Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20141211

This morning, we are asking you what you think about that 1 trillion budget spending plan. Give us a call. The numbers are on the screen. Also contact us through twitter, facebook, or email. If you havent had a chance to read that 1600 budget 1600 page budget, we will do our best to break it down for you over the next two hours ahead of the action on the house floor expected on that bill. Here is the front page of the Washington Times membersculation about of congress and what happens today and a few others with the spending bill. If you want to talk about what is specifically in that bill, turned to the front page of the Washington Post today with the graphic epics it down. That breaks it down. It does not include entitlements like Social Security or medicare. What it does include is defense spending and nondefense spending. Washington post highlighting some of that spending. And for more on that, we are joined by ed okeefe, the congressional reporter at Washington Post. Think you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. What are the mechanics of what happens today . We expect the house to do two things before packing up. They will pass this trillion dollar spending bill, but they will also pass a two two or three day extension. It is unclear in what order they will do that, but that is what is expected today. And then the house under the current plan is supposed to pack up and leave. We will see whether or not they are forced to return at all. But the plan is to go home and not return until early january when a new congress begin. It does pass the house and senate, where is the opposition coming from on both sides . Left and the far right. If you talk about the most liberal members, they are very upset about the fact that this includes emetic changes in Campaign Spending loss. They are also concerned about changes to the dodd frank regulatory reforms made in 2010. On the far right, there are those who are infuriated that this bill doesnt go farther to somehow curtail or block the president from taking executive actions like he did last month on immigration. Those in the rules committee are more closely aligned with leadership. Those who are more upset are saying they will fight this again when they have more republicans in congress in january and they can make another run at the president post both in a standalone measure and to block what hes doing. Then there is Homeland Security as a way to fight the president in february when that funding will need to be renewed. This point with these leaders trying to pass the bill before the government shut thine shutdown deadline tonight, do they have to worry about more opposition on the right or the left . Think everyone has something to worry about, for sure. Its one of those situations where we will be watching the final tally and there will be questions about whether or not both sides have enough votes to stop we might see some lastminute armtwisting. Leaders on both sides are pretty confident that this thing will past will pass with at least modest bipartisan support. That may be a challenge in itself. How many republicans . Maybe two or three dozen of the most. How Many Democrats . It depends. You could see two or three dozen vote against this, so then you wonder when where you will get 218 votes. There is enough opposition to this that its hard to see many of them being for it, though you could see a Coalition Come together at the last minute. I suspect every effort will be made to get this thing across the finish line so the house can pack up and go home. The i want to point viewers to your story on the shington post become Washington Post. Over the key issues as policy writers. How to spend money. For example, there is no new money, but there is total funding. Is 5. 4 billion dollars spread out across the bill to help fight the spread of ebola. There is more than 1 billion spread across the bill to deal with Young Children who illegally cross the u. S. Mexico border. That is where you will see a lot of conservative concern, that the government is spending money to help us kids when they would rather send them back. Of course, it actually costs money to conceivably relocate them. But apparently, they cannot understand that. There are cuts to the Environmental Protection agency and the Internal Revenue service. There is a 1 pay raise for federal employees and for members of military. A top generals and political appointees will see a pay freeze. One of the classic writers in recent years, the terror willnees at Guantanamo Bay have to stay put. They cannot be transferred to the u. S. Are things i portrait, no taxpayer funding can be used for those. They will have to raise funds privately. 150 million to fix the local d. C. Metro system. For whatlion dollars is going on overseas to help fight the Islamic State in did with russian aggression. One of my favorites, white potatoes. The potato industry has been fighting to be included in the women, infants command childrens program. Under this law, white potatoes food ornt as a vegetable. For years, it was kept out. And they will relax the restrictions on the School Lunch Programs pushed by the first lady. Difficultyving tracking down if they are having difficulty tracking of wholegrain meals, they can exempt themselves. Been are changes that have blocked by democrats and republicans alike. The big one is the changes to Campaign Finance laws that will essentially allow the nations wealthiest donors to give even more money to the political parties. The idea is to help revive the power and influence of the and the super pacs that have started to suck away a lot of the influence and money. Host if our viewers want to look at more on your big ten of this and what is in the spending this andook at more on what is in the spending bill, the Washington Post. Thanks for joining us. Leads thewarren democrats rebellion. Part of that would be the dodd frank overhaul. Elizabeth warren took to the senate floor yesterday to talk about those rollbacks. He is a bit of what she had to say. [video clip] and now the house of representatives is about to show us the worst of the government by rich and powerful. Behind closedted doors thats within a provision that would let derivatives traders on wall street gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when they are risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system. That are the same banks nearly broke the economy in 2008 and destroyed millions of jobs. These are the same banks that got bailed out by taxpayers and are now making a record proximate record profit, the same banks that are spending a lot of time and money trying to influence congress to bend the rules in their favor. Host senator Elizabeth Warren yesterday. Part of her longer speech on the senate floor. For example of the opposition on the right, congressman mcclintock, part of the budget took to thelso house floor yesterday to argue that this compromise would under bite and we can congresss abilities to fight the president s executive actions undermine and weaken congresss abilities to fight the president s executive actions. [video clip] women one of the fundamental powers is the power of the purse. I realize thats a very difficult thing to do with a. Ysfunctional senate but a temporary funding measure into january or february would protect us against the prospect of a Government Shutdown while week try to engage while we try to engage the senate to defend the constitution. And that the senate will not defend the constitution, im afraid that is a strong possibility, if you mix and Republican Senate certainly will. Why in the world would we want to lock in federal spending through next september that reflects the priorities of the Democratic Senate that voters just thoroughly repudiated last month . So in the world would we greatly want to weaken our position to fund the constitutional act in the next congressional section session just three weeks hence . Representative mcclintock from california to besting his concerns about this bill. We want to hear your thoughts about this bill. If you are for it or oppose it, we have lines for both for each of the opinions. Angelo is a democrat coming in from new orleans. Good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for cspan. Main point i oppose is senator Elizabeth Warren. They are just crippling dodd frank. Let thel go off and banks do what are derivatives . To be whatexpect derivatives are. Hedge funds love them. Cheating banks love them. Campaignthere was the from 30,000 contribution to 300,000 . My god, its a trillion dollar bill. And there are no amendments. Come on, please. For your question on derivatives, to point you to the wall street journal today, they have a q a on what this does and what those relatives are and what the issue is. The rollback is about the 2010 that spins off certain Derivatives Trading activities into units like Bank Deposits and the ability to tap into emergency federal loans. The idea is this if you want to read more, that q and day continues in the wall street journal this morning. Lets go to the line that supports this 1 trillion spending bill. Robert, good morning. Good morning, john. Aso support the legislation it stands, even though there are problems with it. As if we donts have this bill passed, we will have that Government Shutdown. And to be, a Government Shutdown would be disastrous for the entire nation. , a Government Shutdown would be disastrous for the entire nation. Host do you think that congress should have gotten their work done sooner . Are you concerned about this thing released 48 hours ago and it 1600 pages posted online . Caller i agree with you that it should have been done much sooner. It would certainly take a bit attention and concern from those like myself, who think the government needs to work on a. Udget all year round i think this bill is definitely in the right direction. It does go through next september. And the continuing resolutions dont really make it, in my view. We do need a formal budget every year. For brings some stability everybody, including businesses and constituents like myself. Robert, i should explain, this is being called a crime the ,us, a continuing resolution and an omnibus, applying to most of the federal government. In the continuing resolution applying mostly to the department of Homeland Security, which would be put on a shorter leash with car was coming back in february to talk about their funding. A few with congress coming back in february to talk about their funding. A few comments on twitter. We want to hear your thoughts on the 1 trillion spending bill that will be on the house floor today. Charlie is waiting in palm city, and hes one of those who oppose this legislation. Caller good morning. If you go back about 30 years, while megan and her Republican Congress passed the same thing on savings and loan collapse, which cost us a trillion dollars. Reagan ran the deficit to a trillion dollars. And in 1999, senator graham and his buddies in the Republicancontrolled Congress ran through an amended that melted down the glass steagall bill. That is what led to derivatives, and that only cost us about 14 trillion in real estate value. On im still paying on 8. 5 my loan to chase. And chase has just paid a billion dollar fine. And now we have in the middle of the night a twoday package that will slip through with exemptions forgery does and banks. If you are reading anything in the wall street journal, you might as well just are on the news on fox, because they dont talk about the details. Every time the republicans about on this, it has gone up seven trillion dollars or a toy in, like when george bush was in office. Or 8 trillion, like when george bush was in office. Im tired of republicans pulling this kind of garbage at the last minute. If you go back in time, wall street was after the savings and loan money. That 5 trillion went into money amount money market accounts and 401 k s. You dont see a savings and loan bank anywhere on the court. And then all the money that people had in real estate money. My condo was worth 200,000 and two out in 2008. Now i could not get 100,000 for it. Alone collapse, if you derivatives, and wrap up savings and loan collapse combat a few derivatives, and wrap up some bad loans and now we have us trillion dollar spending bill. Jenny is also opposed to this spending deal, releasing a statement yesterday saying this tea, waiting in florida. On that line of those who support the spending bill. Good morning. Caller good morning, john. Host good morning. Just turn your tv down and go ahead with your comment. I can hear you. Caller this is in a history class. Thisact that is taking long, its best to get this show on the road was of changes will be made when necessary. It allows changes to sabine made changes to still be made in february, as it will be come and allows this to pass. More important to avoid a Government Shutdown than anything else here . Caller its definitely more important. People will be upset if there is a Government Shutdown. Host usa today noting some of the items tucked into the spending bill the highlighting 17 of those. A few of the many provisions tucked into the 1600 page bill. Es is in western, and western new york on the line for democrats. Years tot took six drag us out of the whole republicans put us in last time, because people sit home. They did not go out and vote. They let these people back in. No one was paying attention. Thats what happened when the , no one was paying attention essentially. The nuggets up there and says he will help the middle class, and then one of the first john boehner gets a fair and says he will help the middle class, and then one of the first amendments they have is to protect peoples already, people who earned that money and have a contract agreement. And there is an epa cut. The people in virginia who had their water poisoned should be on alert, because they will have even less recourse than last time. It astounds me, because republicans have to root have to grieve this air and drink this water, too. They are not exempt from the consequences of cutting funny to epa. Host specifically on the epa cut, the bill would find a . 1 billion to the epa, represent a cut of about 60 million, 21 below peak levels established or that happened in 2010. Houston, mississippi, an independent on that line for those who support the spending bill. Good morning, jerry. Caller good morning. Forks first thanks cspan, and i mean that. Because without cspan, we would never get any objectivity and the poor people that dont know the constitution and dont know executive action from the house of representatives, we would be in worse shape than we are now. And its about as bad as ive ever seen it in 71 years, almost 72. Ive been here. I know what i know, and what i dont know, i dont need to know. We supposedly got teachers that are teaching, but they are not. They are teaching social networks and everybody communicates with strangers, but they dont communicate among themselves. Host jerry, what you know about this spending bill . Caller the government is in confusion because that keeps us in confusion because they know how to get rich the government to assess in confusion because they know how to get rich and we are not rich. That is what im talking about. Its not about the color of your skin. Its about the shape we are in and how we get in that shape. Pork opened her. Youve got to build the foundation. Youve got to start being a poor carpenter. Youve got to build the foundation. 2,ve got to start with 1, 3, 4. Common sense is what it is. If you dont have common sense, we will not be blessed. Jerry in houston, mississippi. The conversation happening on our facebook and twitter pages as well. If you want to check out the poll, were getting your thoughts that weve just posted this morning already. For those who oppose this spending deal, 100 votes to just eight votes in support. You can join the conversation there. Lets go to mark, who was waiting in philadelphia, pennsylvania, a democrat on the line for those who oppose the spending bill. Good morning, mark. Caller good morning, john. Of course i oppose this deal, being a liberal democrat. This is a liberal democrat nightmare bill. Where do i start . The derailment from florida come as far as the derivatives go, so my thunder there. From florida,an as far as the derivatives go, stole my thunder there. Also the human about the epa, i wanted to address that. , it ishe beleaguered irs part of the progressive era, the new deal. The progressive tax code is not being enforced. The irs the favorite whipping boy along with the epa and the republicans. Most is thes me the strategy with this. Mitch mcconnell mentioned it before he became Senate Majority leader, that the republicans were going to try to jam their white ring right wing progressive policies with the socalled must pass bills. My opinion is, dont pass the bill if it shuts down the government dont pass the bill. If it shuts down the government, so be it. Host Elizabeth Warren is leading some of the efforts on the left to not pass this bill. A little bit more from her concerns expressed on the senate floor yesterday. [video clip] i know house and Senate Negotiators from both parties have worked long and hard to come to an agreement on the omnibus spending legislation. And Senate Leaders deserve great credit from preventing the house from carrying out some of their more aggressive fantasies about dismantling even more pieces of financial reform. But this provision goes too far. Citigroup is large and powerful. But it is a single private company. It should not get to hold the entire government hostage, to threaten a Government Shutdown, in order to roll back important protections that keep our economy say. And thea democracy American People did not elect us to stand up for citigroup. They elected us to stand up for all the people. I urge my colleagues in the house, particularly my democratic colleagues whose votes are essential to moving this package forward, to withhold support from it until this risky giveaway is removed from the legislation. We all need to stand and fight this giveaway to the most powerful banks in this country. The and also taking to senate floor yesterday was senator Barbara Mikulski of maryland. She is the Senate Appropriations committee chairwoman. She was one of the negotiators on this budget deal. She went to the senate floor to talk about the budget deal, how it came together, and to encourage her colleagues to vote for it. Heres what she had to say. [video clip] the processly made work. We show that we could govern. We worked across the aisle. We worked across the dome. We practiced civility. We argued. We debated. We fought. Sometimes you give a little, you take a little, but you stand up for them all. And i want them to know that we were able to concentrate and compromise on what i call capitulation, or principal. I want to say to my colleagues, stay steady, stay strong. Host we want to hear from our viewers on this trillion dollar spending bill. Lines for those who support it or opposed it. Richard is calling in on the line that opposes. He is an independent from lake lasted, florida. Good morning. Caller yes, good morning, john. It looks like the republicans and boehner, Speaker Boehner, have stabbed the conservatives and the tea party in the back again. Two years ago, the tea party gave the republicans the control of the house. He said he would reduce the budget by 100 billion, which that has not happened. Now the tea party and the have given boehner and republicans control of the house and the senate, and they have stabbed us in the back again. Hes going to give a billion dollars to the illegals coming in the country, the children that will encourage more to come in, to educate,ouse, clothes, and health care and then find them jobs afterwards. Even though we have 90 Million People that need jobs. And heres something very. Nteresting i noticed the politicians in washington, d. C. Create their Capitol Police , they appropriate 348 million for a Capitol Police force which they have to have,owever 1775 men on the force arent to the help. Get a lot of these same people want to disarm the public. And on. S on we need to get rid of these career politicians until the people realize we have one party up there, and that is the money grabbing party. And the control party. Its going to continue. Host richard, to your point about spending in the bill for undocumented aliens, some stats for you on that. Immigration funding, and this is outside of any funding for the department of Homeland Security, which as we said will be on that that much shorter spending leash. Includestrillion deal 948 Million Dollars to provide health and Educational Services to unaccompanied children. The state department would get 260 million to aid Central American countries, and 200 14 million in there to School District dealing with the influx and 14 million in there to School District dealing with the influx of immigrants. Jack is on the line. Good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for cspan. The reason i oppose the bill is that out of 1600 pages, again, they give money to the undocumented aliens. And there is a little provision are enablingre they our large Pension Plans to cut the money to current recipients. Allst obligate fair after the years i just dont think its fair after all the years that we put in that they are able to do that. Pages, we have a link to it on the website. Here is the wall street journal noting for of the perks four of the perks wrapped into that spending bill. These are just a few of the provisions we were talking about all morning long on washington journal, but we want to do thoughts. Diane is on the line in wisconsin for those who oppose the spending bill. Good morning. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. I vehemently oppose this. I think we should just do one bill at a time when it comes to our country and shutting it down and taking care of the other bills by the democracy that we are supposed to have, by bringing them to the floor, voting, talking about them , we, theo the Public People who actually pay these people to try to do their job get a chance to see what his actual going on. Because without the sherman act, we now have places like fox news , who spews out hate and lies like of never seen in my whole life. And im well into my 60s. I know what im talking about. And in wisconsin, this is going on right and left. What they are doing in capitol hill is just the beginning of the end if we dont be careful command of people dont start listening to different channels , and we dont be careful if people dont start listening to different channels, like you guys, and with both sides talking at the same time instead of one person spewing out lies. Host david is on our twitter feed. A republican that is opposing the legislation for a bit of a different reason, here is republican tim murphy from pennsylvania. One of the reasons he said he is opposing this legislation is because evidence to access based treatment significantly improves the lives of those with serious brain disorders. He said this that is congressman tim murphy. He will be joining us on this program on saturday to talk about Mental Health in this of mentalhe status health. We are taking your phone calls for about the next 10 minutes or so and we will be talking about this spending bill through the course of the entire show today. Tucson, arizona, a democrat on the line for those who oppose. Caller good morning, sir, and good morning, america. Me ise that really upsets that we have my ancestors are american indian. And there is one part of the turns over the sacred land that belongs to the apache indian, turned it over to a Mining Company. Copper Mining Company i think thats so unfair to the people that were here the first. Host helen, can i ask how you became aware of that . 48s bill just dropped about hours ago, 1600 pages. Did you read through it . Caller no, sir. Cable for the the channel msnbc, iwatch Rachel Maddow every day. Rachel maddow everyday for step and she comes up with certain things that, you know, that are not in there, arente dont aware of things. And she mentioned that. , the american gee indians were the first ones here. Why do they want to disturb their sacred land for a Mining Company . We have copper all over arizona. Host that is helen calling in from arizona. The Editorial Board of the Washington Post today calling this a mess of a mega bill. In greensburg, pennsylvania, a democrat on the line for those who oppose the spending bill. Good morning. Caller good morning. Republicans are not working for us. They are working for citibank, billionaire donors, the koch brothers, and companies that plan to renege on Pension Plans for the average person. They will get their perky retirement patch uses paid throughout their lives retirement packages paid throughout their lives by taxpayers. It includes the vanity of a barbershop, beauty shop, worldclass jim, subsidies worldclass gym, and subsidies for his debate showed up for nine days of work in september, not a single day in october, less than a week in november. Hard. Ont work they are the laziest congress in history. And they shut down the government. Us would lose our jobs in our humble existence. , no way canges lawmakers read this and understand it for some its happening too fast can i because they dont work enough and they work in crisis. They wait until the last minute and now its a big crisis and then they have to get out of town again really fast. Is joanne in pennsylvania talking about some of the provisions in the spending bill, specifically the legislative Branch Spending bill. There is one part of the package where congress looks to fund its own operation, included the Capitol Police, its own offices command its own functioning. Here is the Editorial Board of the wall street journal calling the spending bill the way to govern. No way to govern. That is the Editorial Board of the wall street journal this morning. Barbara is an independent in tennessee who supports the spending bill. Good morning, barbara. Caller good morning. Sayst wanted to call in and that i do support the bill. Host why is that . Caller for various reasons. Democratsthat the have caused a lot of changes in this country. I do not agree with everything that is going on in this country. I have decided that i support it , and i do listen to cspan every morning. I dont agree with everybody that i hear on there, but i do listen to everybodys opinion. But i did want to give my , becausehis morning there doesnt seem to be many people that are calling in to support it. That is all i have to say. Thank you. Host that was barbara from tennessee. Tom is in champaign, illinois on our line for those who oppose it. Tom is an independent. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host turn your tv down and just go ahead with your comments. Caller my comment is committed seems like its undermining dodd frank. And giving these lobbyists, who know,ally worked for, you they are trying to give the banks the right to gamble our pensions. If they lose, we have to bail them out again. This makes no sense. This is not the america i work for. It. Oney, i work for i put it into a penchant for stability guaranteed to me. Into a pension. It was guaranteed to me. And for these you want to gamble my money away, i think i should have a say so. Work. Snt going to this is an going to work at all for america. This is putting america in a le. Le a ho the russians and the germans, and the japanese, everybody is going to step on us come and the chinese. Us, and the chinese. We are not doing what is good for our country. We are doing anti things to america. Host with all of the provisions that made it into this bill, Speaker John Boehner was asked about that yesterday when he talked about desktops to reporters. He said this. And of course, we are now talking about what is being called the cromnibus, the 1 trillion spending bill. We want to get your take throughout our entire show. Today, we have lines right now for those who support it and those who oppose it. Victor is in gardner, massachusetts, an independent on the line for those who oppose. Good morning, victor. Good morning. Thanks for this opportunity to express my opinion, sir. I wonder what kind of opinion in the American People have if they recall in the past 10 years as wall street successfully, basically committed a massive fraud against this republic. And now you have 2014 with ferguson,ng on in the the American People distracted here, there, and everywhere, and they slipped through this budget bill, which enabled the corporations on wall street to raid the Pension Funds. I think the american middle class this republic is being held hostage. As being held hostage by cartocracy that is looking more and more like a slaveocracy,. Have a good day. Host victor in massachusetts. Heres an editorial from the , one piecemes today in this bill relating to marijuana usage in states and the district of columbia. Thats what the Editorial Board of the New York Times today says. In the metro section of the wash Washington Times ponents threaten a citizen sitin. Anthony is in little rock, arkansas, a republican, and opposes the legislation. Anthony, good morning. Actually, im not. Im independent. I dont know who told you i was republican. ,ut i just wanted to say actually, to all of the Republican Voters im against this, obviously because of the rollbacks to dodd frank. The reason we have regulations is because people get out of control, corporations get out of control, and capitalism sometimes breeds greed. Ofve been through several these meltdowns sincerely 1900 and the banks have always come out on top. As theyre concerned, there are winners and losers command we the consumers are losers winners and losers, and we the consumers are losers. All of the republicans have circled the wagons to try to maintain some republican control over the country and they have set us up for failure. Anthony, independent from arkansas calling in. That is it for this segment of washington journal. Up next, we will be joined by congressman henney Henry Cuellar from texas. And later, we break down the budget plan with Stephen Ellis of taxpayers for common sense. But first, yesterday, congressional leaders presented the congressional gold medal to members of the air patrol for here is a bit of that ceremony. [video clip] 73 years ago this week, america was attacked at pearl harbor, eds leading us into a war that would define us as a nation. Today, we honor members of the air patrol with the congressional medal of honor, the highest expression of national appreciation. We are aware of the 400,000 servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice so we might be free. Many of these brave americans were the unpaid volunteers of the Civil Air Patrol. Provided extraordinary humanitarian and combat services during a critical time of need for the nation. And without their service, many more would have perished. Deare son of a b17 bomber bombardier and world war ii veteran, im especially proud to be here to honor the veterans today. My dad was my hero. And so, too, are all of you. Dangerousu flew missions, using your own aircraft to attack enemy submarines, nighttime tracking missions, cargo transport, search and rescue, fire patrols, disaster relief, and medevac. Notably, the Civil Air Patrol also served as a pioneering opportunity for our nations within to serve in uniform women to serve in uniform, including what i want to notice today, jane pace, a 92yearold Civil Air Patrol pilot for my community in texas who is with us here today and conducted surveillance flights over the gulf of mexico to spot enemy submarines. At this time, i would like to take a moment to recognize jane and asked her to please stand. [applause] jane actually went to high school with my father. Believe it or not. At the worldwere war ii memorial this morning, jane and i read a quotation enshrined in that stone that said women who stepped up were citizens of the nation, not as women. This was a peoples war, and everyone was in it, and how true that is. The memory and the sacrifice of the Civil Air Patrol volunteers has never been more enshrined in our hearts that on this day. My friend and colleague, igressman Henry Cuellar know he is here today, and we are both humbled to the still the nations top honor on these deserving patriots. Words cannot express the pride and gratitude we feel standing here in the company of heroes past and present. And therefore, we pause and we pause, indebted forever to the greatest generation. May we honor them by carrying the torch of freedom that they kept growing, and may that light guide the future of this great country. Washington journal continues. Host we are joined now by congressman Henry Cuellar. Before this spending plan and tonight, this trillion dollar budget plan, where do you stand on it . Guest i will be supporting it. There are a lot of things i dont like, but the overarching goal should be to not have a Government Shutdown. We should be able to fund education, transportation, the. Ilitary Border Security the other agencies are important to provide those services. We saw what happened last year. I am a member of the appropriator and i tried to take my job seriously. Host you say there are some things you dont like. Will offer ats better deal, or is there a better deal . Butt i hate to say this, the time has run out. The negotiations were made for some there should have been a little more pressure during these negotiations. But i see they were done by some of the toplevel folks on both the house and the senate, the Senate Democrats and House Republicans. You have to look at the overarching goal, that is, to make sure the government does not shut down again. There are a lot of provisions command im familiar with some of the provisions i put in dealing with security, dealing with other issues. That came ine some that were just a surprise to all of us, and you have to give a pro and con on the overall. Host what dont you like . What are you willing to live with in this bill . Guest again, there are some issues. I will tell you about what some of the democrats are telling me. There are some issues democrats dont like on the dodd frank position dodd frank provisions for some quite honestly, i support that provision. Some albumsecause in this area. Locally, marijuana is one. Again, im on the other side also. Thingsust one of those that a lot of people probably dont like. I know the pensions, the part were they were able to cut some of the benefits. But ive always said, when you of the year,nd you have one train that is running. People put in as many provisions as they cant. Unfortunately, this is the system that we work with. I dont like it. Host it is called a Christmas Tree of provisions . Guest without a doubt, it is a Christmas Tree where you get a lease provisions coming in. The old process where you pass a bill, you work on it, you vote on that one up and down. In this case, you work on one bill and you have 11 of the 12 appropriation bills with one cr come and then the other pieces of legislation that we were not able to pass, we put those infants up at this point, it does become a Christmas Tree. Host do you think you will need your democrats in the house to pass this bill . Guest absolutely. If you look at any legislation that has passed and im not talking about the messaging bills that republicans put. But if you look at any major piece of legislation, the republican majority has always needed democrats. They cannot pass bills on the loan, simple because they are a small group of folks that vote know all the time. Yes, they need the democrats. No on the time for some, they did the democrats. They dome think that not have enough to send up to the present executive order on immigration issues. Do you think you have enough votes to undo that . Guest and i will to why. First of all, this got to get to her november 1, 60 votes. Lets assume they do get to the president can veto. And if the president vetoes, they do not have the sufficient votes in both the house and senate to override a veto. Those two obstacles, especially the second one, they cannot. In my opinion is to sit down and do a bipartisan immigration bill. Whether we piecemeal it i would rather have comp rates of, but if we get to the goal at the end i would rather have comprehensive, but if we get to the goal at the end, i would rather have Something Like what we did with Ronald Reagan in 1986. Host you can call in. The numbers are on the screen. Our guest will be with us for about the next halfhour or so. Before we get to cause, one question for sub you come from a border district in texas. What was the reaction in your district to the president s executive order . This order affects the people inside. It does have an impact on some people i represent. But for us on the border, we want to make sure we do not have chaos at the border. We want security. This does not affect the security part of it. You could make it argument that could attract more people to come in, but as long as we have security and then the cr, the continuing resolution with homeland, that cost us. I work with the minimum and the men and women at border control, and the men and women at our bridges. Those folks understand exactly what is happening. Right before i flew over here from texas, i talked to some Border Patrol before i got on the plane. They were telling me about what is going to happen. It is unfortunate to see a continuing resolution. They do not like that. Stopannot go, stop, go, them and some of the projects that you want to do you cannot do, because you are doing funny for a few months. Appropriation the subcommittee that oversees Homeland Security, the 28th district there on the border of laredo and texas city. Lets start with comments in dallas, texas, on our line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you doing today . Host good. You are on with the congressman. Caller you are voting for this bill, correct . Guest yes, sir. Caller it doesnt make any sense why you would give publics republicans this authority to give the banks the power to go back and steal money from the peoples again from the people again. It doesnt make any sense for sub its like giving a bank robber a key to the bank to go back and plunder it doesnt make any sense. Its like giving a bankrupt rubbery key to the bank to go back and plunder again. Guest if we control the house in the senate, that would be a different thing, as you know. We are in the minority on the house side, so theyve got the votes. And in the senate, the democrats have the majority at least until the end of the year. The Senate Democrats worked out a deal of compromise. They came to a consensus on a lot of the provisions on how we move forward, especially because we wanted to avoid a shutdown. We saw what happened with a shutdown. Again, the Senate Democrats made the agreement with the House Republicans it was a work product put together and the only thing we can do today is vote yes or no. If we vote no, we have a Government Shutdown. That is not good for the American Public. My job is to make sure that we fund the Government Agencies and we dont keep them shut. Host you are a party leader in the house. Nancy pelosi quoted in the Washington Times. Expressing her concern about two provisions. She is quoted as saying that they are destructive to the middleclass family. Isgressman Henry Cuellar joining us to talk about the package that is being voted on. Grand rapids, michigan. Caller good morning. Good morning, congressman. I voted democrat ever since nixon. You are letting me down again. Is going to start and you are just as guilty as the republicans. That is all of got to say. Host what are your specific concerns . Caller excuse me . Host what are your specific concerns with the spending bill . Caller they dont look out for the little guy. Both parties. They just want the money. It just isnt right. Guest i understand your frustration. My father got a first grade education, my mother got a third grade education. They were pulled out to work in the fields. I am the oldest of eight kids. My parents even now just know one or two words in english because they never got to go to school. And her stand to grow up poor. I understand to grow up poor. What we have been working on is to try to go ahead and provide opportunities for the people that dont have those opportunities to start off with. But we live in a democracy. Democracy came out and vote for republicans and support republicans and they become the majority like they did in the house in 2010, that is a democracy. The democrats are in the minority on the house side. Be there hopefully not too long and then we will be back in the majority and we will pass legislation that will be important. This is a democracy. Go out and vote, whoever the majority is, that is what is going to determine the path of the democracy we have. The Washington Post noting potential changes and cuts to Pension Plans that could affect millions. This was something worked up by the Senate Democrats and the republicans. A hole for about 42 billion. A huge amount. Saying thing we are seeing in Social Security. There are painful steps we have to take. Cutting benefits is just one option. I think we should look at other options. Thosedont take a look at Pension Funds that are running in a deficit or even Social Security, im just trying to make the point that we are sent here not to take the easy roads, we have to take the tough roads and we have to address those pensions. We have to address Social Security, we have to address other issues. Mandatory spending is not included in this 1 trillion plan. Guest can i make a point about that . You are absolutely right. We are only voting on this 1 trillion or so. This is discretionary funding. The nondiscretionary funding makes up two thirds of the funding. In the Appropriations Committee, we deal with one third of it. The other funding is automatic. Eventually, we have to take tough decisions. Gentlemanan, a fine from the state of kentucky, he was telling me when he started 30 years ago, the nondiscretionary funding was one third, now it is two thirds. If we dont do something, all we are going to be dealing with this Social Security, medicare, the Veterans Benefits, entitlements. Thing, bute eventually, we have to look at longterm steps. Bill is up next in florida. Independent line. Caller good morning. It seems to me that this bill is going to undermine the American People even more. The people are still looking for unemployment extensions. The people in the post office are worried. Social security people are worried. The republicans are undermining the American People. They have undermined the American People since the day obama was inaugurated. They sat in the caucus room and said they would throw down everything that this man was in favor of. Guest ok. I understand. Partisanve become so that it is hard to get things done. It is very polarized for different reasons. Host do you think his view of republicans is accurate . Guest in many ways, they do and it of thinking is ok to have a different way of thinking. What makes things destructive in washington is that even if you have different thoughts, if you dont want to sit down and compromise if you look at the constitution, it was built on compromise by the different state delegations. Now it looks like the word compromise is an ugly word. When you can eventually sit down and work out the middle ground that is what is wrong in washington. Once you sit down with other folks who might have different thinking, you will come up with compromise that works for the American Public. Host you think this is how that spending plan was worked out . Guest it was worked out between the Senate Democrat leadership in the House Republican leadership. Theresa in dandridge, tennessee. Callers view the that republicans were reelected to go in here and stop democrats and stop obama from doing exactly what they are doing every time i hear yall on their saying they were elected to compromise and to work with the democrats, no they wasnt. They had a mandate from us to stop exactly what is going on and they have not done it and we are just as disgusted as republicans as democrats. Take my hardearned tax money that i worked so hard to give to this government to give 1. 2 billion to illegals to come over here, set up their health care, set up their housing, to assimilate to america when it is my money. It is my money i worked for. They did nothing to earn that money and you being the party of the poor supposedly take money away from the poor people and the jobs away from people in your district who need them and the unemployment that you cannot give anyone just to give these illegals 1. 2 billion. It is not right. I assume you are not native americans. Because we are all immigrants. You are absolutely wrong. Getting the 1. 2 trillion dollar federal budget, a little more than half of it goes to the military and the other half goes to Border Security. Host i think she is talking about the 1. 2 billion in there on immigration issues. To provide health and education services. Those are the unaccompanied kids. I live on the border. We are working on securing the border. , we haved comes here to treat him with respect dignity, and we just cant treat them away from people want to thank them, like animals, and 100 of those kids have been raped or brutalized way up here one kids have been raped or brutalized on the way appear. Up here. supporting strong Border Security, but once those kids are here temporarily, we have to deal with respect. Host i want to show you an article from the hill newspaper. Do you see another migrant surge on the horizon . Guest probably not as big as the one this summer. That was coordinated by the drug cartels. They came in. They were using efforts. Host do you want to explain that loophole . , it saysder the law that if people from mexico or canada coming to the United States, you can return pretty quickly. If you are a noncontiguous country, there is a different process and you are relieved to folks here and that is the loophole folks were looking at. My own party did not see it that way. I saw think it is the right thing to do to close the loophole. They were advertising and getting folks over here and charging them 5,000, sometimes more. The kids that we talked to and the folks that took care of them come about one third of those kids got raped on the way appear. Up here. Aboutunderstand respecting the law, but once you are over here, you have to take care of them as you get them ready to be returned to their country. Some other provisions in the spending bill. Unaccompanied children, 14 million in the spending bill for School Districts dealing with the influx of immigrants students. The state department would get 260 million to aid Central American countries to help stem the flow. In raleigh,charles North Carolina on the democrat line. Caller good morning. All, this spending bill , giving banks a break to do the ponzi scheme again. Thing, Speaker Boehner knows that he has to have the democrats in the house to pass this thing. If he just uses republicans, they wont vote for it. When are you going to represent the people, man . Host could that part be taken out . Guest if people didnt want that in, that should never have been negotiated by the Senate Democrats and the House Republicans. Host has anybody stood up and said, i am the person who put that in . Guest i dont think so. If you add something, you should stand up and say, i added this. Some news is already reported who, but i dont know who did. , be mandd a provision enough to stand up and say, i did this instead of trying to put it in. Stand up. We have two options today. Either we vote yes or we vote no. Im not going to vote to cut spending funding to our schools and our Border Security or transportation or health care. Im not going to vote for cutting that. Whoever negotiated this, if people didnt like it, they should have stood up and said, this is not the right thing to do. ,ost in terms of the provision did any of your provisions make it in . Guest those are the things that we added during the house Appropriations Committee. They have to do with border , they have tocers deal with how we work with countries like mexico to make sure that we have more intelligence, more working together. Added language duet add specific Performance Measures to every agency. If we give them one dollar, i want to know what they come back with that one dollar. I added a provision dealing with customer services, so that our agents country people a lot better instead of thinking they are kings and queens of an agency. I tried to add the Good Government provisions. Host thomas up next in frankfurt, kentucky. Caller thank you for taking my call. I called in to address an article that was written in the associated press. Host and he was very rude to me and cut me off. I want the people of the United States of america to know that Social Security payments are being made to not see war criminals nazi war criminals from world war ii who settled in this country and our government asked them if they would agree to be deported and if they would, they could draw Social Security. Which they are doing. I want the people of america to know what our government is doing to us. I think congress picked up the point recently. The nazi billl at host no Social Security for nazis. Guest if that is what you are referring to, we just passed it recently. Host lets go to fred in michigan on the democrat line. Yes, congressman. Good morning. You are only passing something because the Democratic Senators or harry reid, what happened when the Senate Bipartisan we passed a bill about immigration . How did you vote on that . If you continue to vote the way you are, why do you just become a republican . Myefinitely want to change support from democrat if there are more like you. You dont seem to support the people. You talk about the border needs. It is more than just a border need. It is the people here. Host congressman Henry Cuellar has spoken a lot about these immigration issues. Do you want to explain your votes . Guest as a member of congress, we do represent districts. When we take votes, i sit in the Appropriations Committee, when Education Funding for , that covers the School Districts in the area. Issues,vote on certain that covers everybody. We represent a certain district and that is the way the system is set up. I am a democrat and will always remain as a democrat. , i see that the Democratic Party does not have the best ideas and there are sometimes that the Republican Party does not have the best ideas. We have to look at how we get the ideas that are the best ideas that we can provide for the American Public. I am a democrat. Host you call yourself a blue dog democrat. Guest a conservative democrat. Host also a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus as well. Guest that is correct. Host lets go to waynesboro, virginia. Robert is waiting. Caller good morning. How yall doing . Host do you have a question about the budget and the spending bill . , i am more it about my disability. Is it going to be cut . I am on disability, i cant work. Guest again, if it deals with spending, mandatory wishes Social Security, medicare, medicaid, those funding we are not touching this. This is more of the discretionary funding. Trillionhat the 1 goes to. To the military and then to everything else, education, transportation, security, health care. We are dealing with the discretionary funding on that. There was the provision on pensions. I do know if you are in that particular one. The particular one is in their. Host this bill being taken up on the house floor today. They are gaveling in and about 40 minutes. We appreciate your time. Guest thank you so much and thank you again for the public. I know we have a lot of differences of opinion. Particular area, but everybody has a member of congress. Appreciate your time. Theext we will break down 1 trillion budget deal with Stephen Ellis, he is with taxpayers for common sense. A, politicalon q reporters share stories about being on the campaign trail with mitch mcconnell. 2010 rightrted in after he saw what happened in the republican primary for rand paul. Rand paul be mcconnells handpicked guy in that primary. At that point, he realized, i have to recalibrate everything i know about republican primary politics in my home state. Hestarted to make changes, hired key staff, he built this very sophisticated structure knowing that this would be the most difficult race in his campaign. Watch obamacare, they watched obama win in 2008 and 2012. They knew that they needed to go from the 2008 race. He was going to have the latest technology. In 2013, he said he would build the most thorough, dedicated team ever. In american history. He probably got there. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific. To mark 10 years of q and a, we will aired one program from each year. Washington journal continues. Stephen ellis is Vice President of taxpayers for common sense. The text of the spending bill has been out for less than 48 hours. What should taxpayers know about what is going in this more than 1 trillion spending bill . Guest taxpayers are still finding out. We are still finding out. It has only been about 36 hours. We are poring through it. Billre talking about a that is now 2800 pages long. That would be more than a foot tall and weigh about 30 pounds. Within 48te on that hours, lawmakers have to read that bill at a one minute per page pace. We are still finding things out and we are updating information on our website. It is a 1. 1 trillion piece of legislation. Are 521 billion dollars and therefore regular appropriations for the department of defense. There are 492 billion for nondefense discretionary. Then you have another 64 billion for overseas Contingency Operations, war fighting and extra money like that. Then you have another about 20 billion for other disaster and emergency related items. It is a huge package. I want you to explain the difference between Budget Authority here. We have heard reports of 1. 1 trillion and 1 trillion. Is that youhappened had the budget control act several years ago and then you had the bipartisan budget agreement that set the overall spending levels for both fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2015, which is what this bill deals with. That capped the amount of money that was going to go to defense and nondefense discretionary. That is where you got that. Emergency is is actually added on top of that and does not count against those caps. Host that is the overseas contingency . Guest essentially about 87 billion is overt sees overseas Contingency Operations. Syria, that, iraq, sort of thing. That is central to is what changes the difference. Act the bipartisan budget happened in december 2013. They have known the spending levels for a while. How do we get to this point where the budget gets released publicly less than 48 hours before a vote in the house . Guest that is a really good question and i dont have a good answer and congress should have an answer for that. They knew the topline number. Claimant is a 1. 013 trillion over number. They had a head start to write are 12ills, but they spending bills the federal budget. The house passed seven of those bills. Defendant has to zero of those bills. They threw up her hands in the summer and were not dealing with it until the lameduck and they have waited until the very last possible minute and they are jamming their colleagues and they are jamming taxpayers. We are not going to know some of the provisions until january or february. Host if you want to talk to Stephen Ellis of taxpayers for common sense, phone lines are open. Throughout the segment, we will show tweets from members of congress as they stake out their opinions on this bill. Jared huffman is a democrat against the bill. Then there is congressman walter jones, republican from North Carolina. That is his tweet with a picture of the bill wrapped in a bow. Representative keith ellison. Tweets keep bringing you throughout the segment. We want to get your calls. Debbie is up first. Betty is up first in fort worth, texas. Caller good morning. I have three things i would like to say. Ok. Im very old and i have been around and i have watched this country for a long time. We have been fighting this war in asia for 12 years. We are nowhere near the end. I think it is going on into infinity. Why didnt we impose a surtax to help pay for this war . It has been done before. It was done by the johnson administration. Host what is your other point . , i have three two things, number two, i am against this deal to take away americans rights to the indian sacred grounds. For them to go in and make money. The average person is not going to see a dime of it. Theer three, i am against spending bill. These are the people that robbed angry i am particularly about how they did that and they bailed out the Banking Industry and now they have slipped it in for all the other big banks and they will be paying for it again. Host we want to stick on defense spending for a second. She talked a little bit about overseas Contingency Operations. What else has taxpayers for common sense found . Guest one of the things that they did is that they added in fighters,onal f 35 the most costly Procurement Program ever for the pentagon. This is something that was not requested, is an additional cost of billions of dollars to be added to this already costly program. There are also issues on compensation reform. The caller mentioned some of the things like the mining issue which is on the Defense Authorization bill. Its a separate lands package that is tied up in knots. Some of the finding reforms to compensation that the administration was seeking. Also, we should mention the banking bill, she is talking about a writer that is on the omnibus. That is getting a lot of attention. Its something that could may be i think the bill is likely to pass but it is complicating the passage and giving more gray hairs to house leadership. This speaks to the nature of doing this behind closed doors. Very few people, most of the congress, much less the country, had no idea what was in this legislation until 36 hours ago so thats the reason why some of the stuff blows up in the leaderships face. Host when you talk about the generals and the pentagon did not request these additional 35s, do we know who the member of congress was that put that division in . Guest if you can imagine an acquisition like building these they gotten smart about spreading them across the country. There are many people who would be happy about adding these in. Its not clear who necessarily but thats something that we would look at some of the defense appropriators. Many times, people want to push more and more. Host other defense nuggets you found going through the 1600 pages . Guest there is added money in there for a very Weapons Systems and we are kind of digging all the way through that. We will be updating this on her website as we go along at taxpayer. Net. We have a rolling analysis we have been conducting that will highlight a lot of these issues and try to bring these nuggets to the public attention. Host we are taking questions from our viewers. George is up next from springfield, illinois, on our line for independents. Caller thanks for taking my call. Of may try08 crash read back and find out, i as many publications as i could and dozens of books and the one thing that i discovered and i believe led to that crash was derivative tradings. If we allow those derivative tradings to be covered by our insuranceance, the that is supposed to cover our past book savings accounts, we are putting ourselves in the position for the same thing to be happening again. Whouestion to you is actually which congressman installed this into this omnibus bill . How did it get in there with zero debate that im aware of. I just heard dick durbin say that the speaker could remove it no problems. Is that true . And to put it in there . Guest thanks for your call. Many of these things dont necessarily have the fingerprints on them. This is something that many republicans particularly in the senate have been agitating about after the. Frank the dodd frank. The one thing that is this gets back to how you do these back room deals with a few people involved, just the top leaders of the Appropriations Committee and the top leadership you had both the chairman or the incoming chairman of the ag committee, mr. Conaway and the Ranking Member, mr. Peterson, both complaining about this. Commit have Commodity Traders corporation in their jurisdiction. This is something that is in their portfolio and they indicated they had no idea this was going on, this change. You really have to see how some of these problems can bubble up. I think those are some of the issues. As far as what the speaker can and cannot do as far as removing something, it would have to be done, at this point, in the context of the rule that governs how the bill is debated on the floor. For instance it was set last night in the rules committee . Guest thats right, they would have to go back and redo the rule. There is a provision being added on to the omnibus through the rule which is a separate thing dealing with pensions and negotiations between unions and companies over failing pension systems. Host that is one that will get a vote on the floor . Guest they will vote through the rule. When you vote for the rule, you essentially a ma amend that. The issue is more complicated and its not necessarily a budget bailiwick but its in the context of how the structure happens. Once they adopted the rule, the rule is what they call a self actuating rule. It will essentially all of a sudden, the rule is passed on they set the terms of the debate on the cromnibus and added this package to it. Host from twitter we have been showing you tweets from members of congress as well. Heres a few more from members who support the bill congressman tom cole a few senators are taking credit for specific provisions in the bill. Senator parikh patty murray, a democrat from washington wrote it links to her release on it. Senator Sherrod Brown of ohio some members of congress are pointing out to their constituents what provisions they were able to make in this bill. Guest certainly, when its something that they can tout back home, they will certainly take credit for it. I have always thought that the lawmakers that take credit for the sunrise if you let them. Host george is next on our republican line, good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to be on. A comment in a question for mr. Ellis. Im getting friends of mine on the left of the right upset about the various hidden provisions of this bill. You have the dodd frank which angles angers people on the populist left and immigration surrender which angers people on the right and independence are angry about both. That is my comment. My question is do you see this bill and countering agency tonight or tomorrow based on the fact that oath the warren populist on the left and the conservative tea party populace on the right are both going to urge their members, theres more call their small call their small core of members to redo it may be over christmas . Guest its a legitimate question. We will have to see exactly how this starts playing out. Clearly, the house leadership is whipping the issue. They are up against a deadline that the government ends up shutting down or losing funding after tonight. That will be something they are going to have to wrestle with. Obviously, the senate will not be able to get this done so they will do some sort of shortterm continuing resolution at the same time maybe through the weekend to give the senate time to take this up as well. May actually provide a relief valve where people feel like they can stymie this bill and take it down. Appropriations bills in this congress will from the floor because of lack of support and a farm bill go down. Some of this can happen. Issue on thethe immigration issue. What they have done is this is not all 12 spending bills. It is 11 spending bills and the department of Homeland Securitys getting a shortterm continuing resolution until the end of february. I want to point out that while this is being done about is not just the Immigration Services for you agencies like the u. S. Coast guard, the federal Emergency Management agency are part of that and there will be on they will be negatively affected by the continuing resolution until february. Host lets go to buffalo, new york, on our line for democrats. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Say, thented to republicans have not done anything for us in two years. They are thinking they are talking about shutting the government down again . Like thatsounds nobody wants to shut down the government or few people want to. I dont think we are quite in the same situation that we were one year ago. That is a little bit different there. Obviously, there is this issue that because they have done this brinksmanship of appropriations in the last hours which got less than 24 hours before funding went out for the governments of the have to do something today. It might be pass this bill and do a shortterm stimulus resolution or something else. Possibilityre any that if the shortterm continuing resolution gets past that there will be time to orker with the cromnibus guest is that already baked in . Guest when you have done this sort of back room deal and shown plis youait accom start losing people in you take things off. Someone has wanted to have these things is very parts of the bills and now it is high profile if you remove that from the bill. You have to start doing the math. Do you gain more of us by removing something . Else inu add something or do lose more votes . Andy lose face . It host is a very complicate system. Host another tweet from a member of congress jim is up next from iron mountain, michigan on our line for independents. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Like to comment on one portion of this bill. I am strictly against this and thats the pension part. To me, taking and reducing Peoples Pensions is criminal. Independent and my first election i voted for Ronald Reagan. Through the years, i am getting less and less likely to vote for republicans. I am a gun owner and hunter. I believe in some of the conservative values but they are disgustingly and i would tend to believe this reduction in pensions is a republican idea. I think it is downright criminal. I cannot believe anybody would vote for this. Its not something that i am totally familiar with because its more of a budget issue. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation as to bailout pensions which is a Government Entity that steps in when there is a failed pension system. Not, iskage, like it or something that representative klein and representative George Miller presented so you have the chairman and the Ranking Member of the Workforce Committee agreeing to this. Oftainly, there is a lot controversy around it. I imagine that representative miller is going to push his colleagues pretty hard on this. He is retiring and he is a longtime serving member. Were itsmething else another issue that got tacked on at the last minute. It is clearly not an appropriations issue or not something that should necessarily decided at the last minute. Host a few other nuggets this is from the front page of todays Washington Post. Just a few of the many pieces of the 1600 page spending bill. Gary is in wilmington, delaware, a democrat, good morning. Caller good morning. My take on this is that when you are referring to what was in the bill, you said half of that goes a military spending. I am a veteran. I can understand military spending. Forver, we seem to take granted that when you say military spending, thats just it. We should have more detailed information on military spending. Vets thefor giving the services that are needed. I am all for having the troops funded as they should be. However, it seems to me that we are putting more on our war chest instead of more on our piece chest. Jobs,ece just would be things that would promote the democratic ideals that we want to show the world regarding our enemies have many Different Things they disagree on on all it takes is a little bit of conversation as opposed to a whole lot more of my taxes being spent. Guest essentially, we have more than half of this bill is defense spending. The former defense secretary gates indicated if you cannot defend the country on have a trillion dollars, youre doing something wrong. Clearly, there is more than half 1 trillion in here because you add in all the overseas Contingency Operation and you glut and you get closer to 600 billion. Host the defense spending does not necessarily include Veterans Benefits. Guest right, is not included in that amount. Thats correct. Thats an issue and thats going talkingust like with about Social Security and medicare, you have a demographic with of Veterans Benefits and that will be a challenge. We saw some of the shortcomings there. My father is a career naval officer so those issues with the coast guard are acute and something we have to deal with particularly with many people coming home and the men and women who have been fighting our wars overseas and dealing with those issues. Host more on defense spending that is from the 17 items highlighted from usa today. Pamela is in ohio on our line for republicans, good morning. Bill this on the buzz this on the this bill and the government cutting into the pensions host what was your question . Caller i sent my biggest thing cutm is them trying to into retirees pensions. It will cut into federal Government Spending because they cut down the Pension Funds and they will put a lot of people in jeopardy and it will be a trickledown effect. It will hurt the economy bigtime because there is not going to be money spent at restaurants and stores. Sold. Rs will not be host is it worth risking a Government Shutdown to get that provision taken out of this bill . Caller i have relatives in the military. Seen them come home with post Traumatic Stress disorder. Lost and i limbs have had uncles that served with my father. He was always a union member as i was. My husband was a union member. Unfortunately, he has a disease and he cannot work. I have seizures four times per month. I want to give you a chance to talk about another issue raised just raising eyebrows. Whats being described as a fundraising windfall for parties that is in the spending bill, the new provisions related to Party Fundraising. That this is something will dramatically increase the amount of money that individuals can give to the party structure. This is also causing some heartburn among lawmakers. Its something i would imagine incoming Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell has been very active against the Campaign Finance provisions in the past and he is engaged in. I would say the two things that are catching peoples attention on this are the ones we have talked about which is the banking, the derivatives provision, and this provision. Whether those are enough to take down the bill, its not really clear. Whatt to be clear about the last caller said for it when they talk about pensions, these are private pension through companies. It is not necessarily the military pensions. When somebody retires from the military. Those are all legitimate issues that have to be dealt with. Host on the Party Fundraising a couple can give as much as 3. 1 million to the parties very National Committees and one election cycle which would be more than triple the current limit. That is the Washington Post story. North carolina, an independent caller caller good morning, i wanted to call to try to set some of these people straight. First of all, this bill has been put together by leaders of the senate and the leaders of the house. You always have the bottom rung radicals on both sides. This bill will pass. Its not the greatest thing in the world but they did make concessions to each other on the bill. Secondly, when it comes to pensions, they are only talking about giving the unions these are unions from the electrical workers ,the seiu, the right to be able to vote to take less money in their pensions so their Pension Plans will survive. Over the years, they have been given crazy amounts in their pension plan. That money is drying up and the main deal with that vote is strictly about giving the Union Members themselves the right to new type ofe a tension even if its smaller than the other. It has nothing to do with most federal Pension Plans. Host we will have an entire talkingtomorrow morning about pensions and how they are dealt with in the spending bill. I will let you respond to this from my understanding, he is largely correct. Its not necessarily our bailiwick. He is right, this is something that was negotiated by the democratic majority in the senate and the republican majority in the house and it involved what people called the big four, the chairman and ranking of the Preparations Committee in the house in the house and the senate and the leadership. You are still talking about a deal that was cut by a very small group of people. We have 535 members of congress so that will cause some heartburn as people are left out. I think those are some of the real issues. We talked before about some of the defense items. Is of the things that is not not allowing the department of defense to do what they want to do. There is a requirement that they refuel the uss George Washington which is an Aircraft Carrier and halfway through nuclear Aircraft Carriers. They have to redo the Nuclear Power provisions. There are also issues about retiring cruisers and things along those lines. Some of things the military was trying to do to save money was is being stymied by congress because they want to keep these. Host explain why they would want it to refuel. There is a provision to keep 11 Aircraft Carriers. Those people want to keep those jobs and it will happen at a shipyard. Is about trying to keep that base. We have another ford class Aircraft Carrier coming in the future. The navy was saying in the shortterm they could retire one and get a new one in a few years. Host lets go to roger, greensboro, North Carolina, on our line for democrats. Opportunity ton listen to the house and Senate Debates on this bill and its amazing how impressed they are with themselves coming up with this mess in the 11th hour. As far as complex issues are concerned, we figured out how to new bushess savings and loan collapse and we figured out a way to bailout george bushs real estate wall street collapse and we figured out a way to fund dick cheney two wars but when it comes to the middleclass workers who have worked 30 years for Pension Plans, the only solution they could come up with is to cut their pensions. Its not going to be a vote by the members. It will be a decision by the trustees. That is the reality of it. Congratulations congress, you are impressed with yourself. Host do you want to comment on that . Guest there is some members of congress who are kind of disgusted with this whole process as well and i dont think everybody is patting themselves on the back was certainly some lawmakers are. End, it is a 1. 1 trillion package. They stuck to the top line numbers at least for the regular appropriations. Bitoco is probably a padded. We have had some issues that they have added money in their the probably should have been in the base budget to give them more wiggle room and helped evade the caps. If you look at the Congressional Budget Office score of the bill, when you look at the overseas Contingency Operations, its 160 billion in Budget Authority, youre looking at of 30 billion of that that will be expended in the next year. Host we asked our viewers on facebook what they thought of the budget deal and whether they would oppose it or supported. And eight oppose, support and now its close to 200 oppose, and 13 supporting it. Lets go to california on our line for independents. Caller good morning. I grew up in a Farming Community out here in fresno, california. I have watched the demographics change so much the last 30 years. We dont need to enforce the border. We just need to enforce the laws we have very we need to go after the employers hiring illegals because they have been systematically laying off American Workers for the last 30 years. I am a carpenter. I used to work an average of nine months out of the year. If the weather was good. I have not they built a house in almost five or six years and i cannot get a contractor to hire me and if i do, he wants to pay me 10 per hour which is a slap in the face. I was making over 20 per hour in the late 1980s. Ronald reagan pretty much with thisl this capitalism fat. To change things and it looks like they are not going to. It will keep going the way its been going. Michigan on outline for democrats, good morning. Caller good morning. Programoking at your and im a veteran. You people are giving away all this money to other countries. Why dont you take care of the veterans because we are the ones that supported this country and set things up the way they are and you dont want to take care and you want to cut Peoples Pensions and all this stuff. These are people who worked hard. This is not right. I dont see how they can live with themselves. Thank you and goodbye. To explainu want what taxpayers for common sense does . Guest we are a national nonpartisan budget watchdog. These piecesscour of legislation and put this information out there. We have a case for a government that lives within its means and operates within its means. We readto think that this piece of legislation and try to expose various provisions a major there is an educated public and congress an advocate for common sense positions. The money in this bill thats going to other countries and aid . Guest thank you for your service to the last caller. I have been in the coast guard and i have shipments that are still active duty. My father also was career navy. I understand where he is coming from and some of the concerns with the issues that happened with veterans affairs. Those are real issues we are dealing with and we will continue to deal with for decades to come because weve got all these men and women coming back wounded and affected by the wars. That is a huge issue and it will be a huge and costly issue we will have to deal with. As far as foreign aid, it is a relatively small percentage of the budget thats optimal to the things you hear is cut foreign aid but you are talking about, in normal years and i cannot say specifically in this one, maybe 1 or less of the budget. Were not going to be altered balance the checkbook on the backs of foreign aid to other countries. Lets try to get in richard from omaha, nebraska come on our line for democrats before the house comes in this morning. Caller good morning, i was wondering if you could comment on the risk of not having a regulated derivative market that seems to remember represent 1. 2 quadrillion dollars. This is not necessarily our bailiwick. If you look at the issues that happened in 2008 and the creation of tarp and the troubled asset relief program, it has taxpayer implications. You would want to have the people who are the most engage in this issue like the chairman and Ranking Member to actually get involved in this. Certainly, these are things you worry about wayne of these lastminute deals thrown together in the back room and then sprung upon not just the American Public but sprung upon the vast majority of the house and senate, forcing them to vote in 48 hours on it is of legislation. We keep talking about it being a 1600 page bill but really, its a 2800 page bill because you got 1200 pages of explanatory material that tells you whats in the bill. The legislation is literally legalese. The support language tries to explain more about it. Host taxpayers for common sense and you can look at their work at taxpayer. Net. We appreciate your time and now take our viewers live to the house floor for todays session. Washington, d. C. , december 11, 2014. I hereby appoint the honorable Jack Kingston to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, john a. Boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. Haplain conroy let us pray. God of the universe, we give you thanks for giving us another day. As the members of the peoples house gather on this final day of the 113th congress, we ask your blessing upon them. May our nations citizens be fwreafl for their service rend grateful for their service rendered these past two years but also justified in their hope that those returning for the new congress and those joining them will move toward ever greater accomplishments to benefit our great nation. For the failures of the past two years, whatever their cause, we ask your forgiveness and seek your assurance that it is your love that calls us to correcting all failures, not fear of your anger. Bless as well those who leave congress this day, may they be successful and productive in whatever their future endeavors. May all that is done this day be for your greater honor and glory. Amen. The speaker pro tempore the chair has examined the journal of the last days proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. Pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1 the journal stands approved. For what purpose does the gentleman from South Carolina rise and seek recognition . Mr. Wilson mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, i demand a vote on agreeing to the speakers approval of the journal. The speaker pro tempore the question is on agreeing to the speakers approval of the journal. Those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. The ayes have it. The journal stands approved. The gentleman from South Carolina. Mr. Wilson mr. Speaker, i object to the vote on the grounds that a quorum is not present and i make a point of order that a quorum is not present. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this question will be postponed. The pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from ohio, mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson please join me. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The speaker pro tempore the chair will entertain up to five requests for oneminute speeches on each side of the aisle. For what purpose does the gentleman from South Carolina seek recognition . Mr. Wilson mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Mr. Wilson mr. Speaker, for over six years, the constituents of the second Congressional District of South Carolina have been extremely fortunate to have Caroline Delaney working for them. Caroline has been scheduler of the office since 2008 and over the past two years has served tirelessly as communications director. When tasked with this challenge, caroline not only succeeded but exceled. She established and fulfilled the goal of being accessible and accountable. At the end of the year, caroline will be returning to South Carolina to coordinate communications for the incoming speaker of the state house, jay lucas of darlington, while i will miss carolines dedication to the job and ever cheerful personality, i know she will do a great job for Speaker Lucas and the people of South Carolina. Caroline is truly a credit to her dedicated parents, becky and greg delaney of chester, South Carolina. As she moves to the capital city of columbia, home of her alma mater, university of South Carolina, she will do her best. I look forward to serving her as she will now be a constituent of the second district. In conclusion, god bless our troops and the president by his actions should never forget september 11 and the global war on terrorism. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. For what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition . Without objection. Mr. Miller mr. Speaker, on april 24, threen, the world witnessed the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment history. An eight Story Building just outside bangladeshs capital collapsed. 1,138 people were killed and ver 2,500 more were injured. Just five months earlier, at least 12 people were killed when they left from the burning building in another factory these tragedies laid bear of the broken government, failed Corporate Responsibility and the powerlessness of the garment workers. They also left nearly 4,000 survivors, families of the victims in need of longterm compensation. Many of the survivors are unable to find work, struggling with physical disabilities, mental trauma that could last for a lifetime. The injured workers and their families lost loved ones and many of them their only income earner is trying to survive economic impofferment in addition to the painful memories. The National Labor organization helped set up compensation funds. Labor groups of the government and several prominent retailers and brands whose source from bangladesh committed funds to the deaths. Two years after the fire, an agreement has also been reached and compensation of these survivors. The Donors Trust Fund needs an estimated 40 million to provide for survivors and victims families, but as of last month, they finally collected 22 million, barely half the amount. Injured workers and victims families are being shortchanged. Nearly 40 global garment brands have recent or current orders in the five garment factories in the plaza when they collapsed. They owe better compensation to the victims of their carelessness. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. For what purpose does the gentleman from North Carolina seek recognition . Mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks and the house is not in order. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Mr. Holding mr. Speaker, the house is not in order. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman will suspend. He house will come to order. The gentleman will continue. Mr. Holding mr. Speaker, i rise today in recognition of will crocker, longtime Johnson County clerk of the superior court who is retiring this month after decades of public service. For over 36 years, will helped thousands of people, judges and attorneys navigate the court system in johnsonton county. He first began his job in 1959 as clerk of selma recorded record and then later as assistant clerk of in 1967. He served with professionalism since winning his election in 1978 and is the longest serving clerk in the state of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, will is truly the will of the people. His knowledge of johnsonton county history and politics is second to none, and when will isnt eating isnt at the coffee pot, he spends his night watching cspan. Mr. Speaker, will is one of a kind and leaves a Lasting Legacy in the history of johnsonton county. I wish him good health and happiness in his retirement and with that, mr. Speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. For what purpose does the gentlewoman from connecticut seek recognition . Mr. Speaker, i rise to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise today with a heavy heart to honor and remember the 20 innocent children and six brave educators gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in newtown in my district two years ago. The community of newton has asked us all to honor their memory with acts of kindness. Theyve asked us to honor with action. So i urge you to take a moment out of this busy Holiday Season and to volunteer at a local soup kitchen or to buy Holiday Gifts for needy families. Lets honor with action with acts of kindness this week, and with action in congress that makes our world safer for all our children. Our hearts are broken but our spirit is not. Thank you and i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman yields back. For what purpose does the gentleman from ohio seek recognition . Mr. Johnson i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Mr. Johnson mr. Speaker, the house is still not in order. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman will suspend. He house will come to order. The gentleman will continue. Mr. Johnson mr. Speaker, i rise today on behalf of the hardworking people of eastern and Southeastern Ohio to share their stories since they began experiencing president obamas health care law. Ive heard many of those from those i represent who have seen an increase in their health care premiums, lost their doctors and were forced out of the plans that they liked, even after they were told by president obama that if they liked their health plan they could keep it. Alice of dennison, ohio, contacted my office and let me know that her Insurance Premium went from 235 to 520 a month. More than doubling. Alice told me she goes to bed at night wondering how shell pay for the increased premiums. But alice isnt alone. Her story is just one of the many stories from ohio that i received. We must continue to fight this misguided law and work to return control and choice of health care to the American People. Hardworking americans deserve better than obamacare. And with that i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. For what purpose does the gentleman from washington seek recognition . I ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise today to recognize the Outstanding Service of dr. Pamela who has served as Tacoma Community colleges president for 17 years. Mr. Kilmer she has established a successful learning environment that has opened doors of opportunity for its students. Under her tenure, Tacoma Community college has become a more vibeant and modern place and her efforts have brought the college recognition. I saw firsthand how she helped shape the lives of countless students. Alongside her service as president , shes also been actively engaged in the community, whether giving a speech at the metropolitan Development Council breakfast, she has long recognized that education and job growth and selfsufficiency all go hand in hand. The doctor will retire at the close of this year and with her retirement she will be one of the longest serving president s in Higher Education in washington states history, serves at Tacoma Community colleges president for almost one third of the colleges,istens. Her nearly two decades as colleges existence. Her nearly two decades as president has impacted our economy and generations young and old. Im pleased to recognize her Service Today in the United States congress. Thank you, mr. Speaker. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. For what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition . I ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. Thank you, mr. Speaker. Today id like to recognize and thank phil hogan, josh allen, james Weston Abbott and Shay Lassiter for their work of the electric in my district. Mr. Westmoreland they initiated a partnership for the gentlemen to travel to costa ricas volunteer for the National Rural electric cooperative Association International foundation. They helped construct an electric Distribution System and worked alongside employees at the electric coop in the town there. Their efforts included extending access to electricity for families in this community. Electricity is a critical element in improving the quality of life and enables Better Health care, education, clean water and other vital services. These men also shared safety and best construction practices with the costa rican cooperative employees. Nreca international has been active in Rural Electric development in costa rica since 1963. The four electric cooperatives in costa rica serve approximately 750,000 folks. Thanks to these volunteers, more families in the world now have a chance for a better life. Thank you, phil hogan, josh allen, james Weston Abbott and shae lasster for your hard work and descation. Mr. Speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. For what purpose does the gentlewoman from california seek recognition . I ask for alaska to address the house for one minute. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. Ms. Lee thank you. Mr. Speaker, december 15 will mark the oneyear anniversary of the conflict in south sudan. Since fighting broke out last december, a humanitarian crisis has plagued this young nation. Almost two Million People have been displaced and an estimated 50,000 civilian deaths have occurred. And the situation is only likely to get worse in the coming months. The United States has played a vital role in supporting an independent south sudan, and we have a vital role moving forward to ensure that conflict does not deteriorate. And weve seen in protracted crisis around the world, such as in sudan and the democratic republic of congo, the longer a conflict continues and tears at the social fabric of the country, the more difficult reconciliation becomes. As cochair of the bipartisan caucus on sudan and south udan, mr. Mccaul of texas, mr. Capuano and myself are urging members to sign a letter to the administration requesting the president to increase its political and diplomatic efforts to help bring this conflict to an end and to prevent further bloodshed. With 1. 5 Million People experiencing Food Insecurity in south sudan, now is the time to ensure that we use diplomacy to bring this crisis to an end so we are asking you to join us in this effort because we must continue to work in a bipartisan way with the administration to increase our political and diplomatic efforts. Thank you again. I yield. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentlewoman from tennessee seek recognition . Request unanimous consent to address the house. Revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. Mrs. Black mr. Speaker, on tuesday, president obama came to nashville to defend his unconstitutional immigration overreaches. But tennesseans arent buying it. I asked my constituents what questions they would ask the president during his visit to the volunteer state . And the response was overwhelming. Penny in springfield asked, why has he chosen to ignore the voice of the people on the immigration issue . Janice in gordonsville asked, what does he say to the legal immigrants who obeyed the law to become citizens . And kimberly in whitehouse, simply says i want to know why our laws are no longer valid . My constituents said it best. We are a nation of laws and this lawlessness immigration overreach must not stand. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman yields back. For what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida seek recognition . Unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. Revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. Thank you, mr. Speaker. Ms. Frankel mr. Speaker, on august 8 of this year we went to war with isil. Since that day we have launched over 1,700 air strikes. We put thousands of men and women in harms way. We have committed billions of dollars and the president has said this effort will take years. Many of my colleagues and i, we have waited patiently for congress to deliberate on the authorization of military force. And yet all these months later we have not had a single debate. We recessed this summer without debate. We passed the defense bill last week without debate. And now once again we are leaving town without debate. Mr. Speaker, it is the duty of this congress to make determinations of war and peace. And we are shamefully ducking this responsibility. America deserves better. Mr. Speaker, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlewoman yields back. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote for the yeas and nays are ordered or on which the rule incurs objection under clause 6 of rule 20. Record votes on postponed questions will be taken later. For what purpose does the gentleman from washington seek recognition . Mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all committees may have until 5 00 p. M. On december 30, 2014, to file reports to accompany measures. The speaker pro tempore without objection, so ordered. For what purpose does the gentleman from washington seek recognition . Mr. Hastings mr. Speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h. R. 5742. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the title of the bill. The clerk h. R. 5742, a bill to provide to the secretary of interior a mechanism to cancel contracts for the sale of ca22901,ca20139 and and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from washington, mr. Hastings, and the gentleman from california, mr. Sherman, will each control 20 minutes. The chair recognizes the gentleman from washington. Mr. Hastings mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and includeheir remarks and extraneous material on the bill under consideration. The speaker pro tempore without objection, so ordered. Mr. Hastings i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Hastings mr. Speaker, we are here today to address the Soledad Canyon settlement act, h. R. 5742, as introduced by our colleague from california, mr. Mckeon. This bipartisan bill will solve a longstanding controversy surrounding a pair of sand and gravel leases located near the community of santa cla rita, california. In 1990, the bureau of Land Management or b. L. Mrges, issued two leases for sand and gravel mines to symex. At the time it was much more remote than today. As they were preparing a plan of operation, it became clear to all parties involved that the local Community Development had made the project incompatible with the local community. Local community leaders, the regional congressional delegations, and the company have all worked for more than a decade to find a legislative solution to make the company and federal government whole, while returning the lease to the federal government. As a result, we are here today to move forward with the plan to cancel these leases while at the same time making both the contract holder and the federal government whole. This legislation has strong support of local and state communities and the contract holder and the regional congressional delegation. Now, while this bill has just recently been introduced, it is the product of years of hard work and careful communication and review by the committee. Mr. Mckeon has been a tireless advocate on behalf of his local communities. He has demonstrated patience and diligence in pursuing a workable solution that congress can successfully act upon. Im confident that the community of Santa Clarita already knows how fortunate they have been to have congressman mckeon for 11 terms. Its my understanding, mr. Speaker, that senator boxer shares mr. Mckeons commitment to this legislation and i hope shell be able to follow his lead before the end of this congress by shepherding this bill through the senate. This bill deserves the support of both the house and senate. With that i reserve my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. For what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition . Mr. Sherman i rise in support of the bill and would like to reserve and hear from congressman mckeon. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. The gentleman from washington. Mr. Hastings mr. Speaker, im very pleased to yield as much time as he may consume to the author of this legislation, the chairman of the House Armed Services committee, mr. Mckeon. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Mckeon thank you, mr. Speaker. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Its a great privilege to speak on my bill, h. R. 5742, the seouldad canyon settlement act. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the house and want to thank Speaker Boehner, majority leader mccarthy, chairman hastings for their steadfast support of this legislation. Without their support we wouldnt be standing here today on the floor with this bill. Id also like to thank senator boxer for her efforts in finding an agreeable solution for the inclusion of language that brought the score of the bill to zero. And i second the remarks of the chairman and hope that shell be able to bring this to conclusion in the final days that the senate is in session. The thing that one. Things that she added to this was introducing legislation that brought the cost of this bill to zero. That was a hurdle thats moved us to this point now in solving this intractable issue. Finally, id like to thank congressman sherman for his support of my legislation. I continue to believe in bipartisanship as a way to address Critical Issues for our constituents, and we have shown time and again that we can find Common Ground if we but try. Mr. Speaker, the Soledad Canyon mine is located just outside the city of Santa Clarita, california, in the 25th Congressional District that i have had the opportunity of representing for the last 22 years. Under two current contracts held by symmex, they are authorized to extract approximately 56 million tons of sand and gravel over a 20year period with two 10year contracts. Residents of my Congressional District and city leaders have been expressing their concerns for the past 24 years about a large mine operating in close proximity to where they live. And as the chairman mentioned, this has become much closer over the years. They fear the effects of pollution, increased truck traffic, and environMental Health issues on their families and the community. Throughout my 22 years in congress, i worked endlessly to find a solution. I have engaged with civic leaders, residents of my district, environmental leaders, the county of los angeles, symmex, b. L. M. , the department of interior, chairman hastings, and the leadership of our conference. Mr. Speaker, allow me to give a bit of background on the situation that has arisen in my district. In 1990, two privately held valid federal contracts were awarded to transit mix concrete. The Parent Company of transit mix concrete was acquired by symmex in 2000 resulting in them holding the federal do contract. The bureau of Land Management approved a mining plan of operation and prepared a Draft Environmental Impact statement with respect to the Soledad Canyon mine which was released on may 6, 1999. The Environmental Impact statement was subsequently modified to address growing concerns among Santa Clarita residents about the impact Mining Operations in the canyon had on air quality and health, truck traffic, and declining property values. The final Environmental Impact statement was released to the public on june 2, 2000. Will a list of eight alternatives for mining the Soledad Canyon site, under the California Environmental quality act, the county of los angeles completed the Environmental Impact report in 2001 and subsequently voted in 2002 to deny the permit. Citing the right and responsibility of the county to impose reasonable environmental and resource protection regulation on mining in Soledad Canyon. Numerous lawsuits were filed between 2002 and 2004 involving the city of Santa Clarita, county of los angeles, center for bilogical diversity, and symmex. Consent decree resulting from a lawsuit in 2004. The Consent Decree contains a mitigation agreement between symmex and the county of los angeles which lists 40 conditions that they are required to meet in order to mitigate the environment, health, traffic, endangered species, and safety concerns raised by the county, local residents, and the city of Santa Clarita. As i mentioned before, i worked throughout my entire congressional career to bring all parties together to work out a deal that is mutually beneficial. I introduced eight bills on this issue over the years. Each of which took a different approach to dealing with the mine as new issues arose. In the 106th congress i introduced h. R. 3060 which would have withdrawn specified lands from the operation of federal mining and mineral leasing laws and nullified any existing permits issued on those lands. The same bill was introduced as h. R. 679 in the 107th congress. In the 108th congress i introduced h. R. 3529, the Soledad Canyon mine lease cancellation act. This legislation would have canceled the two mining permits for the Soledad Canyon mine and would have prohibited the secretary of interior from issuing permits for mineing at historical levels in Soledad Canyon. Introduced h. R. 5471 the Soledad Canyon mine leases reduction act. This would have canceled the two mining permits for the mine, directed the secretary of interior to provide additional financial mineral production opportunities in exchange for the economic Value Investment to that date on the two permits. And would have prohibited the secretary of interior from issuing permits for mining above historical levels in Soledad Canyon. In the 110th congress i introduced h. R. 5887, the Soledad Canyon mine act. This would have authorized the secretary of interior to cancel the two mining contracts, prohibited future mining in the canyon, and provided a means for symmex to recover just compensation for the cancellation of the contracts. Provided the bureau of Land Management with the necessary tools to verify the expenses incurred by symmex and provided relief to them for such expenses and provided for a dispute resolution process. In the 111th congress i soledaded h. R. 4332 the high kezzert public Lands Conservation act of 2009. This legislation had a similar set of actions as h. R. 5887, but added two notable ones. It provided a mechanism to offer for sale by Competitive Bidding lands identified for disposition near viktorville california and land to collect the proceeds of sale of the lands near viktorville california. Finally in the 112th congress, i introduced h. R. 6469. The Soledad Canyon mine mitigation and relocation act of 2012. This legislation would have begun a study of the legal and administrative steps including obtaining sufficient funding necessary to carry out the goals of the Soledad Canyon high desert California Public Lands Conservation and Management Act of 2009, h. R. 4332. I mention each of these in order to illustrate how the tug and pull of all parties influenced the legislative process. I believe because of all of our joint efforts weve reached a Critical Mass on this issue. Its time for a solution once and for all. Im looking forward to the full house acting on h. R. 5742 today, a solution that would take the mine out of commission and let this two decades long burden off the back of my constituents. This is a solution borne from the great compromise from the simi Santa Clarita and to bring the cost of the bill to zero. The zero score is critical to the bills success and couldnt have been achieved without the partnership thats developed over the many years of action n this matter. The bill achieves all the aims of my past legislation, a solution to the vecksing issue of how to ensure there is no cost to the federal government. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I thank you, again, for allowing me the time to explain this critical issue in my district and thanks, again, to our house leadership and chairman hastings for bringing this legislation to the floor. And i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The chair recognizes the gentleman from california. I yield myself so much time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Farr this act is. Sherman this act is local consensus building and tireless tenacity for the public good. Here in this house, the bill is introduced, carried and written by our colleague, buck mr. Keyon. In the senate, the same language buck mckeon. In the senate, the same language is supported by Barbara Boxer and senator feinstein. You cant get any more bipartisan than that. Fiscal responsibility c. B. O. Says this bill costs the Government Zero dollars and zero cents. You cant get a lower cost estimate on a bill than that. Environmental stewardship this bills supported by the sierra club, and this land will become the gateway to the new San Gabriel Mountains national monument. Local consensus building this bill has the support of local leaders and legislators, governor jerry brown, the local lease owner and virtually everyone involved in public life in Santa Clarita, which is los angeles countys third argest city. Tireless tenacity for the public good is exemplified by our friend, buck mckeon. 22 years in congress and i believe 22 years focused on this problem. And now on what we hope only because we hope for a smooth day, what may very well be his last legislative day, we have a chance to solve this problem in a way that i think exemplifies what we should be trying to do here in congress. In addition to bucks tireless tenacity, i want to commend the city leaders of Santa Clarita. Many time mayor lorraine west who i believe is now a city councilmember and has been mayor of that city so often. Bob keller, now the mayor protemperature. Ken strickland, the city manager. And virtually hundreds and thousands of people in Santa Clarita and the immediate area. This is a bill thats needed because it will stop the mining of 56 million tons of sand and gravel which is now incompatible with a city that has grown and grown to more than double its size when the project was originally planned. And now includes an area well more than a quarter Million People. This sand and gravel Mining Operation is incompatible with the new population of the area, and it is also incompatible with the roads and traffic which is busy, not only at rush hour but throughout the day. So i want to commend the gentleman from Santa Clarita for his decades of work for his district, his town and all the people of california. I want to urge an aye vote on the Soledad Canyon settlement act and i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves. Who seeks recognition . The gentleman from california. Mr. Sherman i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from california yields back the balance of his time. The gentleman from washington. Mr. Hastings i yield myself the balance of the time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Hastings mr. Speaker, as mr. Mckeon pointed out, this has been a long and long process for a vecksing problem in Santa Clarita. And mr. Sherman pointed out very well that mr. Mckeon is to be commended for this. This is a capstone on the career that he has. Ll thats left is this house adopts this measure is simply for the other body to take it up. With the interest senator boxer has shown on this issue, i hope that she can move this legislation through the senate. And with that i urge adoption and i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. All time has been yielded. The question is will the house suspend the rules and pass h. R. 5742. All those in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, 2 3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. The speaker pro tempore for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition . Mr. Meehan mr. Speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and concur in the Senate Amendment to h. R. 4007. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the title of the bill. The clerk h. R. 4007, an act to recodify and reauthorize the chemical facility antiterrorism standards program, Senate Amendment. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Meehan, and the gentleman from mississippi, mr. Thompson, each will control 20 minutes. The chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. Mr. Meehan thank you, mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to evise and extend their remarks and the gentleman is recognized y extraneous bill extraneous material on the bill under consideration. The speaker pro tempore without objection. Mr. Meehan mr. Speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Meehan thank you, mr. Speaker. I rise in support of h. R. 4007 which is protecting and securing chemical facilities from terrorist acts of 2014. This Bipartisan Legislation went through regular order and it passed the house in july by voice vote. It now returns to us from the senate where yesterday it passed by unanimous consent. And h. R. 4007 is enthuse assically supported enthusiastically supported by industry stakeholders it impacts as well as the department of Homeland Security. While it was in the senate, the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee of the senate made improvements to the housepassed version of the bill that take into account the interests of the labor unions who staff many facilities while at the same time strengthening the Program Overall and making to more workable and more effective for all parties involved. These changes were thoroughly vetted with industry, labor and the department itself and they are widely endorsed. As a result, h. R. 4007 represents the culmination of a productive collaboration between my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and those in my conference. The house and the senate, industry, labor and the federal government. Over the course of the past year through milt am hearings and countless multiple hearings and countless meetings, weve taken a long look at the cfat program, to develop a straightforward, practically minded piece of legislation to improve the Program Overall. Prior to the attacks of september 11, congress had established an array of laws aimed at preventing environmental disasters at facilities that produce, restore potentially dangerous chemicals. And while those laws remain, congress and the department of Homeland Security developed cfat specifically to prevent an intentional attack on chemical facilities. The cfat Program Required d. H. S. To develop Vulnerability Assessment standards for chemical plants and implement corresponding regulations to protect the hire he risk facilities from physical attack. Despite what we would all agree are the best intentions, its no secret that cfat struggled in its early years, from implementation problems, to management flaws to insufficient feedback from the facilities. These were highlighted in an aftermath of a devastating explosion at a chemical facility in west, texas. Cfats had a rocky start. To make matters worst, for the past four years, cfats relied on appropriations for its existence with no authorization from congress and no official guidance. This bills a major breakthrough. Cfats will be reauthorized for the very first time. And with that authorization, both chambers of congress are finally able to provide smart, binding guidelines to improve the operation of the program, measure progress and enhance security. Im proud of this legislation. Im particularly grateful for the bipartisan support, and i know that there have been moments of disagreement and there may continue to be points in which there are some modicum of issues of disagreement, but the overall collective bipartisan work on this issue, taking into account the efforts of management, labor, government, industry has resulted in what i believe to be a very substantial and important piece of legislation. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to send h. R. 4007 to the president s desk so we can ensure that proper measures are in place to secure the nations vast network of chemical facilities and to keep our communities safe from harm. And with that, mr. Speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. For what purpose does the gentleman from mississippi seek recognition . Mr. Thompson mr. Speaker, i rise in very reluctant support for the Senate Amendment of h. R. 4007 and i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Thompson thank you, mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, h. R. 4007 authorizes the chemical facility antiterrorism standards or cfats program through 2017 and came through regular order. As a lead author of the original legislation to establish d. H. S. s chemical security program, i have consistently supported efforts for this committee to advance freestanding authorizing legislation to ensure that the program, which was stood up pursuant to a prior paragraph in the 2007 appropriation bill was fully authorized. Until today, the closest congress has come to replacing that appropriation language with the more detailed and comprehensive bill was in 2010 when the house unanimously approved legislation i authored with then energy and commerce chairman henry waxman. H. R. 4007 bears little resemblance to that measure. However, there are a few provisions that are in the spirit of the prior bill, such as Worker Protection and the development of security plans and provision of basic whistleblower protections to workers who risk their jobs to come forward to report security issues. I appreciate the contributions made to the legislation by the chairman of the senate Homeland Security committee, particularly with respect to whistleblower rights and the personnel surity program. Two years championed by subcommittee Ranking Member clarke and committee democrats. Im pleased that democratic efforts to prevent Regulatory Overreach by d. H. S. With respect to personnel, surity ultimately prevail so that under this bill facilities would have a range of options for how to ensure that individuals accessing their facilities are vetted. The bill also grants d. H. S. New authorities to identify and bring into compliance facilities that willfully ignore this federal regulatory program, putting their workers and surrounding communities at risk. This provision is in direct response to chemical safety board findings regarding the deadly fire and damaging explosions at the west Fertilizer Company in texas in april of 2013. The board determined that they were preventable and that it was due in part to inability of federal, state, and local regulatory agencies to identify a serious hazard and correct it. Though i support a multiyear authorization for cfats, and there are a number of provisions in the bill that i fully support, there is one in the bill as considered today that could very well undermine the effectiveness of the entire program. I am, of course, speaking of the language authored by Ranking Member of the Senate Committee that directs d. H. S. To establish a socalled expedited Approval Program or as i have come to see it, as a Self Certification program. Yes, you heard me right. Under this program some facilities would be able to self certify that they are in compliance with the riskbased performance standards under the program. The population of facilities that would be eligible represents about 70 of all facilities subject to this regulatory program. The inclusion of this provision, which requires d. H. S. Within 180 days to issue guidance to facilities on how to access such certification has not gone through the rigor of intensive and balanced bicameral legislative debate or discussion. It lacks the legislative history. Allowing certain cfats facilities to independently certify that the security plan they develop meet statutory requirement is an inherently risky approach that leaves d. H. S. With few options. Given the resource challenges and chronic backlog challenges in the cfats program, i have trouble believing that selfcertified facilities would receive timely inspections where misrepresentations, omissions, and inadequacies with the plans could be identified. Defenders of this provision have argued that my concerns about turning back the clock on security are misplaced. I certainly hope so. If this measure is enacted into law as i expect will occur, we will know within a very short period of time the cfats office can effectively design and launch a new Program Within its program that is consistent with riskbased performance based standards. H. R. 4007 certainly has the potential to be an oversight gold mine giving the committee on Homeland Security plenty of time to dig into during the next congress. Despite my deep concerns with the selfcertification program, i would be voting in favor of h. R. 4007. I will be casting any aye vote to get the contract fats program off the err radek ir radek appropriations cycle and give it some probability to the facilities regulated under the program and the men and women that look to d. H. S. To partner effectively with the facilities to help keep them secure. With that, mr. Speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. The gentleman from pennsylvania. Mr. Meehan mr. Speaker, i have no further speakers at this particular time. If the gentleman from mississippi has no further speakers, im prepared to close. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from mississippi. Mr. Thompson mr. Speaker, i have no requests for time. Therefore im prepared to close the speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized to close. Mr. Thompson thank you, mr. Speaker. As i mentioned before i plan to vote in favor of h. R. 4007, but will do so with deep reservations. By including the selfcertification program, im troubled by the message that this measure may send to the concern American Public about how serious we are about ensuring that facilities comply with the cfats security program. If a company misrepresents its size in a selfcertification, to the Small Business administration to improperly access Small Business set asides, truly eligible Small Businesses could be harmed. If a company misrepresents its Chemical Holdings and how it is protecting them against sabotage in a selfcertification to the department of Homeland Security to secure cfats compliance certifications, the results could be dangerous and deadly. I certainly hope that d. H. S. Runs all the traps to reduce the likelihood that the program will be exploited. I plan to vote for this bill, to put cfats program on a more stable and secure footing, ensure that chemical workers have whistleblower rights, and to stop d. H. S. From putting in place onerous and unnecessary burdensome personnel surety vetting requirements. Again, mr. Speaker, i plan to vote for this bill even with my reservation it is a good start. I compliment the chairman of the subcommittee for his work on it. Its been a labor of love. I wish we could have done more. But in the interest of getting us moving, i will support this bill. With that i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from mississippi has yielded back the balance of his time. The chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. Mr. Meehan mr. Speaker, i want to express my deep appreciation to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the gentleman from mississippi and the gentlelady from new york who i had the good privilege to serve as the on the subcommittee which originally authored this important legislation. And i appreciate the the leadership that the Ranking Member had initiated in this area prior to my tenure on the committee, and it was the bipartisan effort to look at this in which both sides of our committee realized that we would not write the perfect bill, but it was critically important that collectively we could get to a very good bill that would do the most important thing, which is to authorize the capacity for d. H. S. To have this meaningful role in this very, very important area. I do appreciate the issue with respect to selfcertification. We recognized as we were dealing with this issue as well that one of the real problems in the beginning were the heightened expectations that were created, particularly with those smaller facilities about responsiveness from d. H. S. So responsible entities would go through the work and the steps of creating sight security plans, a site security plans awaiting and awaiting and awaiting d. H. S. To get there to help approve the work that they were doing. And by creating that unrealistic expectation, we also created not just appearance but the reality of looking like an Underperforming Department of Homeland Security in this critical area. I think the work that has been done as been focused on trying to get this right. This will require that any selfcertification be done with templates that are being put together by Homeland Security and there will be strict deadlines for conformance and the failure to conform will put them right back into oversight. I respect and genuinely appreciate the points made by the gentleman from the other side. This is significant because passage of this bill will allow us to know where these chemicals are. And that in and of itself is significant. To be a firefighter and to not know what might be in the building that you are responding to is inexcusable. That was the circumstance in which those brave firefighters found themselves in west texas. This begins to create the kinds of protections to avoid that kind of uncertainty. We owe it to our brave firefighters and others on the frontlines of our protection. Most significantly as well, this has been a program in which there have been a number of responsible companies who have taken upon themselves to make sure they are doing the right thing in terms of identifying the chemicals they have and securing them appropriately to protect against any kind of misapplication. Without this kind of legislation, what it does is it rewards the outliers who are not taking those responsible steps. This will give d. H. S. The authority to assure that there is oversight over the entirety of the chemical stock. It is important, it is timely, and it will allow us to have appropriate oversight over d. H. S. As well who i have confidence can step up to the job. So in light of all of those points, i urge all the members to join me in supporting this bipartisan bill and i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from pennsylvania yields back the balance of his time. All time has expired. The question is, will the house suspend the rules and concur with in the senate to the amendment to h. R. 4007. So many as are in favor say aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, 2 3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the Senate Amendment is agreed to, and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. For what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition . Mr. Meehan mr. Speaker, i move that the house suspend the rules and concur in Senate Amendment to h. R. 2952. The speaker pro tempore the clerk will report the title of the bill. The clerk h. R. 2952, an act to amend the Homeland Security act of 2002 to make certain improvements into laws relating to the advancement of Security Technologies for Critical Infrastructure protection, and for other purposes. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Meehan, and the gentleman from mississippi, mr. Thompson, will each control 20 minutes. The chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. Mr. Meehan mr. Speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and and include remarks any extraneous material on the bill under consideration. The speaker pro tempore without objection, so ordered. Mr. Meehan mr. Speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Meehan thank you, mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, i rise in support of h. R. 2952, which is the Cybersecurity Work Force assessment act. H. R. 2952 was ormingly passed by the house as the Critical Infrastructure was originally passed by the house as the Critical Research and Development Act of 2014. The updated legislation passed this week by our Senate Colleagues adds important Cybersecurity Work Force provisions to the bill from what is known as colemeehan 3696. As cyberattacks from around the world grow more sophisticated, its more urgent than ever to improve our ability to stop them. Our Homeland Security National Cybersecurity communication and Integration Center must compete with Big Technology companies and cybersecurity firms for Cybersecurity Work Force while to. S. Is limited in its aket attract talented and well trained cyberwarriors. H. R. 2952 will require the secretary to assess the Cybersecurity Work Force currently in d. H. S. And develop a strategy to enhance it. The assessment would look at cyberpositions, readiness, training, types of positions, and its ability to carry out its cybermission. With the ultimate goal of enhancing these capabilities and produce a recruitment and Implementation Plan. Finally, the bill also requires the secretary to submit a report on the feasibility of establishing a cybersecurity fellowship program. This legislation along with the others we have brought up today are important pieces of improving the overall capabilities of the department of Homeland Security. And its ability to carry out its Cybersecurity Mission. This is a critically important piece of legislation which enables the department of Homeland Security to compete for what are very, very in demand individuals with talent in the area of cybersecurity and protections. Most significantly allows us to have the kinds of quality of individuals who can work in an equal capacity with the best of those who are in our other governmental institutions and particularly those who are now working in the private sector. And i believe that the capacity for d. H. S. To attract these workers is critical to its mission and i continue to encourage the growth and development of that expertise. With that i reserve the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. The chair recognizes the gentleman from mississippi. Mr. Mr. Thompson mr. Speaker, i rise in strong support to the Senate Amendment to h. R. 2952 that attaches a Cybersecurity Work Force assessment act and i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Thompson thank you, mr. Speaker. For the department of Homeland Security to be effective in its Cybersecurity Mission, it must have a work force in place to meet this challenge. Yesterday, the house considered legislation to grant d. H. S. Special hiring authority to secure talent in the competitive cybersecurity employment marketplace. The measure before you today includes language authored by the gentlelady from new york, ms. Clarke, that requires d. H. S. To develop and issue a comprehensive Work Force Strategy for the departments Cybersecurity Mission and includes a fiveyear Implementation Plan and a 10year projection of the