Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3, Keystone XL Pipeline Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 30, Save American Workers Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule and both of the underlying bills. Let's talk a little bit about how these bills got before us, what the process of this body is, as well as the content of these two bills.

I ask my colleague from Texas: Did either of these bills go through committee here in this 114th Congress, this new Congress?

I am happy to yield to the gentleman.

Mr. BURGESS. Both bills were before the Committee on Rules yesterday, and you were present.

Mr. POLIS. Let's talk a little bit about what that means. The Rules Committee is not the committee of jurisdiction for these bills. Now, that sounds complicated, but what does that mean? We have specialists here in Congress, specialized staff, Members who really roll up their sleeves and get to know about natural resources: what is this pipeline, what does it do about health care. They know far more than I might know or Mr. Burgess might know or you might know, Madam Speaker, on a particular topic. We all try to learn about those in our committees.

The Rules Committee simply packages these bills for the floor. All the Rules Committee did yesterday was say no one can amend these bills. That is this rule that is before us. The Rules Committee simply said: These bills--which nobody who has any expertise actually got to vote on in committee, they just appeared--the Rules Committee said--and, by the way, no Republican or Democrat can even try to improve these bills, even Republicans and Democrats who serve on the committees of jurisdiction.

Now, we are supposed to have something called regular order around here. What does that mean? It means a bill, somebody has an idea. Let's have an idea: 40 hours, 30 hours--let's have an idea. Let's talk about whether this pipeline should be built or where it should be built. Okay. Well, that goes to a committee, which has Democrats and Republicans on it. They have the chance to amend that bill, to change that bill. They report out that bill.

Then it is supposed to go to the Rules Committee, and the Rules Committee hopefully will say: By the way, we want other good ideas from other Members of Congress that aren't on that committee. Let's allow a discussion on this amendment and that amendment. Mr. Courtney had a great amendment that he offered yesterday. Rules

Committee said: No, we can't even vote on it here on the floor of the House. It doesn't mean it will pass, but it means that Members have the opportunity to offer new ideas to improve legislation.

Well, guess what? Guess what, Madam Speaker? This bill didn't have any hearing or markup in any of the committees of jurisdiction--neither of them: Energy and Commerce, Natural Resources, Transportation--all bypassed for this bill that then went directly to Rules Committee. And the Rules Committee said: By the way, nobody can change these bills that no committee has even looked at.

So that is how we got to where we are today. That is the wrong process. A vote against this rule today is a vote for regular order, a vote for making sure that Members of this body--Democrats and Republicans--both on the committees of jurisdiction and in the general body can have their say on bills. That is why it is so important to defeat this very first rule here today.

Because if this passes, it is very dangerous. It can become the precedent for all the bills this Congress. This starts with an innocuous bill. This is the 50th-something repeal of ObamaCare. I don't know how many times the Keystone pipeline has been passed. So it seems innocuous. I am not for the policies. We will talk about them in a minute. Some people are. There is nothing new under the Earth here. We have seen these are in different forms, different versions, but they haven't passed through committee.

But the procedure here is saying: Guess what? No committee of jurisdiction can look at these bills. Rules Committee is not going to allow any amendments from Democrats or Republicans. If this rule passes, that has the danger of becoming the precedent for this entire Congress. The committees of jurisdiction will be avoided and overruled and gone around, and Members will have no opportunity to even offer their ideas here on the floor of the House to improve bills.

Now, let's talk a little bit about the content of these two bills before us today.

First, the so-called Save American Workers Act. Mr. Burgess says that it changes labor law in this country, somehow defines full-time workers and full-time work, and that is simply not what it does. It simply addresses the benefits and whom companies will need to provide benefits to.

And, frankly, if this bill were to be the law, a company could very easily say: By the way, Mr. or Ms. full-time worker who works 40 hours a week, you now get off Friday at 4 o'clock. Sorry, you are 39 hours a week, you don't get any health care. And they are going to do it. That is why some companies want this to pass. Most companies provide benefits to all their employees, and it is not an issue.

But the folks that might be lobbying Members of Congress about it, of course that is their intention. They want to cut people from 40 hours a week to 39 hours a week and not give them health care benefits. Ask them questions, Democrats or Republicans. If you are thinking of voting for this, ask them why they want it. That is why, of course, they want this bill. Right now, they would have to cut them all the way down to 30 hours, which is a much more complicated endeavor, because they probably would have to add new employees and have to manage that from an HR perspective. It is probably just worth it to let people continue working 40 hours and give them their benefits.
But if this very dangerous provision were to become law, many, many Americans would find themselves cut from 40 to 39 hours, 39 1/2 hours, go home at 4:30 on Friday. Sorry, no health care. Sorry, no health care.

Now, look, if there is a real discussion about how to improve health care in this country, Democrats and Republicans, we are happy to be part of that. Let's talk about what health care should look like. When we have an idea to change something, to remove part of the Affordable Care Act, let's talk about what replaces it. This is simply a bad idea. It is a disincentive for companies to even provide health care to their employees.

Not only that, it is a deficit buster. It increases the deficit by $53 billion. Is the first bill that we are looking to pass under a rule a bill that didn't even come through a committee, that no Member of Congress can even offer a pay-for on? If we allowed an open rule here, I would love to offer a pay-for for that. How are we going to pay for this $53 billion that this costs?

If you want to do this bad policy, that is one thing. I don't think we should do it. But if you want to do this policy and risk having companies cut their employees from 40 hours to 39 hours, if it is going to cost $53 billion, I want to know how we are going to pay for it. I don't think that we should go to our Federal deficit and debt and leave that to the next generation to pay for. How many times does Congress do that? Oh, we will just have somebody else pay for it. Our kids will pay for it, our grandkids will pay for it. That is exactly what is going to happen with this bill, like so many others.

Several third-party economic analyses have found that five times as many employees would be at risk of having their hours reduced to part-time status under this bill than under current law. That is right. Five times as many are at risk of being cut from 40 to 39 hours than are currently at risk of being cut from 40 to 30 hours. Oh, so endanger the benefits of more employees--that is exactly what this bill does.

This bill is no way to create jobs. It is a way to prevent many Americans from having the health care through their employer that they already enjoy, forcing them to get taxpayer subsidized health care through the exchange instead.

That is why it costs money. That is what the $53 billion is. It is a fact that what Republicans are saying is: Sorry, I don't think you should pay for your own health care. I think taxpayers should pay for it. They are trying to force you and me to pay for your health care, rather than getting your own health care, paying your employees' share.

It is simply bad for the country, bad for the deficit, bad for the next generation, and as I said, just as importantly, a bad precedent for the way that this Congress works.

Let's talk about the Keystone pipeline. This is really a phantom pipeline because yesterday in committee I asked, ``Does anybody actually want to finance or build this pipeline?'' I haven't seen any evidence that there is, at the current rate of oil.

Mr. Burgess, have you heard? Yesterday, I asked in committee if anybody had any evidence that could go out on the floor that anybody wanted to pay for or build this pipeline. Have you had the opportunity to hear if anybody wants to build a pipeline?

I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. BURGESS. The pipeline, in fact, exists between Cushing, Oklahoma, and Houston, Texas, this very day.

Mr. POLIS. Reclaiming my time, if it exists already, I don't know why you are passing this bill. The truth is it does not exist to move the oil from the tar sands of Canada to our ports for export. That is what we are talking about here.

As far as I can tell, there is nobody who wants to pay to build it because it doesn't make economic sense with oil at $52 a barrel. It might be a different discussion when oil is $110, $100, or even $90 a barrel.

We had statistics that about 90 percent of the tar sands production requires oil at $75 a barrel and about 100 percent of it requires oil at $65 a barrel. When oil is about $52 a barrel, nobody is going to pay for this pipeline.

It is a phantom pipeline. We are talking about issues that might have made sense to talk about if somebody actually wanted to do this pipeline, but before we waste the deliberative efforts of this body on a topic like this, we would like to see some evidence that somebody actually wants to build a pipeline there in the first place, not to mention that the other reason it is a phantom is nobody knows what the routing is going to be.

It is still in flux. There is a lawsuit. Where is the final routing going to be? Not only are there serious doubts about who will finance the pipeline, but in addition, we don't even know where it is going to be.

By the way, the costs of the pipeline have gone up. Transcorp says the pipeline will cost $8 billion--up from their estimates of $5.4 billion just a couple of years ago--not to mention that we are being asked to approve a pipeline that we don't even know the final routing of.

Again, as one of the very first bills that bypasses committee, that nobody can amend here on the floor, we are asked to encourage employers to cut their employees from 40 hours to 39 hours, so they can eliminate their benefits and force taxpayers to pay for it to the tune of $53 billion over 10 years.

We are being asked to approve a phantom pipeline that nobody wants to pay for and nobody knows where it is going to go. What a way to start a Congress. Let's do better. Let's defeat this rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

So here we are, Mr. Speaker. We have two bills that didn't go through any committee and that no Member of this body, Democrat or Republican, had a chance to amend. They went to the Rules Committee. No Members are allowed to amend them on the floor of the House, and they have to vote for them.

One of those bills is for a phantom pipeline. We don't even know if anybody wants to build it, and we don't know where it is going to go. We don't even know whether this right of eminent domain might be given to a private company over this so that a company can condemn private property of a private landowner's and take it away. Those are some of the things that are being fought out in court and in law in States like Nebraska. Without even knowing where it is going to go or if anybody wants to pay for it or build it, somehow we are engaged with a permitting process. Let's go ahead and approve a 7-Eleven in Gerry Connolly's district. I would like a hotel at the corner of 29th and Arapahoe in my district, if we can do that, too.

What are we doing--seizing all control here in Washington and taking it away from States and local governments and individual landowners, who normally have a say in these matters?

Of course, there is the other bill that we have here. Again, it didn't go through committee. Nobody could amend it. It is a bill that increases the deficit by $52 billion by forcing Americans to take taxpayer subsidies for their health care rather than buying it themselves with their employee's share and their employer's share. It is a bill that encourages companies to cut their employees from 40 hours a week to 39 hours a week. It is a bill that will lead hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans to lose their health care and have to take taxpayer subsidies through the exchange to be able to even have any kind of health care.

Look, instead of rehashing proposals that we voted on I don't even know how many times--in fact, we voted on

this phantom pipeline when it was a little less phantom. I think there were actually people who wanted to build it when oil was $110 a barrel. Guess what? The costs of the pipeline have gone up by about 30 percent, and as far as we can tell, there has been no evidence presented, either in the Rules Committee or here on the floor, that anybody wants to build it. By the way, that is what congressional hearings are about in normal regular order, where there would be somebody to testify: ``Well, yes, we can build it at $70 a barrel. No, we can't build it at $70 a barrel.'' We don't even have that information. I have seen an independent report that said that the tar sands are not profitable at anything less than $65 a barrel. We are at $52 a barrel now.
I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and on the underlying bills--no committee hearings, no committee markup, no amendments on the floor of the House, a phantom pipeline, job-destroying, deficit-busting.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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