[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12175-12178]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1215
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
McCarthy) for the purpose of giving us the schedule for the next week.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House will meet at noon for morning hour 
and 2 p.m. for legislative business. Votes will be postponed until 6:30 
p.m.
  On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning 
hour and noon for legislative business.
  On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.
  On Friday, no votes are expected in the House.
  Mr. Speaker, the House will consider a number of suspensions next 
week, a complete list of which will be announced by close of business 
today.
  The House will also consider H.R. 3590, the Halt Tax Increases on the 
Middle Class and Seniors Act, sponsored by Representative Martha 
McSally. This critical bill will prevent Americans with high healthcare 
costs from facing a tax increase next year.
  Additionally, the House will consider H.R. 5620, the VA 
Accountability First and Appeals Modernization Act, sponsored by 
Representative Jeff Miller, which ensures that employees at the 
Department of Veterans Affairs are held accountable for misconduct or 
poor performance. This bill will also modernize the disability appeals 
process to reduce the unacceptable backlog of claims.
  The House will also consider H.R. 5226, the Regulatory Integrity Act, 
sponsored by Representative Tim Walberg, which is a commonsense bill 
requiring agencies to publish information about proposed regulations on 
their Web sites.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, the House will consider H.R. 5351, sponsored by 
Representative Jackie Walorski, which prohibits the transfer of any 
individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that schedule. I 
won't discuss any of the bills that the gentleman mentioned on the 
schedule, but I do want to note a couple of absences. One is, of 
course, the continuing resolution.
  As the gentleman knows, after next week where the CR is not included, 
we have 9 legislative days left before the scheduled adjournment. As 
the gentleman knows, we have not passed a single appropriations bill. 
And without finding fault with either side--because I know each side 
thinks the other side is at fault--the fact remains we have not passed 
a single appropriations bill.
  So there is no alternative to a continuing resolution, and we must 
pass a continuing resolution if the government is going to operate on 
October 1 in the new fiscal year. The limited number of days in 
session--9 days after next week.
  There are reports that the House Republicans are already divided on 
how long the CR ought to be, whether or not we ought to go into the 
115th Congress or not. Representative Tom Cole was quoted as saying, 
``Since we're all drawing our checks, we ought to actually do our job 
and get it done''--meaning the appropriations process and the funding 
of the government--``and recognize that the next administration and the 
next Congress are going to have plenty to do and to deal with on their 
own and not throw additional work at them because we are either too 
lazy or incompetent to do our work.''
  That is Representative Tom Cole, one of the senior Members of this 
body, a former chairman of the campaign committee, and a respected 
Member of this body.
  Mr. Leader, I believe we ought to pass a CR as soon as possible, 
consider it as soon as possible. My own belief is that it ought to be 
short-term. I believe many people share that view. Apparently, Senator 
McConnell shares that view as well.
  It is my understanding the Senate is going to consider such a CR and 
send it to us. Obviously, it is our responsibility on fiscal matters 
under the Constitution to move pieces of legislation. They may well 
amend theirs into a House bill, as I am sure you know that both sides 
do from time to time.
  Can you tell me, A, how long do you expect the CR--first of all, when 
do you believe we will consider a continuing resolution to fund 
government past September 30? Secondly, how long do you think that CR 
will extend? Thirdly, as we did last year, is it your expectation that 
we will do an omnibus in December in the lameduck?
  I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I do want to just clarify one of your statements. Surely the 
gentleman did not mean from the point that no appropriations bills have 
passed this floor because six have passed. They just have not been sent 
to the President.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, as the gentleman and I 
both know, no appropriations bills have been enacted. As I pointed out, 
forgetting about who is to blame--and I am sure you and I have 
different perspectives on that--the fact of the matter is they haven't 
passed, and they haven't been signed by the President. When I say 
``passed,'' that's the Congress. They haven't passed the Congress, and 
the President hasn't signed any. So there is no possibility we are 
going to pass one or more of those bills.
  As you know, there are 12 appropriations bills to fund government. We 
haven't passed one of them. It doesn't look like we are going to pass 
any of them, so we are going to need a CR. So my question relates to 
the CR. There are three points.
  I thank the gentleman for clarifying it.
  I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. McCARTHY. I thank the gentleman for clarifying.
  Just one more little clarification, if the gentleman may. All 12 of 
the appropriations bills have passed out of committee. So it is our 
desire to finish that work.
  Yes, it looks as though we will be into a continuing resolution. We 
have

[[Page 12176]]

funding up until September 30. It is our intent to have that done 
before we depart. We will not depart without finishing that work.
  The duration is up for discussion, and we have been having 
discussions on both sides of the aisle about that. But as soon as that 
decision is made, Members will be advised when the floor action is 
scheduled. But I assure the gentleman it will be done before any Member 
is departing.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, I presume that. I presume that the majority--and I 
will say this, that for whatever reasons--and your party is in control 
of both the House and the Senate. Yes, we have the Presidency, the 
Democrats, but no bills have reached his desk. Whether they got out of 
committee or not, no bills have reached his desk.
  You and I both know getting out of committee means nothing. Nothing 
happens because it gets out of committee, other than it is eligible to 
come to the floor. Beyond that, nothing happens with respect to funding 
government. And your party is in the majority. It is not a question of 
blame. It is a question of no bill has passed from the Congress to the 
President of the United States for signature. He hasn't vetoed any 
bills because they haven't gotten to him. So we need to adopt a CR.
  I think the gentleman is correct that we are not going to go home, I 
presume, without passing a CR. The government was shut down for 16 days 
some years ago because we wouldn't repeal the Affordable Care Act. I 
don't presume that is going to happen this time.
  I certainly hope that we address the CR. It is not scheduled for next 
week.
  I am going to discuss another subject in just a second that should 
have been scheduled, in my view, this week. But we did bills that, 
frankly, aren't going to pass or be sent to the President. We spent a 
full week--otherwise known as 25 percent of the time--that is scheduled 
for us to be here before the election.
  Next week, it will make it 50 percent of the time, and still no CR is 
being brought forward. We left town in July without passing the Senate 
bill--it passed 68-30, a bipartisan bill--to address the critical 
health crisis confronting the American people, Zika. You don't schedule 
that for next week either on your schedule, Mr. Leader.
  I am very concerned. I think America is very concerned. Certainly, on 
this side of the aisle, we are very concerned.
  I want to make a representation here publicly, so that America will 
know and you will know, that I am prepared to say that almost everybody 
in our caucus--I would say ``unanimous,'' but I haven't talked to 
everybody--is ready to pass the bipartisan Senate bill, which passed 
68-30, which would appropriate $1.1 billion.
  Tony Fauci was on the Hill, who is the director of NIH's NIAID, 
National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, which of 
course Zika falls within the ambit of his expertise and authority.

                              {time}  1230

  He has said as of October 1, he is going to have no money to deal 
with the development of a vaccine. I know the gentleman is as concerned 
as I am because we have talked about setting up funds for disasters; 
and this is a health crisis, obviously a disaster.
  Let me ask the gentleman if he expects Zika funding to come to the 
floor either with the CR or as a separate bill, and again, I represent 
to him, I believe every Democrat--I haven't talked to every Democrat, 
but I believe every Democrat will support the bipartisan Senate bill 
which passed 68-30, which appropriates money and has the virtue, unlike 
the conference report, which the House added poison pill language that 
they knew neither the Democrats would support in the House nor the 
Senate nor would the President support, undermining, frankly, the 
ability to have health services delivered in Puerto Rico to women, the 
epicenter of the Zika crisis.
  It should have been no surprise that that was not going to be 
supported, and the President made it very clear he was not going to 
support it. We need to reach a compromise. The Senate reached a 
compromise. I urge the majority leader to address this and bring it to 
the floor. I tell him, he will have my full support and engagement for 
the Senate bill, which was a bipartisan bill.
  I yield to my friend to let us know when he expects to deal with this 
critical health crisis confronting the American people.
  Mr. McCARTHY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Before I begin, I want to thank the gentleman. At the very beginning 
of this crisis, you and I sat together. At the very beginning of this 
crisis, you and I compiled a group of Members on both sides of the 
aisle with the expertise to deal with it. $600 million quickly went out 
the door to fight it, to combat it. The Senate approved $1.1 billion.
  I am somewhat excited to hear that all the Democrats will change 
their mind now and vote for the bill because I would like to remind the 
gentleman that in June this House took up this issue because we knew 
what would happen in the summer. We know what is transpiring in Florida 
because we predicted that it would because it was already happening in 
Puerto Rico, but that was not the case on this floor that night. 
Everyone on the other side said ``no.''
  Well, you know what, in the Senate, they have taken this up three 
times. Your side of the aisle decided to leave without dealing with 
this issue. They could have dealt with this issue this week. This is 
the exact amount of money that the Senate voted for unanimously over 
there--maybe not unanimously, but bipartisanly. This is not one to play 
politics with. We did our job here.
  It is quite ironic that in clarification on your past remark saying 
Republicans are in the majority here, yes, that is true, and you saw 
that happen. The rules in the Senate are much different, where it 
empowers the minority to stop. That is why we are talking about a CR. 
But this should not be the case. You could have challenged your 
colleagues in that Senate, in your party, to stop the filibuster, that 
the people should not have to wait.
  We have been in those rooms together. I know your desire. When you 
and I talked about putting the emergency funding together, you know 
what, that is an appropriations issue. We need this to get done. They 
need the money. We need to combat it, and we need to continue to 
monitor it. That is why we dealt with this in June.
  That is why I have the frustration that I have. Even when we came 
back this week, the Senate Democrats were in the exact same place they 
were before. This money goes to the community centers in Puerto Rico, 
exactly as the President requested.
  So it is not a time to play politics. It is not a time to get 
frustrated about a different issue that you had that night so you 
couldn't vote ``yes.'' That is the truth behind this, and that is 
wrong.
  Mr. HOYER. I could get very animated in my answer. The fact of the 
matter is, what the majority leader represents, in my view, is 
inaccurate. The Senate sent us a bipartisan bill, and because you think 
you needed to serve some of your most hard-line Members, you made it a 
political bill. And we were not going to take it. We are not going to 
see you eliminate Planned Parenthood, which overwhelmingly is the--
listen to me, Mr. Majority Leader. I listened to you respectfully.
  The bill eliminated Planned Parenthood services and funding to 
deliver services in Puerto Rico, the epicenter of this disease. And you 
put other legislation in that bill you knew was unacceptable to us. The 
Senate did not do that because they need 60 votes, which means they 
need to come to a bipartisan agreement. You rejected a bipartisan 
agreement on your side of the aisle.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kelly of Mississippi). The Chair would 
remind Members to direct their remarks to the Chair.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the majority party rejected the bipartisan 
legislation that came from the Senate with 68 votes. That is more than 
two-thirds

[[Page 12177]]

of the Senate. Half of the Republicans in the United States Senate 
passed that bill over to us, and we could have passed it.
  I know some people said we needed the $1.1 billion, but I will tell 
you, had you brought that bill to the floor without adding political 
aspects to it that you knew we would not support, it would have passed. 
You could have passed it on your own, but you chose to make it a 
political bill. And we are not going to accept that because the 
American--you are right, Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve that 
we deal with this issue now.
  The President asked for this money on February 22. We are now at 
September 10, Mr. Speaker, and we have not dealt with this except in a 
way that, frankly, the majority party knew would not be acceptable, 
would not be bipartisan, would not pass the Senate, and would not be 
signed by the President.
  It is, I say with all due respect, Mr. Majority Leader, not credible 
to say because we didn't take what you wanted to jam down our throat 
when we had an agreement--not everybody agreed. I understand some 
people on my side said, oh, no, 1.1 is not enough, and I frankly don't 
think it is enough. But it is a very substantial sum that would enable 
NIH to pursue vaccines and pursue other matters in Puerto Rico and 
Florida and other places in this Nation to keep our people safe.
  So I tell the majority leader, again, bring the bipartisan bill 
passed to us by the United States Senate with 68 votes. Bring it to the 
floor as a House bill and we will pass it, and that is why I tell the 
majority leader, Mr. Speaker, that I believe every Member on my side of 
the aisle will vote for that, not because they believe $1.1 billion 
will be sufficient to address this problem.
  Leader Pelosi makes the very cogent point, Mr. Speaker, the Director 
of CDC says that it will cost $10 million per child who suffers from 
microcephaly, which is the result of Zika. Very frankly, in Brazil they 
found that the results go beyond that. $10 million. If 200 children get 
microcephaly, that gets to the dollars that the President wants from us 
to prevent this horrible consequence to the children and to the 
families of America.
  So I say with all due respect, Mr. Majority Leader, you can say all 
you want--and I know the spin: the Democrats in the Senate are holding 
this up. I do not accept that. I think it is inaccurate. What is 
holding it up is putting in items in a bill that is absolutely 
essential, gratuitously, that you know we will object to as opposed to 
doing what the Senate did, Mr. Speaker, and that is reaching a 
bipartisan agreement. It is very tough to reach bipartisan agreements 
in this House because we have a group in this House who wants to wag 
the dog. And that is not what the American people expect.
  I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I have great respect for the 
majority leader, and he is accurate. We do sit down, we work together, 
and we can come to bipartisan agreements. We didn't sit down on this. 
The conference report was not signed by a single Democrat. There was no 
doubt that when it came to this House floor, there were no Democrats on 
that conference report, and we had no debate.
  Now, one of the reasons we had no debate--I want to make it clear 
because the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, is going to make that clear 
as well--was our side, we thought there was another important issue, 
but the fact of the matter is not whether it was debated. There would 
have only been 30 minutes a side anyway, a short debate.
  But the fact of the matter is the majority leader knows that the $1.1 
billion bill that the Senate passed, even though it is not the 
President's request, would have passed on this floor, and it would pass 
on this floor today. And NIH and CDC would have the resources, Mr. 
Speaker, that they need to protect the American people. Mr. Speaker, 
that is what we ought to do.
  I now yield to my friend, the majority leader.
  Mr. McCARTHY. I thank the gentleman.
  I think the best thing for the American people is to actually read 
the bill. So let me just read the section that you referred to, that 
you stated that no Democrat in Appropriations would sign on to, that no 
Democrats on the other side wanted to vote for. It referred to a block 
grant. Let me quote it. This is in the bill dealing with Zika. ``For 
the funding for health services provided by public health departments, 
hospitals or reimbursed through public health plans.''
  Seriously, you are opposed to that? That is what you are fighting 
over while the mosquitoes begin to grow and go beyond State by State? 
This is what we are fighting over?
  That $1.1 billion, added with the other $600 million, took place in 
June. Yeah, we couldn't get to the floor to debate it because you 
wouldn't give us one microphone. But I am sorry, I know there is a lot 
of politics that goes around here, but this is not. This is the moment, 
this is the time that we rise above it. The American people do not 
deserve that, and I say let's put this paragraph out, let the public 
read what the bill says, and I will promise you, the majority wants you 
to vote for it and stop playing games.
  Mr. HOYER. I understand the majority wants to vote for what they want 
us to vote for. They don't want to reach a bipartisan----
  Mr. McCARTHY. You voted against that. Explain.
  Mr. HOYER. I did vote against that.
  Mr. McCARTHY. If the gentleman would please explain to me what----
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind Members to direct 
their remarks to the Chair.
  Mr. HOYER. It is so hard, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I will be glad to yield to my friend. I have a comment, 
but I will yield to him first.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman across the aisle, it is 
true, we work closely together on the big issues, and we try to find 
common ground. In that spirit, will you tell me what in that paragraph 
you disagree with?
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman aware 
that the major deliverer of health services to women in Puerto Rico is 
through Planned Parenthood? Is the gentleman aware of that?
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Did the President request, when he requested money, 
that it get delivered that way? Or in here may I remind the gentleman 
what I am requesting, ``the funding goes for health services provided 
by public health departments, hospitals, or reimbursed through public 
health plans.''
  Public health means that is the way the health care is provided, so 
we are funding the entities that provide the health care, exactly when 
the President had requested it.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, that language was clearly 
designed, as the gentleman knows, as the staff knows, and as has been 
publicized, to preclude one of the agencies that delivers health care 
in Puerto Rico from doing so, and that is Planned Parenthood that gets 
public funds. This is designed, we believe, to restrict it. But let's 
put that aside. Let's say we have a disagreement on that. Let's accept 
that.

                              {time}  1245

  What the Senate said, if we have disagreements on these things, we 
are going to pass a bill that gets that money out the door. And they 
passed it 68-30, which means approximately one-half of the Republicans 
voted for it because--and, very frankly--a predecessor of yours, Mr. 
Blunt, was a cosponsor of that bill--one of my very close friends, as 
you know--along with Mrs. Murray.
  So, they achieved the objective in the United States Senate of doing 
exactly what I think you are actually correct, Mr. Speaker, in saying, 
and that is that the people want us to act.
  It is not on the schedule this week. It is not on the schedule next 
week. And it ought to be on the schedule for consideration, and it 
ought to be in a bipartisan way, which means that both you and I could 
say that, yes, our sides

[[Page 12178]]

can support this. Without, we have some very significant differences, 
Mr. Speaker. We all understand that. The American people understand 
that. And we ought not to try to deal with those in something as 
critically important.
  That is what the Senate decided to do. That is what Roy Blunt decided 
to do. That is what Senator Murray decided to do. And that is what 68 
Members of the United States Senate decided to do.
  Now, let's, just for the sake of argument, agree that we have a 
disagreement on the interpretation of what that does, but if we have a 
disagreement, that means that we are not able to pass that bill. You 
may disagree with our reasoning, but that is the fact. And that is the 
conclusion the United States Senate came to, Mr. Speaker. So they did a 
bill that they could agree on in a bipartisan way.
  And I tell you, Mr. Speaker--I will reiterate it once again--bring 
the Senate bill. It wasn't our bill. This is a Blunt-Murray bill. Mr. 
Blunt is the former majority leader and majority whip and minority whip 
of the House of Representatives. The Senator from Missouri, a 
Republican leader in the Senate, sent us a bipartisan bill.
  Let's take that bill, and whatever other differences we have, let's 
debate them, Mr. Speaker. Those provisions can be brought to the floor 
separate and apart, without undermining the need to immediately fund 
the Zika public health efforts.
  So, I, again, say to my friend, those two issues--and I might also 
add, perhaps in closing, that we ought to be dealing with Flint as 
well, another public health issue that has been pending, Mr. Speaker, 
for over a year.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Will the gentleman yield, before he goes to a new 
subject?
  Mr. HOYER. I would be glad to yield to my friend.
  Mr. McCARTHY. The only thing I want to clarify here is: Do you 
believe in debate and having the opportunity for people to air 
different sides?
  Mr. HOYER. I do. That is why we didn't have a lot of debate because 
we were asking for Mr. King's bills to be brought to the floor, as I 
recall. So I do believe in that.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Will the gentleman yield to me?
  Mr. HOYER. I would be glad to yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. McCARTHY. I would ask the gentleman to join with me, then, in 
requesting that the Democrats on the Senate--the filibuster denies the 
bill to even come up for debate, let alone it be voted for. So would 
you not join with me in asking the Democrats to stop playing politics 
with a filibuster and allow the bill to come up? If the bill fails, the 
bill fails. But it is not even being allowed to be debated.
  You were always so good with reading articles, and I don't know that 
I have ever read one to you, but I would like to. If you will indulge 
me. PolitiFact--this is the organization that looks at what we say and 
tries to put truth to it. This is the headline: ``Democrats Stretch 
Impact of Planned Parenthood Exclusions in Zika Bill.''
  This is one highlighted:
  ``The bill also provided funds that would potentially help clinics 
and hospitals in nearly every municipality on the island.''
  Could we not agree that that is more important than politics? Could 
we not agree that people are being affected every day and that those 
who are watching this debate shake their head and wonder why we are 
even having this fight?
  In June, we passed a bill. Since that time, Democrats in the Senate 
will not even allow it to be debated, not even allow it to be debated, 
to vote it up or vote it down.
  There is one thing Americans believe in: fairness. And I don't 
believe that that is fairness, if you deny a bill from coming forward. 
If you deny the bill from coming forward, you are blocking it.
  So, if you want the true definition of what is happening in the Zika 
battle, it is that those on the other side of the aisle in the Senate 
are blocking the discussion from even taking place.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, they are not blocking anything. They 
passed a bill 68-30. They sent it here, and it was blocked from coming 
to the floor. And it would have passed.
  If you believe, as you asked me, do I believe, should we consider 
things, the answer, of course, is yes.
  And I said, as an aside, Peter King, the former chairman of the 
Homeland Security Committee has two bills that are supported by over 85 
percent of the American public. Bring them to the floor on the premise, 
Mr. Speaker, that we ought to debate, consider, and vote. Bring them to 
the floor. Bring Mr. King's bills to the floor. Bring the Senate bill. 
You know the Senate bill has 68 votes.
  Mr. Speaker, I will tell the majority leader that, had he brought the 
Senate bill to the floor--we were precluded from voting on the Senate 
bill, Mr. Speaker. The majority leader just said, Oh, we ought to bring 
the bill to the floor. Isn't that the right thing to do? Well, if it is 
right for the Senate--and we can't control the Senate, but we can 
control the House. And, as a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, as you know, 
I was the majority leader, and I could decide whether to bring the 
bills on the floor or not bring them on the floor. The majority leader 
has that authority.
  Bring the Senate bill to the floor. If, in fact, as the majority 
leader just said we ought to have debate, we ought to consider it, and 
we ought to vote, and if it goes down, fine; if it passes, that is the 
will of the House--will of the Senate, you said. If that is a good 
premise in the Senate, it is an even better premise in the House of 
Representatives.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I ask my friend, the majority leader, to bring that 
bill to the floor. Let's vote on it. That is what he said his premise 
was and what we were committed to. I agree with him.
  I don't like the filibuster. I don't like the 60-vote rule in the 
Senate, I will tell you that. The 60-vote rule undermines democracy. If 
a bill has 50 percent and a committee reports it out, it ought to come 
to the floor. I agree with the majority leader on that. And Mr. Reid 
and I have had some discussions on that. My colleague Senator Cardin 
and I have had some discussions on that.
  But if it is good for the Senate, it is good for the House. And the 
House does that. The majority can rule in this House. And if he brings 
that bill to the floor, it will pass. It will pass on Monday, I 
guarantee the gentleman.
  And I know we need to conclude this. In all consideration, Ms. Kelly 
is coming over to explain to me schedules.
  But this is serious, and I don't say this--the majority leader and I 
do work together. But let's pass this Zika bill, as the Senate passed 
it, and then have the arguments on stuff that we don't agree on. We do 
agree on the Senate bill, at least to the extent it goes, and there are 
things that we don't agree.
  To make an aside, you stripped the Confederate Flag amendment from 
the conference report on the MILCON bill because you didn't want your 
guys to vote on it. Mr. Speaker, I understand that. That is why it was 
done. I didn't like that, but that passed the House, stripped out of 
the bill, not by the Senate, but by us. But that is an aside.
  It is an aside because, you are right, Mr. Speaker, the majority 
leader is right, that doesn't affect Zika. What affects Zika is that 
$1.1 billion that we can get to them on Monday, Mr. Speaker. If the 
majority leader will bring it to the floor, we can pass it on 
suspension.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the majority leader's discussion on this 
matter, but we have some critical issues, Mr. Speaker, that we need to 
deal with: funding government, getting Zika passed, helping the people 
in Flint, funding opioids. We passed a bill. It was a good bill. The 
President signed it. We passed it in a bipartisan way, but we didn't 
fund it. Another health crisis.
  We need to address these critical matters. These other bills may have 
merit, but they are not a crisis.
  Mr. Speaker, unless the majority leader wants to say something 
further, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________