Committee. Advisory malek of oakland, california. The speaker pro tempore the lays before the house the following communication. The honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam, pursuant 300jj12,. Section i am pleased to appoint the ollowing individual to the health, information, technology committee. Ms. Cynthia a. Fisher of newton, massachusetts. Thank you for your attention to matter. Signed, kevin mccarthy, republican leader. For peaker pro tempore what purpose does the gentlewoman from new york, mrs. Maloney, seek recognition . Speaker, ey mr. Pursuant to House Resolution h. R. 8015, and sk for its immediate consideration in the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the title of the bill. 8015, a bill to mainta prompt and reliable Postal Services during the ovid19 Health Emergency and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore mr. Chair, i ask unanimous consent that the speaker pro tempore the suspend. An will pursuant to House Resolution 1092, an amendment in the nature consisting of the text of rules committee rint 11661, modified by the amendment printed in the house and t 116480 is adopted, the bill, as amended, is considered as read. The bill, as amended, shall be for two hours equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority of the committee on oversight. The gentlewoman from new york, maloney, and the gentleman from kentucky, mr. Comer, each hour. Ontrol one the chair now recognizes the gentlewoman from new york, mrs. Maloney. Mrs. Maloney first, mr. Chair, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and and insert remarks extraneous material on h. R. 8015. Withoutker pro tempore objection. Mrs. Maloney thank you, mr. Chair. I yield myself five minutes. Rise today in support of the delivering for america act. I also rise in strong support of across e postal workers this nation who are continuing to deliver the mail for the ofrican people in the middle a global pandemic. He Postal Service is the critical component of americas infrastructure. Lifeline of medication, supplies, and mail all americans everywhere they live, especially in this need. F earlier this year, the postal to help. Sked congress they asked us for 25 billion in assistance to help navigate through this crisis. Other ke all these industries did. Usinesses and entities who received federal funds from congress. This was not a democratic request. From the Postal Service, and it was supported unanimously governors. D of all of whom were appointed by trump. Nt in response to this urgent request, the house acted. Said yes. We acted swiftly to help the Postal Service. Voted to include 25 billion in the heroes act, and we passed on may 15. Unfortunately, the president agree, and the request has language wished for more than three languished for months. N three and now, now we know why. Ecause the president told us why. He admitted on national blocking that he was the 25 billion in order to voting. Ailin thats what he said, and id like to read it to you. I quote, they want 25 billion for the post office. Need that money in order to make the post office work. So it can take all of these millions of ballots, end quote. Does not end t there. Postmaster general is using this lack of funding to damaging eeping and changes to Postal Service seen thes, and we have results. National headlines about delays weeks in mail, veterans desperately waiting for their medications, sorting machines being ripped out and dumpsters. Yesterday, some of my republican colleagues argued at the rules that there are, and i quote, no delays, end quote. Right. No delays happening anywhere. That laimed repeatedly there is no data that proves are real. Ys ut we have eyes, and we have heard accounts from across this nation from our districts in this nation, in and we have the postmaster general himself who admitted that there are in fact dela delays. Hat he feels bad about them, and that hes working feverishly them. Ress in addition, this afternoon, we else. Omething we have new information. Received new internal Postal Service documents showing fromnwide performance data july and august. Data. Al post office these new documents show that heard ays we have all bout are actually far worse than previously expected and told us. Across the board. They are across this nation. Afternoon, i am making these new documents available to members of the house, and i rge you to review them carefully. And they will be available on debate. R during this the bill we are considering simple. It does two things. Irst, it provides the 25 billion the Postal Service requested on a bipartisan basis during the coronavirus crisis. Returns delivery standards to the way they were postmaster general recently caused all those impact on ch has an the delivery of the ability of vote by mail. Issue. Not a partisan it makes absolutely no sense to dramatic changes in the middle of a pandemic less than three months before the november elections. Want erican people do not nyone messing with the post office. They certainly do not want it to be politicized. Their mail. Nt they want their medicines. Nd they want their mailin ballots delivered in a timely way. Exactly what our bill does. Reserve the i balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman from new york reserves. The gentleman is recognized. Mr. Speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the entleman from kentucky is recognized. Mr. Comer thank you, mr. Speaker. Rise today in opposition to h. R. 8015, the delivering for america act. This is the result of a process only lightly less absurd than the conspiracies, insinuationses and that gave the purported need for it. Just this second, the sponsor of has data now she that we can all receive while bill. Voting on the i mean, is this data from the whistleblower . With know your record whistleblowers. The process is broken. Regardless, were here debating bill to simultaneously to hamstring and bail out the service. We had no Committee Hearings or markups. On monday, we will hear from the postmaster general. After we vote on the bill. No sense. The result is deeply flawed. Fauci advised theres no reason americans cannot vote in person, citizens mail must vote by have their ballots delivered in manner. The postmaster general has pledged that is his mission, and before the senate, he pledged ballots would be delivered faster than first without rate increases. But i want to turn now and one one debunk the democrats conspiracy theories. First, democrats claimed dejoy is removing blue collection to sabotage the election. This is an absurd claim. Routine. Val process is he Postal Service has removed 5,000 boxes over the last 10 years. Under president obama, at least 12,000 mailboxes were removed, cried foul then. Econd, democrats claim postmaster dejoy is removing mail sorters to slow down the mail. They were slotted to be removed appointment. And mail volume is down 33 over the past 15 years. Third democratic claim is that the Postal Service cannot volume, resulting from the upcoming election. In 2019, the Postal Service average of 471 day. On pieces of mail each assuming all 158 million registered voters decided to volume mail, the total of requested and mailed ballots would not exceed a typical day total usps mail volume. Democrats claim the postmaster generals pilot rogram in the effort to reduce excessive overtime were intended to sabotage the election. Postmaster general testified he never sought to eliminate overtime. Instead he sought to get postal operations on time. So there would be less need to rely on overtime and reduce extra mail truck trips. With overtime costs of 1. 1 billion in 2018 alone, why wouldnt you try to improve on that . The fifth democrat claim is that the Postal Service general counsel sent letters to the election boards to intimidate and stoke fears. Letters were also sent in may, well before postmaster dejoy took over. The postmaster has only been in office 60 days. Saying what the u. S. Service has been saying for years. That some state election boards have deadlines and requirements that do not consider the reality of Postal Service operations and logistics and constrains constraints. A state allows voters to to request absentee ballots one day before the election why wouldnt the Postal Service advise there might be a problem. Sixth, democrats are acting as created by are dejoy. I have been hearing about delays for years. Where there are delays it makes sense to figure out why. And finally the false narrative that the Postal Service is running out of money and will cease operations before the election. Currently the Postal Service has over 15 billion cash on hand. Thats enough to keep it solvent until august 20 21, and enough time for us to do the right thing. Like the russia hoax and the impeachment sham, the democrats are manufactured another scandal for political purposes. I reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves his time the gentlewoman from new york is recognized. Mrs. Maloney first in response, this is not a democratic Conspiracy Theory. Republican officials from across this country, elected and appointed, have expressed their own concerns about postal delays and the president s comments. I now recognize the gentlelady, Eleanor Holmes norton from the District Of Columbia for two minutes. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman from the District Of Columbia is recognized. Ms. Norton i thank my good friend, the chair of the committee, for recognizing me. Even during this pandemic with most agencies down we had not heard complaints from the Postal Service until lieu de until louie dejoy was appointed postmaster general. On the contrary, our pan the pandemic had not kept our mail from being faithfully delivered. Almost immediate leif dejoy assumed office, pan moan yum broke out. For example in ward 8 in my district there was no mail for two weeks and the district and 46 states have been warned by the Postal Service itself that it cannot guarantee that all mail ballots will arrive in time to be counted. Mr. Dejoy did not tell the truth at the Senate Hearing yesterday. We know from a july 15 memorandum directing employees explicitly to leave mail behind d to significantly cut overtime, we know that from an august 7 Postal Service action that reassigned 23 top executives with decades of Institutional Knowledge of postal operations in order to centralize operations in mr. Deinjury. Know and will bring out on before this this hearing is over today. Why the post office continues to be sabotaged and i thank the gentlelady for yielding me the time. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman from the district yields back. The gentlewoman from new york reserves. The gentleman from kentucky is recognized. Mr. Comer i yield two minutes to the Ranking Member of the education committee, the gentlewoman from North Carolina, dr. Foxx. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman from next is recognized. Ms. Foxx thank you, mr. Speaker. I thank my distinguished colleague from kentucky for yielding. Mr. Speaker, during my time in this chamber i have two devoted myself to finding the truth and working toward good governance. That requires gathering the facts and exposing the lies. It is in this light that i rise today to oppose h. R. 8015, the socalled delivering for america act. H. R. 015 aims so solve a madeup crisis by forcing the Postal Service to double down on the very same activities that have caused to it lose money consistently each year since 2006. Then it gives the Postal Service another 25 billion to lose with no strings attached. Mr. Speaker, there is no immediate Postal Service crisis. Democrats manufactured this crisis and are using to it create fear and advance their agenda. The Postal Service currently has 14 billion in cash on hand which is enough to sustain operations through august of 2021. This comes on top of the fact that the Postal Service has not even touched the 10 billion loan that congress extended to it in the recently passed cares act. The Postal Service has many longterm problems but theres no shortterm crisis. If democrats were serious about ensuring the longevity of the Postal Service wed finally pass bipartisan measures like the Postal Service reform act of 2017 championed by former representatives meadows and cummings. This bill would keep mailing costs down, encourage innovation and not require additional taxpayer bailouts. Our current postmaster general dejoy took the job despite being vilified in public. He was unanimously select by the bipartisan u. S. Postal Service Board of governors. Because the board saw tremendous value in his decades of experiencing moring and growing a successful nationwide logistics company. He certainly had the qualifications to work with congress and take on the task of postal reform. Mr. Speaker, we need longterm solutions to fix the longterm problems of the Postal Service. H. R. 8015 merely aims to score political points on an issue that does not even exist. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman from North Carolina yields back. The gentleman from kentucky reserves. The gentlewoman from new york is recognized. Mrs. Maloney i recognize the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee on government operations, Jerry Connolly from virginia, for three minutes. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. Mr. Connolly thank you, mr. Speaker. I thank and salute my friend, the chairwoman of the full committee, for her leadership and bringing this bill to the floor. We just heard more of the same on the other side of the aisle. Denial and disinformation. I find it particularly ironic that my friend from North Carolina would cite the unanimous decision of the board of governors. Guess what . That same board of governors unanimously recommended the 25 billion youre declining thats in this bill today testimonyst interesting how we cherry pick facts. Mr. Chairman, mr. Speaker, i rise today in support of the delivering for america act. There is an ongoing and concerted effort to disrupt the timeliness of mail delivery and to erode Public Confidence in the Postal Service, all lead, if successful, to the largest Voter Suppression in American History since jim crow. The effort is being directed by the new postmaster general louie dejoy a crony and major donor of the president. A president who opposes mailin voting for everyone, apparently, but himself and his wife. A president who has called the Postal Service a joke and a scam. And who threatened to veto the cares act with 2 trillion for desperately kneed assistance all over this country simply to block this funding. On august 18, the postmaster general announced, finally, he put a hold on some of the sweeping operational changes that were not only misguided amidst a pandemic but actually eroded Public Confidence in americas favorite governmental agency, the post service. Nall a days work apparently for someone unqualified and unfit to begin with for the office he now occupied. By now, we should all know better than to take the administration at its word and despite the postmasters report red treat, the sabotage continues. The postmaster is still not advocating for additional funding for the Postal Service despite the recommendation by his own if board of governors. Hes not committed to using overtime as a tool in the pandemic to compensate for 4040 for 40,000 postal workers who was had to quarantine or gotten sick. He didnt commit to restoring sorting machines or reestablishing service. Thats why this bill would restore the Service Delivery standards and operations in place before mr. Dejoy took office. The postmasters announcement didnt include an agenda to support election mail that demonstrates a commitment to helping the Postal Service fulfill its historic role in an upcoming election in a pandemic. Thats why this bill will ensure mail is expedited as has been the practice in previous years. And the postmasters announcement didnt explain to the public how an executive could fail so spectacularly and keep his job. We still have work to do because the sabstadge continues. We must restore Public Confidence in the Postal Service and its ability to support vote big mail during the worst pan democrat nick 100 years. American democracy demands no less. Thats hour history. Thats the history mr. Dejoy ignored. And thats the awesome responsibility he betrayed. I yealed back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The gentlewoman from new york reserves. The gentleman from kentucky is recognized. Mr. Comer theres no e