majority's vision. And what is that? We would like to put in place an agreement. We would like for it to be a bipartisan vote. We already have bipartisan support. And that is so that we could say that, regardless of who is President and Secretary of the Treasury--right now, I don't know who it is going to be; I really couldn't even guess--we, as a body, make sure that we are focusing on what this is going to look like at the time. The gentleman from Massachusetts was very clear to say we already know all these things, but we don't. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleague to support this rule and the underlying bill. The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows: An Amendment to H. Res. 609 Offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts At the end of the resolution, add the following new sections: Sec. 3. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the Speaker shall, 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. 3926) to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for better understanding of the epidemic of gun violence, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All [[Page 1685]] 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 Energy and Commerce. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order against provisions in the bill 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 with or without instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill. Sec. 4. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 3926. ____ The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating. Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or control the consideration of the subject before the House being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first recognition.'' The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by voting down the previous question on the rule . . . When the motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering the previous question. That Member, because he then controls the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of amendment.'' In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time for debate thereon.'' Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only available tools for those who oppose the Republican majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the opportunity to offer an alternative plan. Mr. SESSIONS. 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. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule XX, this 15-minute vote on ordering the previous question will be followed by 5-minute votes on adopting House Resolution 609, if ordered; and suspending the rules and passing H.R. 4470. The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 237, nays 180, not voting 16, as follows: [Roll No. 65] YEAS--237 Abraham Aderholt Allen Amash Amodei Babin Barletta Barr Barton Benishek Bilirakis Bishop (MI) Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Blum Bost Boustany Brady (TX) Brat Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Brooks (IN) Buchanan Buck Bucshon Burgess Byrne Calvert Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Chabot Chaffetz Clawson (FL) Coffman Cole Collins (GA) Collins (NY) Comstock Conaway Cook Costello (PA) Cramer Crawford Crenshaw Culberson Curbelo (FL) Davis, Rodney Denham Dent DeSantis DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Dold Donovan Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Ellmers (NC) Emmer (MN) Farenthold Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Fleming Flores Forbes Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Garrett Gibbs Gibson Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Granger Graves (LA) Graves (MO) Griffith Grothman Guinta Guthrie Hardy Harper Harris Hartzler Heck (NV) Hensarling Hice, Jody B. Hill Holding Huelskamp Hultgren Hunter Hurd (TX) Hurt (VA) Issa Jenkins (KS) Jenkins (WV) Johnson (OH) Johnson, Sam Jolly Jones Jordan Joyce Katko Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) King (IA) King (NY) Kinzinger (IL) Kline Knight Labrador LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Lance Latta LoBiondo Long Loudermilk Love Lucas Luetkemeyer Lummis MacArthur Marchant Marino Massie McCarthy McCaul McClintock McHenry McKinley McMorris Rodgers McSally Meadows Meehan Messer Mica Miller (FL) Miller (MI) Moolenaar Mooney (WV) Mulvaney Murphy (PA) Neugebauer Newhouse Noem Nugent Nunes Olson Palazzo Palmer Paulsen Pearce Perry Peterson Pittenger Pitts Poe (TX) Poliquin Pompeo Posey Price, Tom Ratcliffe Reed Reichert Renacci Ribble Rice (SC) Rigell Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney (FL) Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Ross Rothfus Rouzer Royce Russell Salmon Sanford Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Sessions Shimkus Shuster Simpson Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Stefanik Stewart Stivers Stutzman Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiberi Tipton Trott Turner Upton Valadao Wagner Walberg Walden Walker Walorski Walters, Mimi Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Whitfield Williams Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Woodall Yoder Yoho Young (AK) Young (IA) Young (IN) Zeldin Zinke NAYS--180 Adams Aguilar Ashford Bass Beatty Becerra Bera Beyer Bishop (GA) Blumenauer Bonamici Boyle, Brendan F. Brady (PA) Brown (FL) Brownley (CA) Bustos Butterfield Capps Capuano Cardenas Carney Carson (IN) Cartwright Castor (FL) Chu, Judy Cicilline Clark (MA) Clarke (NY) Clay Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Connolly Conyers Cooper Costa Courtney Crowley Cuellar Cummings Davis (CA) Davis, Danny DeFazio DeGette Delaney DeLauro DelBene DeSaulnier Deutch Dingell Doggett Doyle, Michael F. Edwards Ellison Engel Eshoo Esty Farr Fattah Foster Frankel (FL) Fudge Gabbard Gallego Garamendi Graham Grayson Green, Al Green, Gene Grijalva Gutierrez Hahn Hastings Heck (WA) Higgins Himes Hinojosa Honda Hoyer Huffman Israel Jackson Lee Jeffries Johnson (GA) Johnson, E. B. Kaptur Keating Kennedy Kildee Kilmer Kind Kirkpatrick Kuster Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lawrence Lee Levin Lewis Lieu, Ted Lipinski Loebsack Lofgren Lowenthal Lowey Lujan Grisham (NM) Lujan, Ben Ray (NM) Lynch Maloney, Carolyn Maloney, Sean Matsui McCollum McDermott McGovern McNerney Meeks Meng Moore Moulton Murphy (FL) Nadler Napolitano Neal Nolan Norcross O'Rourke Pallone Pascrell Payne Pelosi Perlmutter Peters [[Page 1686]] Pingree Pocan Polis Price (NC) Rangel Rice (NY) Richmond Roybal-Allard Ruiz Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (OH) Sanchez, Linda T. Sarbanes Schakowsky Schiff Schrader Scott (VA) Scott, David Serrano Sewell (AL) Sherman Sinema Sires Slaughter Swalwell (CA) Takai Takano Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Titus Tonko Torres Tsongas Van Hollen Vargas Veasey Vela Velazquez Visclosky Walz Wasserman Schultz Waters, Maxine Watson Coleman Welch Wilson (FL) Yarmuth NOT VOTING--16 Castro (TX) Duckworth Fincher Gowdy Graves (GA) Hanna Herrera Beutler Hudson Huizenga (MI) Kelly (IL) Mullin Quigley Sanchez, Loretta Smith (WA) Speier Westmoreland Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). There are 2 minutes remaining. {time} 1434 So the previous question was ordered. The result of the vote was announced as above recorded. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution. The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it. Recorded Vote Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote. A recorded vote was ordered. The SPEAKER pro tempore. This is a 5-minute vote. The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 236, noes 178, not voting 19, as follows: [Roll No. 66] AYES--236 Abraham Aderholt Allen Amash Amodei Ashford Babin Barletta Barr Barton Benishek Bilirakis Bishop (MI) Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Blum Bost Boustany Brady (TX) Brat Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Brooks (IN) Buchanan Buck Bucshon Burgess Byrne Calvert Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Chabot Chaffetz Clawson (FL) Coffman Cole Collins (GA) Collins (NY) Comstock Conaway Cook Costello (PA) Cramer Crawford Crenshaw Culberson Curbelo (FL) Davis, Rodney Denham Dent DeSantis DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Dold Donovan Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Ellmers (NC) Emmer (MN) Farenthold Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Fleming Flores Forbes Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Garrett Gibbs Gibson Gohmert Goodlatte Gosar Granger Graves (LA) Graves (MO) Griffith Grothman Guinta Guthrie Hardy Harper Harris Hartzler Heck (NV) Hensarling Hice, Jody B. Hill Holding Huelskamp Hultgren Hunter Hurd (TX) Hurt (VA) Issa Jenkins (KS) Jenkins (WV) Johnson (OH) Johnson, Sam Jolly Jones Jordan Joyce Katko Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) King (IA) King (NY) Kinzinger (IL) Kline Knight Labrador LaHood Lamborn Lance Latta LoBiondo Long Loudermilk Love Lucas Luetkemeyer Lummis MacArthur Marchant Marino Massie McCarthy McCaul McClintock McHenry McKinley McMorris Rodgers McSally Meadows Meehan Messer Mica Miller (FL) Miller (MI) Moolenaar Mooney (WV) Mulvaney Murphy (PA) Neugebauer Newhouse Noem Nugent Nunes Olson Palazzo Palmer Paulsen Pearce Perry Pittenger Pitts Poe (TX) Poliquin Pompeo Posey Price, Tom Ratcliffe Reed Reichert Renacci Ribble Rice (SC) Rigell Roby Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rohrabacher Rokita Rooney (FL) Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Ross Rouzer Royce Russell Salmon Sanford Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sensenbrenner Sessions Shimkus Shuster Simpson Sinema Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Stefanik Stewart Stivers Stutzman Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiberi Tipton Trott Turner Upton Valadao Wagner Walberg Walden Walker Walorski Walters, Mimi Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Whitfield Williams Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Woodall Yoder Yoho Young (AK) Young (IA) Young (IN) Zeldin Zinke NOES--178 Adams Bass Beatty Becerra Bera Beyer Bishop (GA) Blumenauer Bonamici Boyle, Brendan F. Brady (PA) Brown (FL) Brownley (CA) Bustos Butterfield Capps Capuano Cardenas Carney Carson (IN) Cartwright Castor (FL) Chu, Judy Cicilline Clark (MA) Clarke (NY) Clay Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Connolly Conyers Cooper Costa Courtney Crowley Cuellar Cummings Davis (CA) Davis, Danny DeFazio DeGette Delaney DelBene DeSaulnier Deutch Dingell Doggett Doyle, Michael F. Edwards Ellison Engel Eshoo Esty Farr Fattah Foster Frankel (FL) Fudge Gabbard Gallego Garamendi Graham Grayson Green, Al Green, Gene Grijalva Gutierrez Hahn Hastings Heck (WA) Higgins Himes Hinojosa Honda Hoyer Huffman Israel Jackson Lee Jeffries Johnson (GA) Johnson, E. B. Kaptur Keating Kennedy Kildee Kilmer Kind Kirkpatrick Kuster Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lawrence Lee Levin Lewis Lieu, Ted Lipinski Loebsack Lofgren Lowenthal Lowey Lujan Grisham (NM) Lujan, Ben Ray (NM) Lynch Maloney, Carolyn Maloney, Sean Matsui McCollum McDermott McGovern McNerney Meeks Meng Moore Moulton Murphy (FL) Nadler Napolitano Neal Nolan Norcross O'Rourke Pallone Pascrell Payne Pelosi Perlmutter Peters Peterson Pingree Pocan Polis Price (NC) Rangel Rice (NY) Richmond Roybal-Allard Ruiz Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (OH) Sanchez, Linda T. Sarbanes Schakowsky Schiff Schrader Scott (VA) Scott, David Serrano Sewell (AL) Sherman Sires Slaughter Speier Swalwell (CA) Takai Takano Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Titus Tonko Torres Tsongas Van Hollen Vargas Veasey Vela Velazquez Visclosky Walz Wasserman Schultz Waters, Maxine Watson Coleman Welch Wilson (FL) Yarmuth NOT VOTING--19 Aguilar Castro (TX) DeLauro Duckworth Fincher Gowdy Graves (GA) Hanna Herrera Beutler Hudson Huizenga (MI) Kelly (IL) LaMalfa Mullin Quigley Rothfus Sanchez, Loretta Smith (WA) Westmoreland Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). There are 2 minutes remaining. {time} 1440 So the resolution was agreed to. The result of the vote was announced as above recorded. A motion to reconsider was laid on the table. Stated for: Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 66, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.'' ____________________