Legislative Program
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Louisiana, the Republican whip, for yielding.
On Monday, there will be no votes expected in the House.
On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business.
On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.
We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of suspension bills will be made available by the close of business today.
The House will also consider H.R. 312, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act. That will be considered under a rule.
In addition, the House will consider H.R. 987, the Strengthening Health Care and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Act. This legislation is composed of seven bills that would protect and expand affordable healthcare and lower prescription drug costs. The legislation consists of separate bills from the Energy and Commerce Committee to ban junk health plans, bring generic prescription drugs to market more quickly, provide funding for States to establish State-based marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act, require and provide funding for outreach and enrollment, and fund the navigator program that assists Americans during the open enrollment period.
All of these bills will be directed at trying to reverse some of the steps that have been taken to undermine Americans' access to affordable, quality healthcare.
Lastly, Madam Speaker, the House will consider H.R. 5, the Equality Act. LGBT Americans and their families deserve to be protected against all forms of discrimination no matter where they live. This legislation would ban discrimination against LGBT people in housing, employment, education, jury service, credit and financing, and public accommodations.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
The good news is, we just passed a bipartisan bill with 34 Members from my friend's side voting in favor of that bill to give very, very substantial relief and an additional $3 billion to take care of the storms and natural disasters that have occurred since we passed a bill to the Senate many, many weeks ago that, unfortunately, was not dealt with by the Senate, largely because there was a reluctance to help the Americans who happened to live in Puerto Rico to the extent that we are helping other people around the country as we should.
I agree with the gentleman. We had a bipartisan bill today. I am hopeful that we can have a bipartisan bill moving forward.
As my friend knows, the amendment that was offered, the MTR that was offered, was offered to an object in the bill where there had been already a substantial increase, with apparently the argument being made on the floor that that money was going to be taken from the place to which we appropriated it to another area to which it was not appropriated.
We had that somewhat, I want to say, confrontation with the President on doing exactly that, taking money from MILCON and wanting to put it in a wall.
Very frankly, there was the opportunity to do that in the subcommittee and in the committee. In fact, as the gentleman knows, many of his colleagues who serve on that committee voted against funding the level of Head Start that they wanted to make a $2.8 billion increase to.
That aside, I will tell the gentleman that, clearly, we want to make sure that we handle people at the border in a humanitarian way that is consistent with the American way.
It is ironic, I will tell my friend, as you heard in the debate, that today is the 1-year anniversary when we started a policy of taking children from their parents at the border, separating them. Some of those children to this day have not been reunited with their parents. We are very concerned about that.
One of the things that I know the gentleman knows is that when we opened government--the government was shut down when we took over--we included a little over $500 million for humanitarian expenditures for people at the border so we could treat them fairly. I think, frankly, that money has not all been spent at this point in time.
We do know there is a challenge for us at the border, with the numbers of people who are seeking asylum and seeking refuge. We are certainly, as the gentleman suggested, going to work on trying to respond to that in a bipartisan, effective way.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
He had a lot of facts and assertions in his comments. First of all, let me correct: He adopted the President's number. The President's number was wrong. It bore no relationship to reality. He picked it out of the air. Numerous fact-checkers have indicated that.
The facts are that $42 billion has, in fact, been allocated, $20.3 obligated, and $12.7 outlaid. So, clearly, there are funds that have been allocated, but not the $90 billion to which the gentleman referred.
Having said that, obviously, what held it up in the Senate was the argument over Puerto Rico. I mean, that is why we have been put to the process of passing another bill.
The good news in that delay is, we did take care of the Midwest. We put $3 billion in there for disasters that occurred subsequent to the first emergency disaster relief bill that we passed. And, as I said, we included $500 million when we opened up the government for humanitarian relief.
We included another half a billion dollars for judges because there are, as the gentleman knows, legitimate seekers of asylum who are fearful of their own lives, the lives of their families are in danger, and they are coming here.
The gentleman well knows there are some people in the White House who want to see the numbers of immigrants to America almost eliminated, so that there is some discussion and disagreement in the White House. I don't know exactly where the President stands on that, but he certainly has been hostile to immigration.
So, I take the gentleman at his belief, but we have not necessarily seen that from the White House.
Having said that, we will work--because we believe, as he does, that people who come to the United States need to be treated, for whatever reason they come to the United States, in a way consistent with our American values, in a humanitarian way.
And it is--I will repeat--ironic that we are debating this issue on the year's anniversary of children being taken from the arms of their mothers and fathers and sent hundreds of miles and, in some cases, thousands of miles away, and still have some of them who have not been reunited with their parents.
I am glad that there is concern about humanitarian treatment now. That is appropriate. I share the gentleman's view on that. Hopefully, we can reach bipartisan agreement in the very near term.
As the gentleman knows, the President's request was just sent down last week. As the gentleman further knows, we have appropriated money to certain objects. And we had a confrontation on that, and both the House and the Senate thought the President was taking money and applying it to an object which we had not authorized.
Then the Congress stood up for itself, in a bipartisan way, in the Senate and in the House.
Unfortunately, the President vetoed that bill, and he is spending money that was not authorized by the Congress of the United States.
We are having a number of challenges to the underpinning of our democratic system and the authority of the Congress of the United States versus the exercise of authoritarian power by the President of the United States, and I would hope the gentleman would share that view.
But, having said all that, we clearly want to get to the same objective, and I am sure the Senate--and I know, as I have just talked to Mrs. Lowey--they are going to review the request, as Ms. DeLauro said on the floor, see what the money is going to be spent for, make sure that it is, in fact, going to be spent for humanitarian relief at the border.
We are very concerned about that and, I think, rightfully so. That is what it is projected to be, and we want to make sure that that is what it is.
So, we will proceed, hopefully, in a bipartisan way and, hopefully, with relative speed.
But I hope the Senate, Madam Speaker, will take up this relief bill and pass it forthwith so that the folks who have been so damaged by natural disasters will get some relief and will understand that their Federal Government cares about them and is going to give them the relief they need.
I hope that we can move that as quickly as possible.
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