Providing for Consideration of H.R. 687, Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2013; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1526, Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3102, Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act of 2013; and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SESSIONS. House Resolution 351 provides for a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 687 and H.R. 1526, and provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 3102.

Mr. Speaker, the first of these bills is H.R. 687, the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act. This bill permits a land conveyance which will lead to the development of important copper deposits in Arizona that is estimated to create 3,700 jobs and $60 billion worth of economic opportunity. That is a great reason to be on the floor on behalf of the Republican Party of the United States of America.

We are on the floor today because people in Arizona, on a bipartisan basis, have asked that their elected representatives, on a bipartisan basis, come to the United States Government and ask for swapping lands that will result in 3,700 American jobs--probably about 3,700 jobs in Arizona--and up to $60 billion worth of economic opportunity. What a great reason for Paul Gosar and Doc Hastings, the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, to approach the Rules Committee about getting that bill on the floor today.

We hear over and over and over and over about jobs and job creation for the middle class. Well, let me tell you what, Mr. Speaker, 3,700 jobs for the middle class in Arizona and up to $60 billion worth of economic opportunity are available to Members of Congress today where they can make a decision about what they want to vote on. I would submit to you the Republican Party is for those 3,700 middle class jobs.

The second bill before us today is H.R. 1526, the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act. This legislation will improve the health of our Nation's forests by promoting effective forest management while simultaneously strengthening a timber sales revenue-sharing program which is, once again, designed to allow rural communities to benefit from their local natural resources.

I will go back and say it again. The reason why we are on the floor today is that the Republican Party wants local, rural communities to have a part of their cost sharing with the money that would come in to help rural communities to benefit from what sits in their own back yard, their own natural resources, which we as Republicans understand is best admired and best taken care of when local people take care of their own needs. Point two why the Republican Party is on the floor of the House of Representatives today: for local rural communities.

The final bill considered in this rule is H.R. 3102, the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act. This vital legislation reforms--and I add the word ``reforms'' because it needs reform--reforms our Nation's nutrition programs, saving taxpayers about $40 billion while maintaining critical benefits to helping America's neediest families, seniors, children, and veterans. H.R. 3102 reinforces our country's commitment to those who cannot help themselves while working to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.

What is the waste, fraud, and abuse? It is many, many people who should not be receiving these needy items--that should be reserved for those who need it the most--people who are able-bodied; and we should not extend those benefits to people who actually can take care of themselves.

So you're going to hear a robust argument today that will take place--it took place for hours yesterday in the Rules Committee as we considered amendments after amendments, ideas after ideas. Each and every person, whether they be Republican or Democrat, were treated with fairness and the opportunity to equally present their ideas with the knowledge that there was a committee, the Rules Committee, on a bipartisan basis, that was available and ready to engage each of those Members on their ideas that are called amendments. That is why we are on the floor of the House of Representatives today.

I urge my colleagues to support the rule--we will talk a little bit more about it--and to support the underlying legislation. And of course we will talk about that more during this hour.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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

I appreciate the gentleman from Minnesota coming down and giving us his thoughts on what we are attempting to do today. The bottom line is that what we are going to do is we are going to make natural and, I believe, reasonable changes to the nutrition program that will help sustain it. Rather than growing and growing and growing and growing the amount of money that's necessary to sustain this, we are going to put it into a perspective where it is available and ready for the neediest of Americans, which is what the food stamp program really is all about.

In fact, we are here to make sure that when our great chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Frank Lucas, goes to a conference with the United States Senate that we give him a full portfolio of the thoughts and ideas about the changes that we would make to the entire agriculture bill. Chairman Lucas is one of the most awesome members of our conference and who, yesterday, spent a number of hours with us, not just to get us to understand what we are trying to do, but why we are trying to do what we are doing. It means that we will arm him with the available content to go to the conference with the Senate to make the farm bill that includes the nutrition program even better and sustainable.

I think the gentleman, Mr. McClintock, said it best, and that is that what we are trying to do is to make sure that the neediest Americans get what they want and need. But it simply and, I believe, carefully says, where you're able-bodied and on food stamps, you have got to be looking for work also. You have to make sure that you're a part of trying to go and better your life, not using the food stamp program as an alternative to the hard work which will help make you and perhaps your family, but certainly your community and your country even stronger. So it becomes an incentive to do exactly that.

Just like what we did in welfare reform in the early nineties where, in welfare reform, jobs became a substitute and really a demand that you needed to go look for a job, millions of people took us up on that and bettered their life, that's what we are trying to do now. There are still jobs available in America. There are still jobs available. They might not be the job that you would want to stay in for the rest of your life, but it means that you need to go and actively participate, because there are those behind, so to speak, the program that are the neediest of most Americans.

I will tell you that I understand some of those people, some of these people that live within the district that I represent in Texas, but I also understand them firsthand in dealing with disabled people and families with disabled children and families with disabled adults. Where a person cannot take care of themselves, we are not putting that at risk at all. Where a person cannot take care of themselves and needs the benefits of the community, in this case a nutrition program, we need to make sure that there is more money that is available to them.

There was a discussion about the average cost not being very much, and I think that's a true statement. We would like to increase the money for more and better food, including fruits and vegetables and other items, in the future, but the only way we can do this is if we are aiming at the people who need it the most.

That's where this great Nation will continue. Not only through their food banks that are available across the country because of local people getting involved, but also the competition that comes from the Federal Government to help work with them to better the lives, the nutrition, of children and seniors and veterans and families that need them the most. That's what this is trying to do to reform that program.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. Speaker, my party and I do understand that our country has for 5 years gone through very difficult times. Our party and the American people, through various ways, have been asking this administration and the Democratic Party to please allow us to have an opportunity with more jobs being available in the United States of America. The Democratic Party, up to and including the President of the United States, is more interested in an out-of-balance environmental policy that is placing a demand on the consumers to pay double the prices that they did before the President came into office for gasoline and double the prices of food and the availability of jobs.

Just as we are here to talk about, in Arizona, 3,700 new jobs, we've tried to do this with the XL pipeline, which would extend across a number of States. I don't know if some of the faces of hunger were included in those that could be hired as a result of the XL pipeline, but, every day, there are Americans who are losing their jobs and who are losing careers because of the policies of our President, Barack Obama, and the Democrats--elected Members of Congress--who insist on having rules and regulations, up to and including a government-run health care plan, which is diminishing careers and opportunities for people to have health care and full-time jobs.

If it weren't true, someone would say it was just a cruel joke; but the bottom line is that the business community all across America is now changing the rules of employment from 40-hour workweeks to 30 or even 20. This is happening directly as a result of the policies of the people who complain most about the middle class not having jobs. It is perpetrated exactly on a partisan basis--with zero Republicans participating--to have rules, regulations, and a government-run health care system that is unemploying America, only to turn around later to find out: so we've got to spend more money to take care of people who don't have jobs.

Mr. Speaker, there are divides in our country. There are divides between the parties, but, today, the Republican Party is on the floor trying to say that we need to change the law so that local communities that have forests in their backyards can share in the money, that Washington can't have it only--you've got to share with them. We are here to say that we are for a land swap that people in Arizona completely agree with. They sent their elected Representatives here on an elected citizenry basis to come and say: we'd like 3,700 more jobs in Arizona, $60 billion worth of economic activity; and we are here today to say: because we have such expanding roles of people who are hungry in America and who are filing to get food stamps, we need to be able to set a mark, and that mark is: as long as you're looking for a job and you're able-bodied, then we understand, but the neediest of Americans need what we're doing, and that we are not going to give up on.

So the Republican Party is here with an open ear, a strong voice and a kind heart; but what we are saying back is: Mr. President and Democrat Party, you need to help us grow jobs in America. You need to let loose the Keystone pipeline, which has been studied to death for the last 5 or 6 years. You need to be with us today on the 3,700 more jobs in Arizona. You need to be with us today because we're the ones who are talking about jobs in healthy forests, with timber, back home in rural areas because rural people deserve a chance to have a job and to be taken care of, too.

The Republican Party is quite consistent in our behavior--we want jobs; we want job creation; and we put legislation on the floor that accomplishes just that. That's why we're here today. We are a party that cares about people, and we are trying to make life better for the middle class and for all Americans in this country.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I think we should have a standard of at least being honest about what's in the bill. We are not throwing people off who are disabled. It is an able-bodied standard, and the gentlewoman knows that.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I have a disabled child at home, a Down Syndrome young man. I understand very well about the need for our country to help and provide assistance to disabled people. It is not true, and it's unfair for someone to characterize this bill as taking someone who is disabled off the SNAP rolls.

And I'm sorry that we have Members who evidently have not read the bill and do not understand what we're doing. But that's a fact; and we should not pass along information that, in fact, is not true. I hope that this body would stay away from that very emotional issue because not only is it not fair, but it's not true.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me just say to my friend from Texas, we know exactly what you are all doing here. What you are doing is throwing 3.8 million people off of this program who, quite frankly, rely on it to put food on the table.

And I just want to point out for the record, the average length of someone on SNAP is about 9 months. There are people who work, who work full time who are on SNAP because they don't earn enough. People do want to work. People don't want to be on public assistance. But the bottom line is that we have had a Congress here that has blocked every major piece of legislation that might produce jobs. So let's get our facts straight here.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield myself 30 seconds.

I would like to explain, if I can, ``compassionate conservatism.'' It's called 60 straight months of economic growth, 60 straight months of this country growing stronger because people had jobs under a Republican House, under a Republican President, under a Republican Senate. Sixty straight months of economic growth that made our country stronger and better. And that is compassionate conservatism. That's the Republican Party. We're trying to get back to job growth, job creation, and help the middle class of this country.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

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

Once again, the gentleman comes down and evidently is either unwilling or has not read the bill to an understanding where the statement was made about preventing 280,000 children from receiving a free school lunch. Nothing in this bill makes changes to the school lunch program.

The National School Lunch and the School Breakfast Programs automatically qualify students who are enrolled in SNAP for free school meals. The school meals programs are not authorized under this bill nor are eligible for requirements under this committee's jurisdiction.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, today we follow the pattern that we did yesterday in talking about the needs of this great Nation, not only men and women who are unemployed, but who also need the benefits of the food stamp program.

And today, the Republican Party, as a result of the work we did in the Rules Committee, is bringing several bills in this rule, two of them talking directly about jobs and job creation.

One, Hood River, Oregon; the gentleman, Greg Walden coming to talk about, please, give us a chance to have jobs. Our people want jobs. They don't want to be on food stamps. They want jobs. A narrow, political, shrill agenda, environmentalist agenda, is the reason why we don't have that--the Democrats and Barack Obama.

Secondly, Arizona. Arizona is asking for 3,700 jobs, $60 billion worth of economic activity right in this bill. They are jobs bills.

We are trying to do the things that the Republican Party talks about; that's the middle class of this country, jobs, and job creation.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule, ``yes'' for jobs, ``yes'' for the underlying legislation, ``yes'' so that we can employ people back at home, rural areas, people who don't have jobs, ``yes'' for the opportunity for the Republican Party to, once again, stand on this floor and say, we believe the legislation that is here is better for America than the policies that we have today, the policies of unemployment, the policies of less than a 40-hour workweek, now to a 30-hour workweek, the policies of taxes and spending.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source