[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8116-8119]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          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 the majority leader telling us in-depth 
the schedule for the weeks to come.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning 
hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. Votes will be postponed until 
6:30. 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. Last votes of the week 
are expected no later than 3 p.m. 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. This list will include a series of bills to honor our Nation's 
veterans.
  With Memorial Day around the corner, it is important for this House 
to show our appreciation to those who have defended our freedoms, 
especially the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense 
of our Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, next week in the House is Combating Human Trafficking 
and Child Protection Week.
  In addition to a series of suspensions, the House will consider H.R. 
1973, the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse Act, sponsored by 
Representative Susan Brooks. This bill would require prompt reporting 
of suspected cases of abuse, as well as implementation of procedures 
for addressing such allegations.
  We will also consider H.R. 1761, the Protecting Against Child 
Exploitation Act, sponsored by Representative Mike Johnson. This bill 
would protect victims of sexual abuse by ensuring that predators who 
send explicit content are subject to appropriate punishment.
  Mr. Speaker, human trafficking is an incredibly serious issue in our 
Nation. With the passage of these bipartisan bills, we will show our 
continued commitment to ending this modern-day form of slavery, while 
supporting and assisting all survivors.
  Now, lastly, Mr. Speaker, the House will consider H.R. 953, the 
Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act, sponsored by Representative Bob Gibbs. 
My district is home to many hardworking farmers, so I know this issue 
quite well. This bill will reduce red tape that makes it more costly 
for farmers to protect their crops and our Nation's food supply.
  In addition, the CDC reports that there are still 119 cases of 
individuals with Zika in the United States and 495 cases in U.S. 
territories. With the summer season approaching, this bill will ensure 
we can use pesticides to control mosquitos.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to thank a true public 
servant. Next week, Brian Cooper will retire from the House 
Parliamentarian's Office after 35 years on Capitol Hill.
  Brian is a professional in every sense of the word. Much of his work 
is done behind the scenes, but it has not gone unnoticed. From 
timekeeping to processing bills, to preparing for joint sessions, Brian 
has made sure this body works in an orderly and fair way. It is my 
understanding that even my predecessor, Bill Thomas, could not 
challenge Brian's timekeeping.
  On behalf of all those on this side of the aisle, we wish you well in 
your retirement, Brian, and from a very grateful nation for your 
service. I am sure you are ready to trade late nights on this floor for 
late nights watching the Orioles play baseball.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for 
those remarks.
  I want to join him in thanking our colleague, Brian Cooper. I am not 
sure, Brian, that I adopt the sentiments of the majority leader with 
respect to what Mr. Thomas could and could not do. Apparently he chose 
not to, and that is good.
  But, Brian Cooper, we want to thank you for three and a half decades 
of service to this House; three and a half decades of service to this 
House in a role that most people, including Members of this House, 
would not recognize, but that is critically important to the good 
management and flow of the people's business through this House.
  As the majority leader referenced, he will continue to root for the 
Baltimore Orioles because he is from Baltimore. He is a Marylander, and 
we are very proud of him. I want to thank him for his service and wish 
him the very best in the days ahead.
  I now will go to the schedule.

                              {time}  1200

  By law, under the Budget Control Act, a budget is supposed to be 
brought to this floor on April 15. The majority leader would quickly 
observe that neither Democrats nor Republicans have always met that 
deadline. However, we are unusually late in the budget process, in my 
view, and despite months of promising to return to regular order, we 
have not yet done so as it relates to the budget, and the budget has 
not been marked up in committee, Mr. Speaker.
  Monday marked the statutory date by which the Appropriations 
Committee no longer has to wait to bring bills to the floor of the 
House because the majority has failed to meet its obligation to pass a 
budget on time.
  Now, again, I want to quickly note that both parties have failed to 
meet that deadline in times past, but I cannot remember us being as 
late in the session in getting to the appropriations process, because 
there really has been no direction from the administration as to what 
their budget priorities should be, would be, other than the so-called 
``skinny budget'' that was sent down, which, in my view, almost every 
Member of Congress thought was a totally unrealistic, unadoptable, and 
unworthy budget priority document; and if it were to be adopted, the 
security of the United States, both abroad and at home, would be put at 
substantial risk.
  So, Mr. Majority Leader, can you provide some indication? I know it 
is not on the floor next week.
  And I want to say that I join with the majority leader. The issue of 
human trafficking is one of the critical issues that confronts us, as a 
country, and the global community. It puts millions of young women and 
young men at risk--and not so young men and women at risk--on a daily 
basis. It is appropriate that we deal with this issue. Hopefully, we 
will deal with it, as the majority leader said, in a bipartisan fashion 
and that we will produce more effective ways to stop and to hold 
accountable those who put human beings at risk by human slavery.

[[Page 8117]]

  But can the gentleman tell me when the Budget Committee will mark up 
a budget and when we will have such a budget considered on the floor?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  As my friend knows, we do expect to receive the formal budget request 
from the President next week, which, as my friend also knows, is common 
for the first year of a new administration.
  Now, as the gentleman said, maybe this is later, but this is the 
latest in the history of America that any President has had to wait for 
a Cabinet, which is always helpful. He still has many more positions to 
be filled and confirmed, and as that progresses, I think actions will 
be able to move forward even faster.
  But, as is tradition, the Budget Committee has announced its 
intention to host OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, as the gentleman knows, a 
former colleague here, to answer questions Members may have about the 
President's budget request following its release. This will kick off 
the regular order process of the committee work on crafting an FY 2018 
budget resolution.
  Likewise, with appropriations, the committee is looking forward to 
marking up bills through regular order. Now, as soon as action is 
scheduled for the floor, the gentleman will know that I will notify all 
Members.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.
  With respect to the appropriations process, as the gentleman knows, 
there are 12 discrete appropriation bills dealing with national 
security and domestic spending. Can the gentleman tell me whether or 
not we still intend to consider, on a timely basis, discretely, that 
is, one at a time, the 12 appropriation bills?
  I don't think any of them have been marked up as of this point in 
time. Obviously, not having a budget would preclude that from 
happening. I understand that. But, as the gentleman knows and I know 
from experience of serving on the appropriations process, frankly, it 
was at the beginning of this month, historically, that we would start 
to mark up appropriation bills, with the intent to use much of June and 
July for the purposes of passing appropriations bills so that we might 
send them to the Senate for consideration and have some chance of 
getting them done prior to the expiration of the fiscal year on 
September 30.
  Does the gentleman anticipate that we will be considering separately 
the 12 appropriation bills between now and the August break?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. McCARTHY. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The gentleman will be happy to know that Appropriations has already 
held 47 hearings dealing with FY 2018, so, as we receive the 
President's budget and are able to ask questions of the OMB Director, 
we will continue to move forward. But it is our intention always to go 
through regular order and, in all cases, if possible, individually, 
down onto the floor.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, I hope that we do, in fact, get that done.
  Now, Mr. Leader, I was shocked yesterday to learn that the process 
that, from my perspective and our side's perspective, was 
extraordinarily accelerated, undermining the opportunity for careful 
and thorough consideration, the bill that is known as the American 
Health Care Act, or otherwise known as the bill to attempt to repeal 
the Affordable Care Act. That bill, as the gentleman knows, was 
introduced on March 6. It had not a single hearing and was marked up 
less than 2 full days later in the Ways and Means Committee, on March 
8. It was marked up on March 8 and 9 in the Energy and Commerce 
Committee, in the Budget Committee on March 16, in the Rules Committee 
on March 22, and brought to the floor with a CBO score on March 23. In 
other words, in my view, Mr. Speaker, it moved so quickly that no one 
could have given it thoughtful consideration. In fact, Mr. Speaker, on 
March 24, that bill was brought to the floor, was subjected to some 
debate, and then was pulled. The judgment was made that, apparently, it 
was not ready for prime time.
  That bill was then brought back to the floor some 2-plus weeks, about 
2 weeks later, on Thursday, May 4 of this year. It was passed on a 
Thursday, notwithstanding the fact it had not been noted for 
consideration on Thursday at the beginning of the week or in the week 
prior. It passed on a vote of 217-213, with a significant number of 
Republicans voting against it and a significant number of Republicans 
who voted for it saying ``no, I haven't read the bill'' in response to 
inquiries from the press.
  That afternoon, Mr. Speaker, there were buses out in front of the 
Capitol to take my Republican colleagues down to the White House to 
cheer its passage, an accomplishment of what our Republican colleagues 
had pledged for 6 years.
  Mr. Speaker, you can imagine my shock, chagrin, and surprise when I 
learned yesterday that bill has not gone to the Senate. Apparently, it 
has gone from one chair to maybe the other chair in the desks before 
me. It has been held, Mr. Speaker. It has been held because there was 
no CBO score to ensure that, in fact, it complied with the rules.
  A lot of talk about regular order, Mr. Speaker.
  So the bill that was cheered at the White House and the President 
saying ``I'm so glad this passed,'' apparently, may not have passed 
this House in a form that is consistent with the rules. And so, my 
colleagues, I want you to know that you may think you have passed the 
bill, but it is still here 2 weeks later.
  I am not sure, Mr. Speaker, why we couldn't have waited for a CBO 
score, other than the political imperative of going home and having 
Members be able to say, ``We passed the bill.''
  Well, it is still here, folks. It is still within the bosom of the 
House, warmly embraced, aging, unfortunately, not to perfection.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, I would ask the majority leader: When might we 
pass this bill? Is the bill going to have another hearing? Are we going 
to wait for the CBO score? And will another vote be necessary to, 
again, confirm the 217-213 votes?
  I will not ask you whether or not you think you still have 217 votes, 
but let me ask you: When might this bill be considered again on this 
floor? And when might this bill go to the United States Senate, as 
everybody thought it had on the 4th of May?
  I yield to my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I thank him for his long question.
  Mr. HOYER. But he got the point, I am sure.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Let me first answer the number of points you have made 
because I want history to be written correctly.
  First of all, you were shocked. I don't know why you were shocked. I 
thought you were going to say you were shocked that that exact same 
week, when you read the paper, 94 counties out of 99 in Iowa would have 
no healthcare if ObamaCare continued to go forward. I thought that 
would have shocked you.
  Then, when you wanted to put dates down and talk about hearings, we 
had more than 113 hearings. That is more than the number of hearings 
you had for ObamaCare.
  Our bill is less than 150 pages. That is thousands of pages less than 
ObamaCare.
  You talk of CBO. You know that CBO scored this bill, but those eight 
pages of amendments you were shocked by. You shouldn't be shocked to 
know the rules of the House, that you do not move a bill until the CBO 
score of those eight pages is done. That will be done next week, and we 
will move it right along.
  But let's go on further because I do want history to be written 
correctly.
  We marked up this bill in three separate committees, with over 18 
hours of debate in Ways and Means and over 27 hours of debate in Energy 
and Commerce. We debated countless amendments in committees, from both 
Republicans and Democrats, even the ones where the Democrats asked that 
they change the name to have some

[[Page 8118]]

hashtag. We spent hours on that, but we did that because we believed 
that was important to you.
  Now, our bill eliminates the many taxes and mandates of ObamaCare. It 
gives patients enhanced tools to take control of their own healthcare 
decisions, and it expands choice for Americans.
  So, yes, I am shocked every day I read the paper that more Americans 
are going to lose their healthcare if ObamaCare stays where it is or 
that people will even pay more, because I remember the promise the 
President made that our premiums would go down or we could keep our own 
doctor, which so many thousands of Americans found out to be a lie.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I understand politics. I understand the phrases and 
the adjectives people can use, but there is no reason to be shocked 
that we kept our word of what we would do for the last 6 years. There 
is no reason to be shocked that the American public put a majority in 
the House and the Senate and the Presidency which, I would argue for 
the main purpose, that they want greater choice in their healthcare 
system.
  So, yes, if I go to Iowa, I go to Tennessee, those 16 counties there 
that will no longer have healthcare--or what about Aetna? You didn't 
even mention them pulling out of Virginia. You weren't shocked by that 
either.
  But you know what? Eight pages of amendments that stayed out there 
for everybody to read--not more than 2,000--yes, we will wait until the 
CBO finishes scoring the amendments and send it to the Senate. Yes, we 
know what is in those amendments, just as everybody else had the 
opportunity to read them, just as we went through the Rules Committee.

                              {time}  1215

  So there are lots of things to be shocked by, but don't ever be 
shocked by: We go by the rules of the House. I think you should be 
shocked by the number of faces, the number of families that will not 
have healthcare if we did not act.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we have had a similar conversation before, 
and the majority leader would love to rely on the hearings that were 
held before this bill that we passed was introduced. The 113 hearings 
were on the repeal. This bill, as surely the majority leader knows and 
Members who voted on it know, was not repealed. It does not repeal.
  Now, it is said that the gentleman is correct that the insurance 
industry has been very badly roiled, and confidence in the marketplace 
has been very badly undermined by this administration since its first 
day in office, and badly undermined by the Republicans' continued 
attempts to repeal, and passage of repeal legislation that didn't 
become law, and so insurers have, in fact, lost confidence that the 
marketplace will be stable, an absolutely critical component of pricing 
their product correctly.
  The administration continues, as does the House itself and the 
Republican leadership in the Senate, to undermine the confidence that 
there will be a market. So, yes, Mr. Speaker, the majority leader is 
correct. The insurance market is not as stable. But almost everybody 
who speaks to that--and there is a Los Angeles Times story today, 
relatively lengthy on that--in terms of what steps the administration 
has taken from the very beginning, starting with the IRS, don't worry 
about the mandate. Don't worry about the fact you have insurance.
  It is like the automobile people saying, don't worry about having 
automobile insurance; there is going to be no penalty. Well, if that 
was the case, I bet you a lot of people would not have automobile 
insurance, and if they hit you, you would be exposed to the expense 
yourself.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, the majority leader says he wants to follow the 
rules. They want to follow regular order, and, of course, they will do 
that. My, my, my.
  Mr. Speaker, on May 4 of this month, why did we not have such a CBO 
score?
  He says we didn't send it because the rule will not allow us unless 
we have a CBO score.
  Frankly, I think there are some additional reasons because they are 
not sure that they are complying with the Byrd rule in the United 
States Senate, and they have got to see. So they may have to pass this 
again, to which the majority leader did not address himself.
  But there was no reason not to wait other than politics, other than 
to have those buses go down to the Capitol and cheer one another. They 
had no idea what CBO is going to come up with next week. So they did 
not wait, consistent with the rules. We should have had a score when we 
passed the bill. But that was not convenient for the politics of 
repeal.
  Now, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, has not told me when we are 
going to consider that bill again or if we are going to need to 
consider that bill again. And perhaps the honest answer is the majority 
leader does not have that knowledge as to whether he is going to have 
to bring that bill to the floor again because he is going to need the 
CBO score to make that determination. I understand that. And we should 
have waited, Mr. Speaker, not rushed to judgment.
  He talks about hearings. There were no hearings on this bill. One 
reason there were no hearings on these bills is because my Republican 
colleagues have been having town meetings, and they are hearing about 
the public's thoughts about their bill. And some of them are not having 
town meetings because they don't want to hear any more than they wanted 
to have hearings here in the House to hear what the public thought.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that the majority leader will be able 
to, perhaps at some point in time in the relatively near future, give 
us a clear picture as to when we may either consider this bill again or 
when we are going to send it to the United States Senate; flawed, 
though, it may be.
  Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to yield to my friend, the majority 
leader, if he would like to say something further. If not, I will yield 
back.
  Mr. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I am actually shocked. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but 
did you actually make the argument that those 94 counties out of 99 in 
Iowa pulled out just because we were bringing a bill up?
  Did you actually believe the 18 out of 23 CO-OPs that were given more 
than $2 billion pulled out because somehow they knew we would probably 
capture the White House, too, and keep the Senate and the House? So 
that is why it failed?
  Or maybe those 16 counties in Tennessee that were told almost a year 
ago that they wouldn't have healthcare the next year; somehow people 
could look into the future, and just because a Republican took office, 
that is who we are going to blame?
  I know President Bush is no longer here, but do we have to continue 
to put blame on others instead of having the facts?
  So let's talk about a few things. Now, let's be clear of what you 
asked me earlier because, I apologize, I got off--you had a lot of 
adjectives out there. I wanted to make sure that I had answered them 
all. But I am very confident that this bill will hit the mark for 
reconciliation and it will move across the aisle over to the other 
Chambers.
  Now, you talk about the House, and you are going to blame us for 
everything. Let's go to facts. They are not my facts. There is a recent 
report from Quorum, which is a data analysis company in D.C. These are 
bright, young people; a lot of them are Stanford grads. Here are the 
facts, because they just went and analyzed the first 100 days:
  In the first 100 days, President Trump signed 30 pieces of 
legislation into law. Now, that is more than President Obama, Bush, 
Clinton, or H.W. Bush signed in their first 100 days.
  Only once before in history has a Congressional Review Act been 
signed into law, only one. Now we have 14 overturned regulations 
through the Congressional Review Act, saving Americans $3.7 billion in 
regulatory cost, and 4.2 million hours in filling out paperwork.

[[Page 8119]]

  Now, my favorite quote of this report, this House, the one we stand 
in today, passed 103 bills out of this Chamber, edging out former 
Speaker Pelosi's House as the most productive during the first 100 days 
of a Presidency since H.W. Bush.
  Now, just this week we passed the Modernizing Government Technology 
Act, and I do thank my friend for his hard work on this. It is going to 
upgrade government IT to better serve our constituents. So if we are 
shocked, maybe that shocked you. Maybe we ought to stop playing 
politics. Maybe we ought to stop blaming things that just aren't even 
there. Maybe we ought to just take responsibility for where we 
currently are, understand that this is the greatest Nation on the face 
of the Earth, and it was ``. . . conceived in liberty, and dedicated to 
the proposition that all men are created equal.''
  No, we are not going to blame others for our problems. And if you 
want to go along that line, I can go into all of the things that were 
promised in the more than 2,000 pages of ObamaCare.
  But you know what?
  Today I live currently, and what I currently see is that 18 of the 23 
CO-OPs have collapsed. And the current law says we are going to 
penalize the people who actually paid the CO-OPs to get their 
healthcare, but they have no healthcare to get.
  I want to read the facts where more Americans took the penalty or the 
exemption than actually signed up for ObamaCare; that prior to a bill 
even passing on this floor--something we promised for 6 years--that a 
number of companies pulled out because it was not working. But the 
biggest shock I had all week is that somehow it is our fault.
  I could not look an American in the eye knowing the knowledge that we 
all have. I don't care what party you are in; you don't sit on a carpet 
that has red on one side and blue on the other. This is the American 
House. You know people are hurting. You know people have lost their 
doctors. You know they are pulling out of these counties. Don't make up 
some political spin to make yourself feel better for some vote.
  We promised we would repeal ObamaCare and give people greater choice. 
That is what we did. You disagree with it, then disagree with it, but 
don't lay blame where it is not true.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I 
listened to his comments with interest. I want to touch on a number of 
comments he made, however.
  First of all, in a very partisan vote from 3 a.m. in the morning 
until 6 a.m. in the morning, my Republican colleagues passed a bill in 
a partisan fashion--there were a few Democrats; not many--that passed 
part D prescription drugs for seniors.
  We voted against that. And then we took the majority. And what did we 
do, Mr. Speaker? We acted in a way to ensure that the part D 
prescription drug package that the Republicans had passed in the 
previous Congress did, in fact, work; and it is a success today because 
we did that.
  That is exactly the opposite of what our Republican colleagues did, 
Mr. Speaker, with respect to the Affordable Care Act. In fact, the 
Affordable Care Act, as my friend knows and polling now shows that over 
55 percent of Americans believe that the Affordable Care Act ought to 
be kept; and 75 percent of them, three out of four Americans, believe 
we ought to fix the Affordable Care Act, not repeal it.
  That has not changed, however, the Republicans' attempt and rhetoric 
to repeal. Now, there were a number of things that the Republicans did, 
contrary to what we did with respect to the prescription drug bill for 
seniors, to undermine and create this situation of which the majority 
leader speaks where there are some insurance companies that have pulled 
out, that are not doing as well as they should have and we wanted them 
to have.
  One thing, many Republican Governors refuse to join the Medicaid 
expansion program, adversely affecting millions of Americans.
  Secondly, they did not find the risk corridors. We knew when we 
established this problem that there was going to be a very tough time 
in making valid judgments on what costs were going to be two years into 
this program. We did not fund it. The CO-OPs also did not receive the 
support that was contemplated by the statute.
  The cost-sharing subsidies the administration has put at risk. Now, 
we were assured just before the bill passed that: Oh, no, we are going 
to pay for the cost-sharing subsidies.
  But the Republicans, Mr. Speaker, filed suit, and the court said: Oh, 
no, you have to appropriate those moneys on the cost-sharing subsidies.
  The majority leader knows--certainly everybody on the Energy and 
Commerce knows, and every Member ought to know--without those 
subsidies, the insurance companies will have mispriced their product, 
for deductibles and copays, in particular.

                              {time}  1230

  That, Mr. Speaker, is what I speak of, in terms of the actions that 
have been taken over the last 6 years to undermine the confidence of 
the marketplace. Everybody knows that confidence is an important factor 
in any marketplace.
  I am sure we are going to debate this again. Mr. Speaker, again, I 
would simply ask: Is this bill coming back to the House? Will we expect 
another vote on it?
  The CBO report is due next week. I believe that if, in fact, we are 
going to schedule that, we ought to at least be given notice that that 
either is or may be a piece of legislation that will be on the floor 
next week, prior to our break for Memorial Day.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. McCARTHY. As I said earlier, this is a technical issue. I have 
all the confidence in the world the CBO score will come back, we will 
meet the reconciliation number, and we will move it to the Senate.
  If my colleague wants to schedule something, I will schedule with 
you. We can walk the bill over there together. I believe the American 
people are waiting for it.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________