National Park Service Operations, Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of Art, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding this time to me.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, which will reopen the doors of our national parks and memorials, the Smithsonian museums and facilities, and the Holocaust Museum.

I couldn't believe my ears when the gentleman who just spoke said that he opposed the opening of these icons for Americans to visit.

I can't believe that you would oppose that.

The Capital City draws hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the country--from all over the world, in fact--every year. To turn these visitors away from the highlights of this country is unbefitting of the Capital City. All over the country, our national parks preserve our rich national heritage and serve as a reminder to all of us of our history and the vast beauty that makes this Nation great.

This legislation is essentially a portion of the clean continuing resolution I introduced several weeks ago. This is a piece of it. With that in mind, I certainly endorse this path forward. To keep these programs, parks, memorials, and facilities operational, this bill provides funding at the current annual rate of approximately $3.2 billion. This is $2.4 billion for the national parks, $775 million for the Smithsonian museums and $48 million for the Holocaust Museum.

While this bill helps to provide stability in this segment of the Federal Government, our jobs are far from done. We can't just fund the government in bits and pieces forever. Enacting full-year appropriations that reflect current needs should be at the top of our priority list. This bill keeps us on that path toward achieving that goal, but it's not the end of the line.

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the aisle, we have offered now three or four opportunities for the U.S. Senate to avoid shutdown. They've rejected all of them out of hand--dead on arrival, they said--measures that would keep the government operating, keep employees at work and keep all of our national activities going on. Now they say, We are not going to talk with you, not even a discussion. We have appointed conferees to confer with the Senate. The Senate refuses to appoint negotiators, conferees, to discuss with the House side, bipartisanly and bicamerally, ways out of this rut that we are in. They simply refuse to talk, much less act.

It reminds me a little bit of when Abraham Lincoln was practicing law back in Illinois. A young man accused of killing his parents came before the court, and his plea for mercy was that he was an orphan.

I would hope the U.S. Senate would act. It's up to them. The bill that we passed last night--the amendment--would authorize the appointment of conferees, which the House did, and the Senate has simply refused to even talk. I thought that's what Congress was all about--negotiating, working across the aisle, working with each other, working with the other body to find some common path that we could all agree upon and then send the bill to the President for his signature. You can't operate if one side refuses to talk, so I urge the Senate to act.

I support this bill, and I urge everyone to support it.

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