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

Floor Speech

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

Mr. Speaker, as Yogi Berra would say, it's deja vu all over again.

Yesterday, the majority rushed to the floor this very bill to partially open the National Park Service, the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, and the National Gallery of Art. We had a spirited debate, and the House failed to pass this bill.

But now, here we are back again, debating the very same bill. It was a bad idea yesterday, and it certainly hasn't improved over the last 24 hours.

I'll explain why. Because, instead of reopening the entire Federal Government, or even the entire Interior Department, the majority has resorted to singling out publicly visible programs for action, while leaving thousands of important functions of government shut down and hundreds of thousands of Federal employees furloughed.

It's time to stop using Federal employees as pawns in this cynical game.

Mr. Speaker, this GOP act of desperation is evidence of how politically bankrupt this position has become. It's degenerating down to picking winners and losers among Federal workers. The American public is getting burned, and some of the political heat is finally getting to the Republican majority.

So now they would allow workers at the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, and the Gallery of Art, and a few of the employees directly involved in the operation of our National Park System, to return to work.

Do they really think that this is going to save them from the public's wrath?

Under this bill, thousands of National Park Service employees involved in historic preservation and national recreation programs and maintenance and construction still remain furloughed.

And what about the 10,200 furloughed employees of the Bureau of Land Management, the 7,751 furloughed employees at the Fish and Wildlife Service, the 18,800 furloughed employees of the Forest Service, the 16,000 furloughed employees of the Social Security Administration?

Doesn't the majority value their work or support the important programs that they carry out?

We should value all of our Federal employees. We should value the scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and the health professionals at the Infectious Disease Control and Immunization Program at the Centers for Disease Control just as much as the park ranger and museum workers.

How do you explain to the Library of Congress workers that they are less important than their Smithsonian counterparts?

I want to see our national parks and museums reopened, as do all of the Democrats on this side of the aisle. We want to open the government, and we would vote today to do so if you'd let the bill come to the floor, because we want to see all 561 units of the National Wildlife Refuge System opened, 155 national forests, the 866 areas of the National Landscape Conservation System reopened. But you're keeping all those closed.

Does the majority really believe that those are not important, that they don't deserve to be opened, that the public doesn't deserve to be able to use those national assets?

This bill is a bandaid, and it won't stanch the open rage that the public is beginning to feel. This shutdown is disrupting the work of all Federal workers and the American public that depend on the work that they do. It's an attempt at a quick fix to deflect the political heat the majority is facing.

This idea that we'll pick and choose among Federal activities, which ones are allowed to operate and what has to remain shut down, is politically bankrupt, and it's morally bankrupt as well, Mr. Speaker.

I implore my Republican colleagues to abandon the junior Senator from Texas' plan to play politics with the economy for a dead-on-arrival idea from an extremist ideologue.

The President has reaffirmed that he would veto these cherry-picked bills. We know that the Senate will reject them. So this is a waste of time. People are out of work, and we're wasting our time on this.

If we could just have 20 Republicans, less than that, vote on a clean CR, it would pass. The government would open today. And you won't do it because you're afraid of this ideological extremist faction within your party. You don't want to get them upset.

It's time to stop these games. The House GOP needs to let our hostages go and get on with the real business of governing.

Let's vote on a clean CR. Reopen the whole government.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to share with the House the fact that the National Wildlife Federation, America's largest conservation organization, said it best. They just sent us a letter:

House Members from both sides of the aisle say the votes are there to pass a clean continuing resolution. Speaker Boehner should do the right thing and allow an up-or-down vote on that bill.

Now, the problem with these votes, Mr. Speaker, is that they shouldn't be necessary. If in fact we were going to open the government and not keep it shut for weeks on end, you wouldn't be doing this. This would all be moot. The reason you're doing this is to have some excuse to continue the shutdown. That's the problem with these votes.

The other problem is that you voted to shut down the national parks. You did it last week. You voted to shut down the National Institutes of Health. You did it last weekend. You voted to shut down the Veterans Administration, and now you want to reopen just them.

We voted against shutting down those agencies. We voted against shutting down the government. That's what you should be doing. Give us a clean vote. Let's get on about our business. Stop this nonsense.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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