Press Releases

M. Speaker, let me begin by thanking Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Dicks for their tireless work on this bill. I'm pleased that we are finally going to finish the appropriations process for the year.

I especially want to thank the White House, Senator Reid and other key Senate and House negotiators for removing the House Cuba provision from the final conference report. Not only was it a direct attack on the prerogatives of the Executive, but it was cruel and inhumane and would have ripped apart Cuban American families from their relatives on the island. Family communication, connection and reunification have always been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. It has promoted great good in the case of Cuba and it deserves the support of this Congress.

But I can't let this opportunity go without commenting on this process.

Read the bill. That's what my Republican friends shouted last year. Read the bill. They used this rallying cry to promote their Pledge to America, where they promised to read the bill.

Quote -we will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives- end quote.

That's directly from their pledge.

Yet we're here today, considering a 2300 page bill that was introduced at 11:45pm - last night. That's not 3 days, M. Speaker. That's not even 12 hours.

2300 pages presented to this House in the dead of night. The Rules Committee didn't finish until close to 1am this morning and here we are.

Who in the body knows for sure what is in this bill? Who in the body has had the time to read this bill?

This is not the way you promised to run this House. This is not how you said you'd do the people's business.

You said you'd bring up every appropriations bill under an open rule, but you barely managed to bring up half of them.

What happened to the Labor HHS bill? What happened to the Transportation bill? The Financial Services bill? The Interior bill? The State and Foreign Ops bill? The CJS bill?

You couldn't be bothered to bring them up. Sure, you found time to bring up bills defunding Planned Parenthood and NPR, allowing unsafe people to carry concealed weapons, and reaffirming our national motto. But you couldn't find time to debate bills funding our nations roads, bridges, national parks, and community health centers.

You couldn't find time to do your job.

I'm glad the appropriators reached an agreement, but it's sad that this Republican Congress has once again broken the promise they made to the American people.

A 2300 page bill - something this important and this detailed - can't be read and examined in a few hours. That's why you promised 3 days to read the bill. But you couldn't even keep that promise.

I remember when immunity for prescription drug companies was inserted into an appropriations bill without anyone knowing.

I have the utmost respect for the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and I take him at his word when he says there are no earmarks in this bill, that there are no special provisions, that there is nothing snuck in here at the last minute.

But look at this bill. It's 2300 pages. It was introduced in the dead of night. It was reported out of Rules just before 1am.

Read the bill, M. Speaker. The new Republican Congress promised that we could read the bill. Too bad they are breaking that pledge to America.

I yield back the balance of my time.