Ranking Member Cole Hearing Remarks on H.R. 8294, H.R. 8373 and H.R. 8404

Hearing

As delivered during today's hearing:

During today's hearing we will be covering three bills. The first I'll address is H.R. 8393, the Right to Contraception Act. The bill would create a right for individuals to obtain and use contraception and for medical providers to prescribe or provide contraception.

I understand that Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over this matter, have raised several concerns about this legislation, including that it may require states to unequivocally permit access to abortion pills rather than contraception, that it may require states to permit access to mail-order or telemedicine abortion services, and that it is so broadly drafted that it may imply a right to contraceptive products that have not been approved by the FDA. I believe we should have a robust discussion on these topics with our witnesses today.

We will also be considering an additional bill, which the Majority is calling the Respect for Marriage Act, on very short notice. Indeed, up until noon we did not know we were going to be considering this bill, let alone what the text entailed.

The Majority is once again failing to even pretend to adhere to regular order. That is deeply concerning. Instead of working through the committees of jurisdiction, the Majority instead drafted this bill behind closed doors in the Speaker's office and sent it straight to the Rules Committee after giving members just one hour to review it.

To say this process stinks is an understatement: indeed, this is no process at all. But given how the current Majority has treated the House this Congress, between fundamentally changing the way the House operates through proxy voting, to completely locking down alternative ideas, to writing bills in the Speaker's office instead of in committee, I should not be surprised.

We will also be considering H.R. 8294, a package of six bills covering six of the 12 appropriations titles for fiscal year 2023. As the Vice Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee, I've previously had the chance to consider these bills in that committee.

While I am encouraged that the House is moving ahead with the 2023 appropriations process, I have deep reservations about this package, as I do with all 12 of the bills produced and reported by the Appropriations Committee last month.

However, while I do not support them, I do want to thank Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro and Ranking Member Kay Granger, all of the subcommittee chairs and ranking members, along with the Majority and Minority staff, for their hard work on the appropriations process. There were a lot of long hours and late nights required to arrive at this point, and although the current product is not something I can support, that does not lessen my appreciation for all that went into producing the bill before us today.

As the Rules Committee begins to consider this legislation, I would first note that I wish we could do on the floor what we did in the Appropriations Committee. That is to say that I would have liked to consider each of these bills individually, on their own merits, where any member could bring up any amendment they wish to propose changes. This is how we have approached these bills in the Appropriations Committee, and it is a shame that the whole House will not get the chance to do so as well.

Second, I expect today's hearing -- and the ultimate disposition of today's package on the floor -- to be partisan. That is because these bills were written that way. They were intentionally written by the Majority to reflect their partisan priorities. That is, of course, the Majority's prerogative. But in order to ever get to a final deal, changes will have to be made.

Like it or not, Republicans in the House and Senate will have to have the opportunity to make their mark in order to reach a final spending deal. At the end of the day, the appropriations process is and must be both bipartisan and bicameral. And I expect that before the end of the year, we will do what we did earlier this year on the FY 2022 process and ultimately find common ground.

The alternative to a bipartisan, bicameral deal is a year-long continuing resolution, or worse, a government shutdown. Neither is in anyone's best interest. I would remind my friends and colleagues that a continuing resolution continues the status quo: it will lock in spending levels and will prevent necessary changes from being made to reflect current needs and priorities. That is bad for the country, bad for the Administration and bad for Congress as an institution.

I am particularly concerned that each of the appropriations bills includes partisan policy riders while omitting longstanding bipartisan policies that are traditionally carried. This is most apparent when looking at longstanding pro-life policies that have been omitted.

We went through these convulsions last year when Democrats attempted to leave these bipartisan provisions out. But the end result was exactly what everyone knew it would be: the pro-life policies came back in, and every single Democrat in this room voted for them. This will be what happens again this year, and the sooner my friends in the Majority acknowledge that reality, the quicker we can do our work.

I am also deeply concerned about the proposed spending levels for the defense divisions versus the non-defense divisions. The six bills included in today's package received a total increase of 11 percent over the previous fiscal year. Yet the defense appropriations bill approved by the Appropriations Committee has just a 4.4 percent increase, in line with President Biden's budget request but hardly enough to keep up with inflation, much less position American armed forces to confront the challenges posed to us in the international arena.

This stands in stark contrast to the NDAA, which the full House approved just last week, and which authorized a full $37 billion above President Biden's budget request. I think our course is clear, and before these bills can become law, the defense spending number must come up to be in line with that of the NDAA.

Before I conclude, I want to make two additional points about this package. I want to commend my friends on the Interior and Environment Subcommittee for their work and thank them for the funding support they have given for my home state of Oklahoma. As this committee is aware, in 2020 the Supreme Court issued a decision in McGirt versus Oklahoma that has had extensive consequences for the state, particularly necessitating additional funding for tribal law enforcement.

This year's Interior and Environment division includes this additional funding for tribal law enforcement, which will go a long way toward addressing this issue. Additional funding for federal law enforcement to address McGirt has been made available in the Commerce, Justice, and Science title, and I'll have more to say on this topic if we consider that bill.

Finally, I want to commend Chair DeLauro and Ranking Member Granger for the committee's good work in managing the process for individual Community Project Funding items. Each of the six bills, but particularly the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development division, includes these projects. Returning to this process has enabled members on both sides of the aisle to advocate for their own communities rather than relying on the good will of bureaucrats who may or may not know the realities on the ground. So long as this process continues to be managed in a transparent manner, it will continue to be an appropriate use of Congress' power of the purse.

As always, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today, and I look forward to a robust discussion on these bills. With that, I yield back.

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