Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to House Amendment to S. National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of Providing for Consideration of S. Motor Vehicle Safety Whistleblower Act; and Waiving A Requirement of Clause 6(A) of Rule Xiii with Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions Reported From the Committee on Rules

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 822 and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 822

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (S. 764) to reauthorize and amend the National Sea Grant College Program Act, and for other purposes, with the Senate amendment to the House amendment thereto, and to consider in the House, without intervention of any point of order, a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on Agriculture or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment to the House amendment. The Senate amendment and the motion shall be considered as read. The motion shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Agriculture. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to adoption without intervening motion.

Sec. 2. Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (S. 304) to improve motor vehicle safety by encouraging the sharing of certain information. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. An amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of Rules Committee Print 114-61 shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as amended, and on any further amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce; and (2) one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

Sec. 3.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, House Resolution 822 provides for a closed rule providing for consideration of S. 304, the Conscience Protection Act, and a motion to concur with the Senate amendment to the House amendment to S. 764, GMO labeling requirements.

Madam Speaker, the rule before us today provides for consideration of S. 304, the Conscience Protection Act. This bill protects rights of conscience for healthcare providers who choose not to participate in abortion.

The bill reinforces current law and makes clear that Federal, State, and local governments, including subsidiary agencies, cannot discriminate against healthcare providers who choose not to provide abortions.

This bill is necessary because the California Department of Managed Health Care has mandated that all health plans must cover elective abortion. This includes health plans offered by religious nonprofits, and even churches.

This action by the State agency violates a provision of Federal law known as the Weldon Amendment, which provides that States receiving Federal funds may not discriminate against health plans based on their decision not to cover or pay for abortions.

Religious employers in California who offer group health plans to their employees lodged an objection with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees enforcement of the Weldon Amendment. HHS massively and incorrectly reinterpreted the Weldon Amendment to allow California to continue to force these employers to pay for and provide coverage for elective abortions.

In addition to providing commonsense protections, S. 304 also allows a private right of action, giving providers recourse should they face penalties or punishment for exercising their conscience rights.

To be clear, this bill does not ban or restrict abortion in any way. If enacted, abortion will remain just as legal as it is today. In spite of this fact, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will continue to protest this sensible legislation.

The Conscience Protection Act is not the only important legislation the House will consider this week. This rule also provides for consideration of a motion to concur with the Senate amendment to the House amendment to S. 764, GMO labeling requirements.

The Senate amendment establishes a national labeling standard for bioengineered food, with exceptions for foods and products primarily composed of meat, poultry, or eggs.

This measure represents a truly bipartisan effort to prevent a complicated patchwork of State laws and regulations for labeling food products sold throughout the country that inevitably would lead to increased prices, confusion, and more than a few frustrated customers.

Americans would be well served to have both S. 304 and S. 764 considered this week, and I commend both bills to my colleagues as deserving of their support.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Walorski).

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, predictably, our colleagues are misrepresenting the contents of this bill. This bill does not affect any abortion provider who currently performs the procedure and who wishes to continue.

If the Conscience Protection Act becomes law, abortion will still be just as legal and accessible as it is today. The bill seeks only to ensure that healthcare providers will not be forced by government to violate their moral or religious convictions.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Wagner).

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly).

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, the charge that this would allow a woman's boss to prevent her from obtaining an abortion is a true outrage. It is a disgusting red herring.

This bill would allow employers to continue to have the freedom to decline to pay for abortions. No American should be forced to pay for the killing of an unborn child, whether they are a taxpayer or a private citizen. The other side should not stoop to such tactics.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, it is not true. Conservatives don't ask for bosses to purchase weapons that are protected under the Second Amendment. Why must my Progressive colleagues ask private citizens to pay for the death of a child?

I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black), the sponsor of the underlying legislation.

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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, my colleague is correct. This debate is far from the facts, but it is not on our side of the aisle. When you say something wrong, repeating it doesn't make it correct. This bill has nothing to do with abortion access. That is a fact. It has to do with conscience rights, period.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany).

I appreciate so much my colleague from Vermont being concerned about the time that mountain women have for looking at their beans.

I want to tell you, we have been eating genetically modified food since the beginning of time, Mr. Speaker, all of us have. Anybody who raises a garden knows that you collect your good seeds, and you try to use them over and over and over again because you have a good product.

People have been modifying food genetically, again, from the beginning of time. We try to breed good cattle with good cattle. We have been doing that since we have had any sense about what was good and what was bad in terms of our food. It has been going on a long time.

Guess what?

I just love my heirloom tomatoes, and I am looking forward to a whole bunch of them this summer.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to talk about S. 764, the GMO labeling requirements. The labeling requirement provides flexibility to food manufacturers by giving them a variety of options to meet disclosure requirements.

My colleague talked about the Vermont Legislature being bipartisan. The Senate bill was very bipartisan. For instance, a product may have a label with text explaining its contents or it may have a QR code or an electronic link to identify bioengineered products. The food manufacturer chooses their preferred method of disclosure.

To ensure ease of use, S. 764 requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct a study to identify potential roadblocks consumers may encounter when trying to access the disclosure information. The measure allows food manufacturers of all sizes adequate time to comply with the law's requirements and provides additional protections for small businesses.

This bill represents a bipartisan compromise on this issue, and I commend this rule and the underlying bill to my colleagues.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker,

I would like to remind my colleague--perhaps he has forgotten--that the House dealt with the Zika crisis and the Zika virus. We sent a bill over to the Senate, and it was the Democrat Members of the Senate that prevented that bill from being debated and voted on in the Senate. We have done our job in the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis. We are doing our job in the House of Representatives. I believe we passed 24 bills in this House on Monday alone. So we are doing our job, Mr. Speaker. We have problems with our colleagues' counterparts on the other side of the Capitol.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to say again, the S. 304 does not stop a woman's choice. It is important, though, for us to understand what is at stake if we don't pass S. 304, the Conscience Protection Act. Not only will the State of California be allowed to continue to violate Federal law, but it is likely that other States will follow suit with similarly drafted rules and regulations, forcing more and more churches, religious charities, and employers to decide between honoring the tenets of their faith and helping their employees by providing health insurance.

Further, S. 304 allows healthcare providers to file a civil right of action when they face discrimination by government or subsidiary agencies. Currently, the only recourse a healthcare provider has available is to appeal to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights. Recall that this was the same office that conveniently reinterpreted the Weldon Amendment, allowing the California Department of Managed Health Care to force churches to pay for elective abortions.

Additionally, the Office of Civil Rights has been notoriously slow to adjudicate complaints. The groups who filed the appeal in the California case waited more than 2 years for a decision. And a nurse who was forced to participate in an abortion and then required to reassemble the parts of a dismembered baby waited 3 years for her complaint to be resolved. That is unconscionable.

It has become clear that healthcare providers cannot rely on HHS and the Office of Civil Rights to defend healthcare providers from discrimination. S. 304 provides this protection and gives these entities recourse when they choose not to participate in or facilitate abortion.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, this rule also provides for consideration of a motion to concur with the Senate amendment to the House amendment to S. 764, GMO labeling requirements. This bill leverages Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce and will establish a uniform standard for labeling bioengineered foods that is easy for consumers to access and understand.

This standard provides food manufacturers with regulatory certainty and a single, national standard with which they must comply, rather than a patchwork of dozens of State and local regulations that vary from a complex list of details to no labeling at all.

Mr. Speaker, it is disappointing, though not surprising, to hear my colleagues criticize the Conscience Protection Act. Congress has a long history of providing freedom of conscience protections, and this bill ensures that healthcare providers are protected and can continue serving their patients, customers, and communities as they have been, without threat of government coercion or retaliation.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule and the underlying bills.

The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows: An Amendment to H. Res. 822 Offered by Mr. McGovern

At the end of the resolution, add the following new sections:

Sec. 4. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1076) to increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of a firearm or the issuance of firearms or explosives licenses to a known or suspected dangerous terrorist. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.

Sec. 5. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the consideration of H.R. 1076. ____ The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating.

Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or control the consideration of the subject before the House being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first recognition.''

The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by voting down the previous question on the rule. . . . When the motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering the previous question. That Member, because he then controls the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of amendment.''

In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. It is one of the only available tools for those who oppose the Republican majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the opportunity to offer an alternative plan.
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